The lion leaps tonight! Breathtaking shot of pouncing predator is among photographer's incredible collection of black and white wildlife pictures

• e-mail

It’s an breathtaking and powerful image that reveals the wonder of the animal kingdom as the king of beasts jumps over a stream.

This stunning shot of a lion leaping into action is one of several images snapped by photographer David Yarrow in Dinokeng, South Africa, who spent time studying the beast’s behaviour to get the perfect shot.

The internationally-acclaimed photographer has captured some of the most iconic creatures in nature including a shark in hunting mode and a herd of elephants protecting their young.

The Lion King: David Yarrow studied the creature's behaviour in order to capture this perfect shot of a lion jumping over an African stream

Mr Yarrow, 49, also snapped a shark, pictured in False Bay, near Cape Town, after lying on a boat deck for 28 hours

Elephants circle around to protect their young in this picture taken on the Kenyan/Tanzanian border by the world-renowned snapper

A thunderstorm builds above the dry Lake Amboseli in Kenya where a herd of elephants are on the move

He avoided putting himself in too much danger by using remote controls to capture the perfect shot.

Mr Yarrow, 49, who was born in Scotland, told the Daily Mirror: ‘I wanted an angle from the ground looking up right underneath a jumping lion and this required placing the camera in a muddy stream in the hope that the lion would jump so as not to get wet.

‘Seconds after the picture was taken the lion took my camera hostage but the image that survived the mauling conveys beauty, power and vitality.’

The photographer gets up close and personal with a polar bear, pictured, on Barter Island off the coast of Alaska in the US

Of this tiger, Mr Yarrow said: 'This is such a powerful image. An unmistakable sense of intent pervades across every aspect of the photograph'

The photographer said this image of a giraffe galloping in Kenya was 'the strongest picture I had taken in some time' 

A lion pictured in full flight in Dinokeng, South Africa, in an image that Mr Yarrow said achieved great success on social media

The fine-art photographer has been confirmed as Europe's best-selling wildlife snapper worldwide, solidifying his status thanks to sales in 2015 at shows in Amsterdam, Zurich and New York.

He is also a Nikon ambassador and the affiliated photographer for Tusk Trust, an African wildlife conservation organisation of which the Duke of Cambridge is Royal Patron.

In recent months his work has sold at Sotheby’s New York for $45,000 while these images will be collated into a new book published by German firm TeNeues later this year. 

For more of Mr Yarrow's pictures, visit www.davidyarrow.photography. 

The photographer was the first ever to visit this Dinka cattle camp in South Sudan which contains 25,000 of the beasts

In a quirky story, this picture of a lion was taken 32 hours after Mr Yarrow was celebrating golfer Gary Player's 80th birthday

A snow monkey, pictured, in Japan looks suitably unimpressed with the chilly temperatures on a bleak and cold winter's day

Migrating wildebeest stampede across a Kenyan plane in what Mr Yarrow described as an attempt to capture an impending apocalypse