The Nikon Small World Contest highlights the microscopic beauty of weevils, butterfly eggs, and more

The rice weevil is a pest that buries its eggs inside rice grains. After hatching, the larvae remain inside the grain, consuming it as it grows.

“I have noticed rice weevils in grains before, but never rice weevils in grains,” Yu said in a statement, according to a press release from competition organizers. “This photo was naturally kept on a windowsill, perhaps in a last-ditch effort to escape.”

In a process called focus stacking, I took more than 100 images at different focal points and layered them to create an image with a greater depth of field.

Second place

Second place went to Jan Rosenbaum from Germany for his photo of an algae colony in a drop of water.