- Feb 5, 2002
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Marine conservation photojournalist Shane Gross captured this simply unreal image of a swarm of western toad tadpoles in a Canadian lake, and with it won the Wildlife Photographer of the Year contest.
Organized by the London Natural History Museum, the contest is in its 60th year. The judges were not only blown away by the mixtures of color and light but by the fact that no one had ever submitted an image of tadpoles before.
Gross was snorkeling in Cedar Lake, on Vancouver Island, trying as best as he could to avoid disrupting the silt and algae anchoring the roots of plants like lilypads under which he was swimming.
Continued below.
The Humble Tadpole Wins the Day in the 2024 Wildlife Photographer of the Year
These tadpoles are from a near-threatened species of toad, and in a typical year, 99% will not survive to adulthood.