Photographer and journalist Herton Escobar, from the University of São Paulo (USP), was one of the winners in the list of the best photos of scientists in the field of the year, according to Nature magazine. The result was published this Tuesday (23).
In the image, scholars take shelter with their equipment after getting out of a helicopter in Serra do Imeri, a region of the Amazon near the border with Venezuela. The team conducted a biodiversity study in November 2022 that Escobar told Nature resulted in the discovery of new species of amphibians, reptiles, birds and plants.
The expedition lasted 11 days and included 14 scientists and a group of military personnel, according to the photographer. The project was led by professor Miguel Trefaut Rodrigues, from the USP Biosciences Institute, with support from the Brazilian Army and funding from Fapesp. It was the first time that researchers visited the remote mountain region in the far north of the forest.
The top winner of the award, however, was Australian photographer Richard Selwyn Jones. This image, taken aboard the research vessel Polastern, shows the difficult rescue of an instrument trapped under sea ice in Greenland during fieldwork in 2017.
The magazine received around 200 photos for this year’s edition of the award. Each of the winning clicks received prizes equivalent to 500 pounds (around 3,200 reais at Tuesday’s exchange rate).
