Every year a select panel of judges meet at London's Natural History Museum to select just 100 photographs to represent planet earth and to choose the wildlife photographer of the year. Each year top professional wildlife photographers and famous nature photographers compete to be the world's best wildlife photographer. But it is not only top professional wildlife photographers who compete as the competition is open to everyone and entries are totally anonymous. This anonymity is what helps answer the question of who is the best wildlife photographer in the world? The wildlife photographer of the year is the most prestigious photo competition in the world and it is the only contest entered by the most famous nature photographers and top professional wildlife photographers, including National Geographic's big assignment photographers. This means that the photographers who place consistently in the contest all can vie for the title of 'world's best wildlife photographer'. It is not surprising that many of these same photographers are also the best wildlife photographers on Instagram.

The winning photographs form an annual exhibition that travels the world and is seen by millions of people. The competition is known affectionately as the WPY (Wildlife Photographer Of The Year) is quite simply the Oscars of world wildlife photography. I am fortunate enough to have won the overall competition and was named the 'Wildlife Photographer of the Year'. The below gallery of wildlife photographer of the year winning images have all placed in the competition over the years and in various categories. See the image captions for specific details. What are you waiting for? You have to be in it to win it and you too could be in the running for the title of world's best wildlife photographer. Entries open each year on October 20th!