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  • Published
    25 Images

    What Are You Swimming With?

    Baby trout, water mites, bits of tentacles, and all sorts of other tiny living things litter the water we splash around in. Here's a look through the microscope at the life teeming in ordinary water. All images courtesy of the Nikon Small World Contest. 

  • Moth Larvae
    The head of the larval form of Hydropsyche angustipennis (a caddisfly, a small, moth-like critter) looks surreal and dangerous under the microscope. In real life they're small, about half an inch long -- and squirming around in everyday freshwater ponds. These images all come from the Nikon Small World photo contest -- which needs you! Help pick the popular winner from all the great photos by visiting www.nikonsmallworld.com.
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    Fabrice Parais / DREAL de Basse-Normandie
  • Baby Trout
    Tiny trout alevin, a larval form of the fish that have hatched, but have not yet completely absorbed their yolk sacs.
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    Robert Berdan / Science & Art Multimedia
  • Water Mites
    Water mites (this one's an axonopsis) are related to spiders, with eight legs and soft bodies. 
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    Antonio G. Valdecasas and Jose M. Becerra / Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales, CSIC
  • Bits of Tentacle
    The tentacle of a Porpita porpita (commonly called a blue button) looks like a jellyfish, but it's actually a related critter: an organism made up of a colony of tentacle-shaped creatures called hydroids.
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    Christian Gautier / Biosphoto Agency
  • Moss Animals
    Bryozoa -- often cutely called moss animals -- are filter feeders that strain food particles out of the water using a retractable "crown" of tentacles, seen beautifully here. Don't worry, though: They're so small they're almost invisible.
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    Jocelyn Cheng / Rochester Institute of Technology
  • Baby Bivalves
    A young bivalve mollusk, Lima sp., swims by means of segmented tentacles. 
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    Gregory Rouse / Scripps Institution of Oceanography
  • Paramecium
    A detailed look at the cell wall of a single-celled organism called a Paramecium caudatum. The creature is covered with tiny hair-like projections used for movement; here you can see details of the surface area those hairs, called cilia, connect to. 
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    Sven Gould / Heinrich-Heine-University Düsseldorf
  • Water Mites
    Protzia eximia (yet another water mite) looks terrifying when magnified to this scale. Don't worry: They won't eat much.
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    Jan Michels / Institute of Zoology, Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel
  • Itty Bitty Critters
    Daphnia (eensy-weensy planktonic crustaceans) are barely 0.2 mm. long, and commonly called water fleas. Because the creatures are translucent, their internal organs are clearly visible.
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    Jose Almodovar / University of Puerto Rico Mayaguez Campus, Biology Department
  • Colorful Algae
    An odd strain of algae (Rhodomonas baltica) shows off its natural ability to glow.
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    Tora Bardal / Department of Biology, NTNU Center of Fisheries and Aquaculture
  • Larvae
    Under the microscope, this miniscule decapod larvae -- one of a class of sea creatures called plankton -- appears foreign and strange.
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    Wim van Egmond / Micropolitan Museum
  • Sand Dollars
    Living sand dollars, such as this adolescent creature, look very different than the hard shells we stumble across on the beach. 
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    Bruno Vellutini / Centro de Biologia Marinha, Universidade de São Paulo
  • Brine Shrimp
    Artemia salina (you probably know it as a brine shrimp) drifts in a drop of water. The creatures are more familiar than you think: They're packaged and sold as Sea-Monkeys -- though the cartoons on the package bear little resemblance to the brine shrimp.
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    Viktor Sykora / Institute of Pathophysiology, First Medical Faculty, Charles University
  • Lots of Algae
    A paramecium, surrounded by thin strands of algae, seems bizarre when viewed up close in this image.
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    Craig Smith / Insight Photography
  • Tiny Protozoa
    A microscopic Radiolarian -- a tiny ameboid creatures with a solid mineral skeleton. The creatures are diverse, and ancient: Radiolarians have existed since the Paleozoic era, and have evolved into a wild diversity of shapes during their 600-million-year history.
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    Raymond Sloss / Northamptonshire Natural History Society
  • Paramecium
    Magnified many, many times, a paramecium's internal structures become visible.
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    Peter Siver / Connecticut College
  • Caddisfly Larvae
    The rear claws of the larval form of Trichoptera Hydropsyche angustipennis (also called a caddisfly, a small, moth-like insect) are covered in tiny, featherlike hairs. 
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    Fabrice Parais / DREAL de Basse-Normandie
  • Baby Zebrafish Heads
    The 5-day-old head of a zebrafish, photographed through a unique process that makes visible the fish's internal structures. The common freshwater fish (you often see them in home fish tanks) takes on strange colors thanks to this photography technique.
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    Hideo Otsuna / University of Utah Medical Center, Department of Neurobiology and Anatomy
  • Mushroom Coral
    A picture of live Orange Fungia (or mushroom coral) shows off the creatures beautiful colors. This coral ripples food up to its mouth, the blue dot at center, tiny tentacles. 
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    James Nicholson / NOAA NOS NCCOS Coral Culture and Collaborative Research Facility
  • Starfish Embryos
    The embryo of a starfish (Echinaster brasiliensis), remarkably photographed as its cells divide from two to four. 
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    Alvaro Migotto / Centro de Biologia Marinha, Universidade de São Paulo
  • Water Mites
    An incredibly close dorsal view of Limnochares aquatica (otherwise known as a water mite) shows the surface microstructures, including a glandularium and two slit organs. Seen as a whole, the organism looks like a tick, though it's closer to a spider. 
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    Jan Michels / Institute of Zoology, Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel
  • Sea Slugs
    The 39-day-old Aeolidiella stephanieae (sea slug), shown from a dorsal view, one of a class of mollusks noted for their striking color and shape.
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    Alen Kristof / University of Copenhagen, Research Group for Comparative Zoology
  • Crab Larva
    A living crab larva looks like some sort of alien creature -- and nothing like a crab -- when viewed under the microscope. 
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    Charles Krebs / Charles Krebs Photography
  • Red Seaweed
    Martensia (red seaweed) up close looks like the tentacle of some sort of sea creature. From a distance, its blades are ruffled and lacy -- and green. 
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    John Huisman / Murdoch University, School of Biological Sciences and Biotechnology
  • Bits of Sponge
    An unidentified "spicule" of sponge swirls in a petri dish. Spicules give structure to sponges, and deter predators thanks to their spiny, pointed ends.
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    Richard Howey / University of Wyoming
  • Published
    25 Images

    What Are You Swimming With?

    Baby trout, water mites, bits of tentacles, and all sorts of other tiny living things litter the water we splash around in. Here's a look through the microscope at the life teeming in ordinary water. All images courtesy of the Nikon Small World Contest. 

Move Forward
  • What Are You Swimming With?
  • Moth Larvae
  • Baby Trout
  • Water Mites
  • Bits of Tentacle
  • Moss Animals
  • Baby Bivalves
  • Paramecium
  • Water Mites
  • Itty Bitty Critters
  • Colorful Algae
  • Larvae
  • Sand Dollars
  • Brine Shrimp
  • Lots of Algae
  • Tiny Protozoa
  • Paramecium
  • Caddisfly Larvae
  • Baby Zebrafish Heads
  • Mushroom Coral
  • Starfish Embryos
  • Water Mites
  • Sea Slugs
  • Crab Larva
  • Red Seaweed
  • Bits of Sponge