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An eery image appropriate whale skeletons resting in their watery tomb after being obliterate by Hunter off Greenland . The hulk had been taken to shore , stripped of the pelt , blubber and meat , before being puff back into the sea . There , they remain in the shallows to be consumed by marine invertebrates .

The photograph , claim byAlex Dawson , has won theUnderwater Photographer of the Year 2024competition after being selected from over 6,500 entries . " Whale Bones , " was pick out as the succeeder because it " invites us to consider our wallop on the bully beast of this planet , " control panel chairAlex Mustardsaid in a statement e-mail to Live Science .

Whales bones pictured underwater at the bottom of the seafloor next to a diver against a dark background

An image of minke whale skeletons has won the Underwater Photographer of the Year 2024 competition.

" A very arresting image right from the start ; for me this got large and better with every view , " Mustard say . " The loon ’s suit and torch give it a ' chaffer unknown ' feel , the composition flow effortlessly and takes your oculus on the ripe journey to recount the story . "

Dawson , from Sweden , took the pic off Tasiilaq in Greenland , a township with a population of around 2,000 people that sits on the coast of the North Atlantic , roughly 66 miles ( 106 kilometers ) in the south of the Arctic Circle . In the persona , a freediver approach one of two whale skeletons from above , with a gap in the shabu above and a torch illuminating the bone .

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two minke whale skeletons sit at the bottom of the sea with ice above and a diver approaching with a flashlight

Dawson’s image shows whales killed by hunters in Greenland, after the carcasses had been dragged back into the ocean by the high tide.

Minke whales are the small of the baleen whales — specie that fee by strain plankton through plate in their oral cavity . Common minke heavyweight ( Balaenoptera acutorostrata ) are listed as of least business concern by theInternational Union for Conservation of Nature Red List . Because of their size , they were generally consideredtoo fast and smallby the commercial-grade whaling industriousness , and were only hunted when the number of other , larger species were use up . The diligence for the most part ended in the 1980s , however some minke populations are still killed as part of annual hunt . In east Greenland , an average ofnine minke whalesare killed each year .

" In eastern Greenland the local hunting watch fetch their catch and divvy up it among each other , " Dawson said in the financial statement . " From a stable universe of over 100,000 minke whale in the North Atlantic the huntsman of Tasiilaq typically take less than a dozen . " Dawson said families from the Ithiel Town pucker at low lunar time period to cut off the skin , fatness and meat .

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two tanks sitting at the bottom of the ocean

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" Almost all the whale is ingest , however the skeleton is pulled back into the sea by the next gamey tide and the clay can be found in shallow H2O where various marine invertebrates and Pisces piece the finger cymbals clean , " he suppose .

a lemon shark in low light looking straight at the camera

Rodolphe Guignard’s photograph “Twilight smile” shows a lemon shark off the island of Grand Bahama, which has been declared a “shark sanctuary.”  “At dusk, several dozen lemon sharks rise from the depths and surround the dive boat. Perched on the swim-step with my body half-submerged, I set out to take split shots. On this day the sea was rough, it was almost dark, and the sharks were lively and very curious,” he said in a statement.

The Underwater Photographer of the Year competition was launch in 2015 . This year , Dawson ’s image was the overall victor from 130 finalists . A option of the other winning and highly recommend effigy can be visualize below .

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starfish close up off the coast of scotland

Jenny Stock’s photograph of brittlestars was taken in Scotland’s Lock Leven. “As I descended into the dark green depths of the sea loch, on a dusk dive, I approached an area where my torch picked out the vivid colours of a living carpet of thousands of brittlestars,” she said in the statement.

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A close up of a grey whale eye

Rafael Fernandez Caballero’s close up image of a gray whale eye was taken off the coast of Baja California Sur, Mexico. “This photo was taken from the boat, where the whale displayed a friendly gaze toward my camera, resembling a human look of curiosity and innocence,” he said in a statement.

A crab-eating macaque foraging underwater

Suliman Alatiqi’s image of a crab-eating macaque was taken in the Phi Phi Islands in Thailand. These macaques can dive down for up to 30 seconds to scavenge for food, play and cool down, he said.

a bryde whale opening its huge mouth to eat sardines

Fernandez Caballero also won the “Behavior” category for his image of a Bryde’s whale feasting on a bait ball off Baja California Sur.

two pinky and white pygmy seahorses swimming underwater

Byron Conory’s image of two pygmy seahorses was taken off the coast of Indonesia.

a photo of an eye looking through a keyhole

a tiger looks through a large animal�s ribcage

a photo of burgers and fries next to vegetables

An artist�s illustration of a satellite crashing back to Earth.

a photo of a group of people at a cocktail party

A photo of the Large Hadron Collider�s ALICE detector.

An illustration of a satellite crashing into the ocean after an uncontrolled reentry through Earth�s atmosphere

A photograph of downtown Houston, Texas, taken from a drone at sunset.

an older woman taking a selfie

A photo of an Indian woman looking in the mirror