There is life in a grain of rice: here are the most impressive microphotographs of the year

A small weevil on top of a grain of rice was the winning image in Nikon’s annual photomicroscopy contest.

Mouse liver cells, sunflower trichomes, molds ‘spitting’ spores, a moth laying eggs or a parasitic fungus invading a fly are things that exist and happen in everyday life, but that our eyes don’t capture, despite being or happening right in front of us.

It was to show us a little of the beauty and complexity of this microscopic world that Nikon created, in 1974, the Nikon Small World competition, which awards very high resolution photographs, the result of a combination of photography with microscopy, which brings us the photomicroscopy.

The technique, which dates back to 1850, in the laboratory of British physiologist Richard Hill Norris, has evolved so much that it is increasingly being seen as a form of artistic expression. In 2025, the competition received more than 1,900 submissions from 77 countries, evaluated by a panel of judges according to criteria of originality, informative content, technical competence and visual impact.

Among the 20 finalists, the winning image of a rice weevil (Sitophilus oryzae) on top of a single grain of rice, captured by the Chinese Zhang Younatural de Yunnan.

The image of the famous food pest is the result of a combination of patience, work and, of course, a lot of technique. It was captured with a medium format camera and a 5x magnification microscope objective. You spent two weeks stacking more than a hundred images so you could get the entire weevil area in focus.

But the final image also had an “element of luck” to the noise.

“I had seen rice weevils in the grains before, but never one with its wings open,” You told . “This one was naturally preserved on the window sill, perhaps in a last attempt to escape. Its tiny size makes it extremely difficult to manually prepare specimens with open wings, so finding it was lucky and an inspiration”, said You, who also managed to place his photographs in 15th place in this year’s competition.

For top 10 do Nikon Small World 2025:

The contest awarded prizes to the 20 best competing images, which can be enjoyed. But a total of 71 spectacular photographs, including honorable mentions and images of distinction, were highlighted by Nikon in this year’s edition.