Actress Hiba Abouk attends Hugo Boss night party 2011 on December 13, 2011 in Madrid, Spain. (Photo by Carlos Alvarez/Getty Images)

Karima Adebibe, the newly crowned face of Lara Croft, poses, with a Burmese python on the eve of the release of the record breaking new video game “Lara Croft Tomb Raider; Legend” at The Barbican on April 6, 2006 in London, England. (Photo by Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images)

A Russian trenchmortar crew run to take up a new firing position in the Stalingrad area during the Great Patriotic War. (Photo by Keystone/Getty Images). October 1942

A woman, with her face covered with colored powders, dances during the Holi Festival of Colors in Lisbon, Sunday, September 15 2013. The festival, which is mainly celebrated during the Hindu spring festival Holi in some regions of India and Nepal, has become popular among people in other communities. (Photo by Francisco Seco/AP Photo)

Most people know Nikon as a purveyor of pro and consumer-grade digital cameras. But the company's expertise with optics bleeds over into related markets – it's one of the science community's major suppliers of microscopes. And each year the company asks the community to send it some of their favorite images of tiny objects. A panel of scientists and journalists have chosen the best of this past year's submissions, which Nikon has placed on its Small World site.

Photo: Honorable Mention. “Snow crystal, illuminated with colored lights (5x)”. (Photo by Dr. Kenneth Libbrecht, California Institute of Technology (Caltech), Department of Physics, Pasadena, California, USA)

Omsin, a 25 year old femal green sea turtle, rests next to a tray of coins that were removed from her stomach after a surgical operation at the Faculty of Veterinary Science, Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok, Thailand, March 6, 2017. (Photo by Athit Perawongmetha/Reuters)

Attendees look at Volkswagen's BUDD-e, a long distance electric vehicle, displayed during a press event at CES 2016 at The Chelsea at The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas on January 5, 2016 in Las Vegas, Nevada. CES, the world's largest annual consumer technology trade show, runs from January 6-9 and is expected to feature 3,600 exhibitors showing off their latest products and services to more than 150,000 attendees. (Photo by David Becker/Getty Images)

Third place: the rear leg, claw and respiratory trachea of a louse (Haematopinus suis). (Photo by Frank Reiser/Nassau Community College/Nikon Small World Photomicrography 2021)