Language: Bilingual in English and Spanish
The Iberian ibex is an endemic mammal of the Iberian peninsula. While it disappeared from several areas, including the Pyrenees, in Andalusia it is still quite widespread. For three years, the author photographed them in the province of Granada, from sea level up to more than 3,000 metres, throughout the seasons. This animal shows its flexibility living among so different ecosystems, such as coastal cliffs, deserts, or the massive northern slopes of the high peaks of the Sierra Nevada. Different landscapes, all sharing a vertical soul, which transforms them into stages where the ibexes become real acrobats, challenging the force of gravity, with their hooves providing 16 independent support points.
With parallel texts in English and Spanish, Acróbatas contains a foreword by Bruno D’Amicis and scientific essays by José Enrique Granados Torres and Paulino Fandos.
Ugo Mellone is the author of two books based on long term personal projects: Acróbatas, and Sahara: Erg|Reg. His essays have been published in National Geographic (Spanish edition), Terre Sauvage, BBC Wildlife, The Guardian, Audubon, bioGraphic. Ugo was the winner of the Wildlife Photographer of the Year for the Invertebrates category in 2015, and a finalist in the Landscape category in the same year. He furthermore won the Montphoto/WWF Spain grant for conservation photojournalism in 2019.