The Nikon Small World Contest is one of the largest macro photography contests in the world, and every time the winners of the contest are announced is an exciting moment for nature and photography lovers alike. It started in 1974, accepting photos from both artists, scientists, and photography enthusiasts. Despite the ongoing pandemic, this year’s contest ended up collecting over 2,000 examples of microscopic pictures from contestants from 90 countries.
We present the 20 best shots of this year’s contest, which includes photos by a photo editor from National Geographic, a NASA representative, and this year's winning shot, which was submitted by a team of scientists from the National Institute of Health.
1. 1st Place: Dorsal view of bones and scales (blue) and lymphatic vessels (orange) in a juvenile zebrafish by Daniel Castranova, Dr. Brant Weinstein & Bakary Samasa
7. 4th place: Multi-nucleate spores and hyphae of a soil fungus (arbuscular mycorrhizal fungus) by Dr. Vasileios Kokkoris, Dr. Franck Stefani, Dr. Nicolas Corradi
14. 15th place: Chain of daughter individuals from the asexually reproducing annelid species Chaetogaster diaphanus by Dr. Eduardo Zattara and Dr. Alexa Bely
