Wildlife nominees
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Title:The Miraculous Egg This photograph was part of a self-publishing project - FOSSILS INSIDE OUT: A Global Fusion of Science, Art, & Culture (Wild Horizons Publishing, 2021) - by ecologist-photographer-publisher Thomas Wiewandt. To help readers connect the past with the present, we needed an image of "The Miraculous Egg," an evolutionary innovation that enabled reptiles and birds to successfully colonize land. Their amniotic eggs contain a complete life support system encased in a tough, drought-resistant shell. Even the mammalian placenta and its associated membranes are all derived from those in amniotic eggs. I chose to feature the emu because paleontologists now know that their eggs are about the same size and color of some dinosaur eggs. Birds are, in fact, the closest living relatives of dinosaurs. Creating this story-telling composite in Photoshop from nine separate photos of emu eggs required several months of fact-finding, waiting, more waiting, and shoots on a farm and in my home studio. The resulting image conveys, with a little imagination, the beauty and magic of baby dinosaurs entering the world!
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