See the world’s tiniest organisms curl and crawl in these stunning videos

Nikon’s Small World in Motion competition offers a unique window into life under a microscope.

Photography · By Domonique Tolliver · Published December 2, 2025 · 2 min read

Topics: Insects, Animals, Sea Urchins, Tardigrades, Embedded Video, Photography

What can we learn from seeing the world up close? Life at even the smallest size, like the facets of an insect’s eye, can reveal the breathtaking complexity of the natural world. Microscopic storytelling can transform the ordinary into something extraordinary, reminding us how much beauty exists beyond the limits of our vision. Nikon’s Small World in Motion Competition puts these tiny details center stage by challenging videographers to look at the world through a microscope. It is a sister competition to Nikon Small World, the company’s annual microphotography contest showcasing the natural world’s hidden beauty. This year, the video competition received 325 video entries from 34 countries. The first-place-winning video captures the self-pollination of a thymeleaf speedwell (Veronica serpyllifolia), a plant found on lawns throughout the northern hemisphere. The flowering plant curls onto itself, dusting its reproductive organs with pollen, completing the self-pollination process. First-place winner and retired engineer Jay McClellan says he wanted to showcase the uniqueness of everyday plants. “I love the idea that anyone could discover beauty like this if they just looked closely,” says McClellan. Second-place winner Benedikt Pleyer showcased Volvox algae (Volvocaceae) swimming in a water droplet in the center of a Japanese 50 yen coin. Also known as globe algae, these are model organisms for scientists studying evolution. They reveal how life evolved, as the Volvocaceae family ranges from single-celled species to multicellular species with specialized cells. By comparing these organisms, scientists can trace why genetic changes helped shift life on Earth from one cell to many, a transition that ultimately made complex species like humans possible. Other submissions feature animals we know and love like sea urchins and tardigrades. These microscopic videos can remind us of what we gain when we let small wonders stretch our imagination.

Here is a look at some of the striking videos from this year’s competition.

Videos in this story: Video: Jay McClellan’s winning video of a flower of thymeleaf speedwell self pollinating. These flowers open quickly and unpredictably, so McClellan used a custom-built motion-control system to keep the reproductive structures perfectly in frame. — Video: Volvox algae bounce around a droplet of water in the middle of a Japanese 50 Yen Coin. These aquatic organisms were shot using the darkfield photography technique, where a light source is positioned behind the subject. — Video: Zoologist Alvaro Migotto captured this video of a juvenile sea urchin as it moved across its habitat. Migotto identified the species as Arbacia lixula—a black sea urchin that is commonly found along the Brazilian coast and throughout the Mediterranean. — Video: This is a microscopic video of cornflower root hairs. The single-cell extensions on the cornflower's roots absorb water and nutrients from the soil. — Video: Wim van Egmond captures hat thrower fungus (Pilobolus) on rabbit dung. This video was created with image stacking, a technique that combines multiple photos of the same subject to create a single image.