A nature photographer from Albany, Western Australia, has been awarded the title of Wildlife Photographer of the Year for the second time. Georgina Steytler, who lives 420 kilometers south of Perth, received the honor for her remarkable photograph of a gum leaf skeletoniser, a unique caterpillar known for its distinctive appearance.

The announcement was made earlier this month in London, where Steytler was recognized in the invertebrate category. The caterpillar, which is poisonous, wears its old heads like a crown, giving it a striking look. "I've been looking for this caterpillar for a while after I saw it in a book and it is nuts, it's absolutely nuts," Steytler said.

Steytler described how she stumbled upon the caterpillar while walking her dog. "I was walking the dog … And what I do is when I see funny markings on a gum leaf, I turn them over … I couldn't believe I finally found them," she explained.

The caterpillar, often referred to as the "mad hatter," gets its unusual appearance from shedding its old husks while keeping them attached to its body. Steytler elaborated, "This caterpillar it's a leaf skeletoniser, and he keeps his old heads on his head like a shrunken head totem pole. You see him and then he's got a smaller one and then he's got another previously shed head, smaller on top of that, and then another one on top of that, and then a fifth on top."

While these invertebrates are common in the South West region of Australia, they often go unnoticed. Steytler noted, "They are right across southern Australia, so they're not uncommon, but we don't see them, probably because they're on the underside of the leaf and they're actually quite small. But rest assured, if people keep their eyes out, they are around us, they're everywhere, so these caterpillars with shrunken heads are in your backyard."

The caterpillar's unique structure serves a purpose. Steytler explained, "It's a predator deterrent. They've done studies and they've found that the ones with these heads actually last seven times longer."

Steytler is no stranger to accolades. In 2018, she won the Invertebrates Behaviour category with her photograph of mud-rolling mud-daubers. Last year, she received a highly commended award in the same category for her image of Dawson's burrowing bees in a mating ball.

Having photographed wildlife globally, Steytler emphasized the uniqueness of her local environment. "What's so exciting, people think they have to go all over the world to get amazing images and these kinds of images, but you don't," she said. "This was right in my backyard in Albany, backing onto Torndirrup."