Every year, the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology invites its students, faculty, and staff to share the photos they took in the past year while working in the field, walking through the forest, or generally enjoying the natural world. Of the nearly 50 images submitted to this year’s contest, LSA has selected some of the most stunning to showcase. These photos include the iridescence of peacock feathers in LSA’s Museum of Zoology, autumn leaves (and a grizzly bear!) in Alaska, the psychedelic colors of an insect in Arizona, and a migratory visitor to Alcatraz. The photo contest honors the memory of the department’s longtime “photographer at large,” David Bay, a staff member who passed away in 2009.

The winning photograph: This desert banded gecko approached Pascal Title, an EEB Ph.D. student, while he hiked through California’s Anza-Borrego Desert during a herpetology class.
Michael Grundler and Iris Holmes, EEB Ph.D. students, came across this nonvenomous Sonoran whipsnake in the Pajarito Mountains of southeastern Arizona.
LSA’s Museum of Zoology houses a diverse bird collection of more than 6,000 species. This photo, taken by EEB master’s student Johanna Nifosi, gives us a close look inside the peacock drawer.
Before beginning in the EEB Ph.D. program, Michelle Fearon worked with the U.S. Geological Survey in California. On Alcatraz Island, she spotted this disgruntled snowy egret while she was checking on the status of its nest.
The subject of this photo, a crinoid, is an animal that’s related to sea stars and sea urchins. “I was swimming by this crinoid at one of my field sites [in Japan] while looking for my study fish,” says EEB Ph.D. student Alison Gould, “and the bright yellow color was so stunning that I had to take a picture.”
Jason Dobkowski (’06, M.S. ’13) snapped this picture in August—which is autumn in Alaska—at Denali National Park. Dobkowski crossed paths with this grizzly bear after completing a field season of research work at Toolik Field Station in northern Alaska.
Jason Dobkowski sighted these Dall sheep during his vacation at Denali National Park. These sheep are males; females have shorter, slender, straighter horns.

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