Nikon recently announced the winners of its contest focused on microscope photography. Looking so closely at bacteria, cells and micro organisms is very fascinating, even more so seeing their movements, which is why Nikon also awarded prizes to the five best videos made under a microscope for the 11th Nikon Small World in Motion 2021.
If among the photos to win was the shot depicting the surface of an oak leaf, the clip awarded first place is even more amazing. A one-minute video in which huddled organisms move like fish in a tank, it’s only the caption that explains that it’s actually the living microfauna in a termite’s gut.

Using a special microscope from the 1970s, winner Fabian J. Weston wanted to raise awareness of the invisible importance of these organisms, which are crucial to the cycle of nature. Given the delicacy of these life forms, it took Weston months of trial and error to make the video.
The other four ranked videos show a mysterious side of nature, but also images that have great medical value, such as 10-day time-lapse of an engineered human micro-tumor forming and metastasizing. It was a long and patient job that involved filming the sample under examination every 15 minutes for 10 consecutive days.
Below are all the other classifieds. Images of a Water flea giving birth to cubs, Commissural axons turning in an organized manner just after having crossed the midline of the central nervous system, and Infected mosquito salivating fluorescently-labeled malaria parasites.