The best microscope photos of 2022 reveal a hidden world of dino-bone crystals, human tongue bacteria, and slime mold

Morgan McFall-Johnsen

2022-10-11T14:00:02Z

Embryonic hand of a Madagascar giant day gecko — The winning photo from the 2022 Nikon Small World competition: the hand of a gecko embryo. Grigorii Timin & Dr. Michel Milinkovitch/Nikon Small World

Nikon's Small World competition recognizes the best microscope photographs of the year.
Microscopy is an art and a science, revealing the alien beauty of the hidden world all around us.
The 2022 winners include a stack of moth eggs, a flowery sea of colon cells, and bacteria coating a human tongue cell.

The Nikon Small World competition recognizes the art and science of microscope photography, or "microscopy."

Red speckled jewel beetle

Scientists, artists, and enthusiasts from all over the world submit their painstakingly crafted photos of cells, nerves, micro crystals, mold, and tiny creatures like this anemone larva.

Larva of an anemone

This year, Grigorii Timin won first place by stitching together hundreds of images to reveal the nerves, bones, tendons, ligaments, and blood cells in the 3-millimeter-wide hand of a gecko embryo.

Embryonic hand of a Madagascar giant day gecko — The winning photo from the 2022 Nikon Small World competition: the hand of a gecko embryo. Grigorii Timin & Dr. Michel Milinkovitch/Nikon Small World

That's a Madagascar giant day gecko. For reference, this is what they look like at full size.

green gecko face and hand — A Madagascar day gecko sits on a perch in the Masoal rainforest hall at the zoo in Zurich, on March 19, 2013. Arnd Wiegmann/Reuters

Second place went to this close-up photo of breast tissue, showing cells wrapped around the alveoli that produce milk.

Breast tissue showing contractile myoepithelial cells wrapped around milk-producing alveoli

The otherworldly blood vessel networks in a mouse's intestine took third place.

Blood vessel networks in the intestine of an adult mouse

A portrait of a daddy longlegs spider snagged fourth place.

Long-bodied cellar aka daddy long-legs spider

Here are the rest of the 20 winners:

5. Slime mold is a common microscopy subject, since it grows in eerie formations of colorful bulbs.

Slime mold

6. Unburned particles of carbon, released as the hydrocarbon chain of candle wax breaks down.

Unburned particles of carbon released when the hydrocarbon chain of candle wax breaks down

7. Neurons from human neural stem cells.

Human neurons derived from neural stem cells

8. The growing tip of a frond of red algae.

Growing tip of a red algae

9. A mixture of liquid crystal, which resembles a human portrait.

Liquid crystal mixture

10. A fly under the chin of a tiger beetle.

A fly under the chin of a tiger beetle

11. A stack of moth eggs.

moth eggs stacked

12. A single polyp of coral, about 1 millimeter wide, giving off fluorescence.

Autofluorescence of a single coral polyp (approx. 1 mm)

12. Agate — a colorful, crystallized quartz — that formed inside a dinosaur bone when it was infiltrated with silica-rich water.

Agatized dinosaur bone

14. Mouse myoblasts — precursors of the cells that build muscle tissue — with their nuclei in yellow, lysosomes in cyan or green, and filaments in magenta.

Differentiated cultured mouse myoblasts with lysosomes (cyan/green), nuclei (yellow), F-actin (magenta)

15. Cross sections of cells from the lining of a human colon, which look like a sea of flowers.

Cross sections of normal human colon epithelial crypts

16. A section cut out of the top of a shoot of white asparagus.

Longitudinal section through a white asparagus shoot tip

17. A zebrafish larva's tail fin, with peripheral nerves marked green and the structure around cells marked violet.

Tail fin of a zebrafish larva with peripheral nerves (green) and extracellular matrix (violet)

18. A network of white blood cells in a zebrafish intestine.

Network of macrophages (white blood cells) of an adult zebrafish intestine

19. A "biofilm" of bacteria on a human tongue cell.

Bacterial biofilm on a human tongue cell

20. Human heart cells, captured at the Nationwide Children's Hospital Center for Cardiovascular Research.

Human cardiomyocytes (heart cells) derived from induced pluripotent stem cells

Editor's note: This story was originally published on October 11, 2022.

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