This Year’s Best European Wildlife Photo Is Mould on Bat Poop – And It’s Stunning!

The European Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2026 winners have been announced. For the first time in the competition’s 26-year history, the overall title goes to an image from the Plants and Fungi category. It shows mould growing on bat droppings. Yes, I know how that sounds, but the photo shows that even the nasty stuff can render spectacularly in a photo!

Imre Potyó of Hungary took the top prize with his image Hidden Worlds. It’s a macro photo of pin mould thriving on accumulated bat guano, with hibernating lesser horseshoe bats visible in the soft background. It was selected from more than 26,000 images submitted by photographers from 46 countries.

Imre is a scientist, environmental expert and nature photographer who has spent 13 years documenting hibernating bats inside protected, restricted-access mine tunnels in Hungary’s Börzsöny Mountains. His winning photo came from years of patient, expert access to a place most people will never see.

“A key characteristic of the lesser horseshoe bat (Rhinolophus hipposideros) is that, during hibernating it occasionally wakes and leaves its roost to hunt flying insects. In doing so, the bat leaves behind droppings that gradually accumulate into a continuous dark layer. In the beam of a torch, a whitish coating can be seen on the guano – a small pin mould thriving in this unusual habitat. Using a macro lens, I captured the mould in the foreground with the hibernating bats visible in the background. The photograph, a long exposure incorporating a focus shift, was taken during a controlled bat count and without disturbing the animals.”

Jury member Tom Gilks spoke for the panel:

“This image speaks to a larger truth about the natural world: much of life exists beyond our immediate awareness, in places we seldom visit and among organisms we rarely notice. Even within this single frame, bats, fungi and countless microorganisms form part of a web of relationships that quietly sustains life while remaining largely unseen. Photography has a unique ability to make such connections visible, transforming what might otherwise remain obscure into something we can understand, appreciate and ultimately care about. At a time of unprecedented biodiversity loss, many of these worlds are disappearing before they have even been properly documented, let alone understood.”

The image now enters the competition’s touring exhibition, which opens at the Deutsches Pferdemuseum in Verden near Bremen in early December 2026 and will travel for three years.

The 2026 Category Winners

This year’s 26,000 submissions from 46 countries broke another record for the GDT competition. From that pool, an international jury of five selected 107 winning images across nine categories and two special awards, first remotely and then over three days of on-site judging.

Nine categories recognized the full range of nature photography this year:

• Birds – Jan Wieczorek (Poland)
• Mammals – Lorenzo Shoubridge (Italy)
• Other Animals – Christian Morawitz (Germany)
• Plants and Fungi – Fortunato Gatto (UK)
• Landscapes – Antje Kreienbrink (Germany)
• Underwater World – Angel Fitor (Spain)
• Humans and Nature – Petr Bambousek (Czech Republic)
• Nature’s Studio – Hermann Hirsch & Jan Leßmann (Germany)

Young photographers also competed in their own categories. Marla Schwarze of Dortmund took first place in the under-14 group with her image Winter Gold, while Szymon Bartołd of Poland won the 15–17 age group with Swan Lake.

Rewilding Europe Award and Fritz Pölking Prize

Jan Wieczorek of Poland, who also won the Birds category, earned the Rewilding Europe Award, presented for the fifth time this year in partnership with the organization Rewilding Europe. His image Urban Beaver won him the first place, and you may remember that we’ve already covered the Rewilding Europe Award. You can check out the winners and runner-ups here.

The Fritz Pölking Prize rewards photographic storytelling and portfolio work rather than a single image. This year’s first prize went to Michiel van Noppen of the Netherlands. His project Tales of the Forest Keepers documents the threatened symbiosis between the Baird’s tapir and the rare Jícaro Danto tree – a tree that can’t reproduce without the tapir to disperse its seeds.

The Fritz Pölking Junior Prize went to Tobias Gjerde of Norway for his project The Magic of the Nordic Wilderness, which uses minimalist compositions to capture the atmosphere of the Nordic landscape.

About The Competition

Founded in 2001 and organized by the German Society for Nature Photography (GDT), the European Wildlife Photographer of the Year has grown into one of the most respected stages in international nature photography. It’s strict on digital manipulation, transparent about its selection process, and consistently rewards creativity and innovation alongside technical craft. The competition celebrated its 25th anniversary last year, and the 26th edition makes clear it’s nowhere near running out of surprises!

I now leave you to the gorgeous category winners, and you can find more information and images from this year’s competition on the GDT website.

More from European Wildlife Photographer of the Year

• Dramatic underwater image of hippo family wins European Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2022
• Photo of stinkbug’s maternal behavior wins 2023 European Wildlife Photographer of the Year
• Magical forest with thousands of butterflies wins 2024 The European Wildlife Photographer of the Year
• Heartbreaking Owl Portrait Wins European Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2025
• This Year’s Best European Wildlife Photo Is Mould on Bat Poop – And It’s Stunning!

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