The winners of the yearly Nikon Small World Photomicrography Contest were announced today, and some incredible and ingenious insect images took top honours!

1st Place - Mosquito (Anopheles gambiae) Heart by Jonas King

This image by Jonas King, a graduate student at Vanderbilt University in Tennessee, is the heart of Anopheles gambiae, a mosquito species which serves as a vector for malaria. Kings’ research examined how hemolymph circulation influences malaria trypanosome migration from the gut to the salivary glands, and this image of the heart (muscle fibres are dyed green with individual cell nuclei bright blue) was a fantastic result of that research.

Popular Vote Winner - Black bean aphid (Aphis fabae) with offspring inside her body by Dr. Tomas Cabello

Earning an Image of Distinction from the contest judges, Dr. Tomas Cabello’s photo of a black bean aphid carrying live young was voted the most popular by the public. By using phase contrast microscopy, Dr. Cabello illustrates just how crowded it can be when you’re parthenogenetically viviparous!

There’s a further 120 images from this years competition that I encourage you to peruse, and feature a wide range of colourful, beautiful natural wonders revealed through magnification. There is also an historical record of winners going back to 1977, and I just want to highlight how far photomicrography and photography have come in that time.

17th place 2010 - Ichneumonidae Eye by Charles Kreb

This image of an ichneumonid wasp compound eye and antennal base by Charles Kreb garnered a 17th place finish in this year’s contest. In contrast, check out the 11th place image from 1987:

11th place 1987 - Deer fly (Tabanidae) head by Robert L. Calentine

This is still a great photo given the resources and technology of the time, but with new digital cameras, photo stacking algorithms and photo manipulation techniques, the sky is the limit for the future of imaging even the smallest of insects now. If you have experience with photomicrography or a subject which you think the world should see up close and personal, I encourage you to enter next year’s competition and help people see the beauty in all aspects of nature!