Dive Pacific 175 Dec2020 Jan 2021

With an expression of sheer ecstasy, a tigress hugs an ancient Manchurian fir, rubbing her cheek against
bark to leave secretions from her scent glands. She is an Amur, or Siberian tiger in the Land of the Leopard
National Park in the Russian Far East, found only in this region, with a small number surviving over the
border in China and possibly a few in North Korea. The population is threatened by poaching and logging
which also impacts their prey, mostly deer and wild boar. Low prey densities mean tiger territories are huge.
Sergey installed his first proper camera trap in January 2019, opposite this grand fir. But it was not until
November that he achieved this picture, of a magnificent tigress in her Siberian forest environment. Nikon
Z-7 + 50mm f1.8 lens; 1/200 sec at f6.3; ISO 250; Cognisys camera-trap system.
The fox that got the goose by Liina Heikkinen,
Finland Winner 2020, 15-17 years old,
Young Grand Title Winner
On a summer holiday in Helsinki, Liina, then aged
13, heard about a large fox family living in the
city suburbs on the island of Lehtisaari. The foxes
are relatively unafraid of humans, and Liina and
her father spent one long July day watching the
two adults and their six large cubs. It was 7pm
when the vixen arrived with a barnacle goose,
and feathers flew as the cubs fought over it. One
finally dragged it into a crevice to block access to
the others. Lying just metres away, Liina was able
to frame the scene and capture its expression.
Nikon D4 + 28–300mm f3.5–5.6 lens; 1/125 sec at
f5.6 (-0.3 e/v); ISO 1600.
A tiny diamondback squid paralarva flits in the blackness, stops when caught in the light beam, gilds
itself in shimmering gold then moves gracefully out of the light. The beam was Songda’s on a night‐dive over
deep water off the coast of Anilao in the Philippines. All sorts of larvae and other tiny animals migrate up
from the depths under cover of night to feed on surface-dwelling phytoplankton, and after them come other
predators. A paralarva is the stage between hatchling and subadult, already recognizable as a squid, here 6–7
centimetres long.. Chromatophores (organs just below the skin) contain elastic sacs of pigment that stretch
rapidly into discs of colour when the muscles around them contract. Iridophores deeper in the skin reflect
and scatter light, adding an iridescent sheen. Songda captured the fleeting moment when the diamondback
paralarva turned to gold.
The golden moment by Songda Cai, China
Winner 2020, Under Water
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