This Orca Hunt Left Behind a Brutal Scene—and the Photo Just Won an Award

The deep blue seas harbor a wide variety of fascinating, almost alien-like forms of life, from the tiniest of creatures to massive predators that dominate the ocean. This year’s finalists from the Ocean Photographer of the Year Awards celebrate the otherworldly beauty hidden beneath Earth’s waters, from rare scenes of courtship between two octopuses to a male cardinalfish sheltering his young inside his mouth.

The annual competition selects finalists in different categories like adventure, conservation, and human connection, highlighting the changing habitats of sea creatures and offering hope for ocean life. Below are Gizmodo’s favorite picks from this year’s winners.

Photographer Andrea Michelutti captures a haunting moment as a scorpionfish consumes a lizardfish, with the prey poking out of its hunter’s gaping mouth. The image highlights the hunt, using direct light to isolate the two fish while the reef fades into the dark background, capturing one of the powerful encounters that shape life on a reef in the Philippines.

In this fascinating display of courtship, a male octopus extends his specialized mating arm, known as a hectocotylus, to transfer spermatophores to the female. The interaction took place on a shallow coral reef at Lady Elliot Island, part of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. The male continued his approach for several minutes while the female moved across the reef before finally accepting his offer to mate.

In this photo, a group of young seals investigate their surroundings on Sea Lion Island in the Falkland Islands. Photographer Matty Smith captured a particularly curious pup approaching the camera lens as the group journeyed on to explore the shallow rock pools. After being weaned by their mothers, seal pups must quickly learn to swim and transition independently from land-bound pups to ocean dwellers.

Photographer Rafael Caballero captured two orcas sharing a meal after a successful hunt. In the Pacific waters of Mexico, a pod of orcas separated a humpback whale calf from its mother. Nearly an hour later, the orcas resurfaced carrying the prey. The image highlights the cooperative hunting strategies of orcas, working together to isolate and capture large prey. The kill drew other scavengers to the scene, including silky sharks, highlighting how one event can influence an entire marine food web.

This photograph offers some hope for ongoing conservation efforts. Photographer Leighton Lum entered a sheltered sea cave on Maui, Hawaii, and watched as more sea turtles arrived with the rising tide at sunset. The Hawaiian green sea turtles were once heavily hunted, but their population has managed to recover through decades of protection. The above image highlights the progress made as 17 sea turtles huddle inside a sheltered cave.

This colorful image celebrates the hidden diversity of reef life, capturing a ladybug amphipod resting on a blue sea squirt in the coral reefs of Komodo, Indonesia. The tiny marine crustaceans measure just 3 millimeters (0.3 centimeters) wide and are famous for their bright red spots that mimic terrestrial ladybugs.