The gnarled trunk of a 1000-year-old carob tree rises from the Xemxija earth. A cat snake wraps itself around a dried-out plant. An octopus emerges from rocks within a Gozitan cave, in an ecstasy of colour.
These photos, along with 12 others taken in Malta, have been crowned the winners of the Malta edition of Wiki Loves Earth, the world’s largest nature photography competition.
All 15 local winners are now in the running to be crowned among the best nature photographs taken in the world this year. The international competition will involve over 48,000 photos from 37 different countries.
Wiki Loves Earth is organised by local volunteers contributing to Wikimedia Commons, a sister project of Wikipedia. Photos submitted to the contest are made publicly available as they are licenced under the CC-by-SA 4.0 licence, meaning they are free to use provided they are credited to the photographer.
Locally, the competition was organised by Wikimedia Community Malta and is a sister competition of Wiki Loves Monuments, which has been taking place in Malta since 2016 and which has seen local submissions rank in the top 20 photos worldwide.
See all the 2022 Malta winners of Wiki Loves Earth in the image gallery below. Scroll to the right to view each of the 15 photos.