See nature in close-up in these stunning photographs

What: This photo shows a spiny toad amplexus, with a female in the middle of several males. When: The photo was taken in May 2024. Where: The image was taken in the Pyr??n??es Atlantiques, France. How it was taken: The photo was taken at night, when hundreds of toads are crossing the roads to reach their egg-laying grounds. It's common to see such clusters of toads at this time of year. How it was post-processed: I made some basic adjustments to the brightness and contrast, as well as highlighting the individuals and applying a slight vignetting, while taking care not to distort the original photo. — A spiny toad amplexus, with a female in the middle of several males.

Aloys Pichard

Each year, hordes of spiny toads (Bufo spinosus) gather to breed and lay their eggs in freshwater lakes and ponds, mainly across Spain, Portugal and France. Mating is a rough and tumble affair, though, with males often outnumbering females by 5:1. In their desperation to find a mate, males will commonly clasp onto a female already locked into an embrace – known as amplexus – by another mate.

Aloys Pichard captured one of these “breeding balls” in May (main picture), when the toads were crossing a road at night in southern France to reach egg-laying grounds. His photo, along with the others shown here, was shortlisted in this year’s Close-up Photographer of the Year contest.

New Scientist. Science news and long reads from expert journalists, covering developments in science, technology, health and the environment on the website and the magazine. — Gold‑tailed Melitta bees

Joris Vegter

Joris Vegter’s image of four gold-tailed Melitta bees (Melitta haemorrhoidalis) nestling in a flower head is shown above. Melitta bees often sleep together inside bell flowers overnight for warmth. Vegter says he looked in more than 1000 flowers around Groningen in the Netherlands until he found the snoozing bees. “My passion is to share the unseen beauty of the tiny world all around us,” he says.

Pictured above is Ignacio Castellanos’s image of a male Polyphemus moth (Antheraea polyphemus) in an oak forest in Huasca, Mexico. These moths measure more than 15 centimetres from wing tip to wing tip.

-Pot-bellied Seahorse-CUPOTY 6 — Potbellied seahorse

Daniel Sly

Daniel Sly’s shot of a potbellied seahorse (Hippocampus abdominalis) near Bare Island, Australia, is shown above, with Aris Kolokontes’s close-up of a ladybird spider (Eresus walckenaeri) pictured below.