If you didn’t vote in the recent ballot, you missed out. Here was a vote where all 10 candidates were creative and morally upstanding, a vote unsullied by dubious lobbies, dodgy polls or demagogues. And if you’re seeking inspiration from a figure of strength who is also strangely cute then look no further than the winner of 2025: Milnesium tardigradum, a microscopic multisegmented animal that resembles a piglet wrapped in an enormous duvet.
Thousands of Guardian readers around the world voted in the contest, which we invented to celebrate the overlooked, unsung heroes of our planet.
