Starfish-throwing seal pups, invisible fish wow at Auckland Museum

A California sea lion playing with starfish in the Espiritu Santo Island shore break near La Paz in Mexico's Baja California Sur. Photo / Luis Javier Sandoval, Wildlife Photographer of the Year

More than 10,000 people have checked out the incredible animals and stunning landscapes in the Wildlife Photographers of the Year exhibition since it opened on Friday.

Among the 100 photos in the Auckland Museum show are Iago Leonardo's "Disappearing Fish", showing the lookdown fish, a master of camouflage.

Special light-reflecting scales help the lookdown blend into its background as it hunts prey and avoids predators.

The scales are perfectly angled to reflect and scatter polarised light, making the fish invisible at "chase angles" - the direction that predators approach from.

The disappearing fish. Photo / Iago Leonardo, Wildlife Photographer of the Year

Leonardo, a Spanish photographer, snapped the shot while free diving around Contoy Island in Mexico. The near-invisible lookdown contrast with a school of grunt beneath.

In "Star Player" Luis Javier Sandoval captured a curious young California sea lion that initiated a game of catch with Sandoval using a starfish.

The photos are among 100 in the exhibition, winnowed down from 50,000 entries.

More than 10,000 people saw the exhibition last weekend, compared to 7,461 visits to the last show in 2014.

Entry is free to all Aucklanders.

Wildlife Photographer of the Year is developed and produced by the Natural History Museum, London.