It portrays a white bear asleep in a bed dug into a small drifting iceberg, the photo that promises to become an icon of the transformation of the Arctic: it is the winner of the Wildlife Photographer of the Year People's Choice Award, the international competition that has been promoted by the BBC Wildlife Magazine and which the Natural History Museum of London joined in 1984.
Here the photos will be exhibited until June 30th.
A turtle playing with an insect and two lionesses cuddling a cub are among the four finalist photos, together with a bird with spread wings drawn by a flock in the sky of Rome and a spectacular polar aurora illuminating jellyfish.
The five photos were selected from a shortlist of 25 of the over 75 thousand who participated in the competition from all over the world.
It is titled "Bed of Ice", the photo of the sleeping white bear and was taken in the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard by Nima Sarikhani.
"It is an image that allows us to see the beauty and fragility of our planet", observes the director of the Museum, Douglas Gurr.
"It is a provocative image, which recalls the link between an animal and its habitat" and which at the same time represents, he adds, "the dangerous impacts of global warming and habitat loss".
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