Dr. Marius Kruger (C) and memeber of the Kruger National Park keeps the head of a rhino up during a white rhino relocation capture on October 17, 2014. The Kruger National Park relocated four rhinoceros from a high risk poaching area to a safer area as part of ongoing strategic rhinoceros management plan. (Photo by Stefan Heunis/AFP 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)

Senior hurricane forecaster Dr. Jack Beven studies computer models as he tracks Tropical Storm Arlene at the National Hurricane Center on June 29, 2011 in Miami, Florida. Arlene is the first named storm of the 2011 Atlantic hurricane season and is moving at 8 mph, packing sustained winds of 50 mph as it heads towards the east-central coast of Mexico. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

Dr. Hannah Cobb from The University of Manchester looks at a viking sword during a viewing at CFA Archaeology of artefacts discovered from the first fully intact Viking boat burial site on October 18, 2011 in Edinburgh, Scotland. (Photo by Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images)

The photographs feature fish that have been specially treated to make the stained skeletal tissues visible through the skin and flesh. The technique, developed by Dr. Adam Summers, uses dyes, hydrogen peroxide, a digestive enzyme and glycerin to make the flesh seem to disappear. Photo: This image of the butterfly ray (Gymnura crebripunctata) helped scientists study the joints in its wings. (Photo by Adam Summers)

A participant in the traditional dance of Los Historiantes poses for a picture prior to performing in the festivity held in the honour of Saint James, in Santiago Nonualco July 22, 2015. The traditional dance was brought to Latin America by the Spanish, and participants each dramatise an episode of the battles between the Christians and the Moors that took place on the Iberian Peninsula about eight centuries ago, according to the dancers. (Photo by Jose Cabezas/Reuters)

Occupy Denver protesters dance on an American flag on November 5, 2011 in Denver, Colorado. Hundreds of the demonstrators marched through downtown Denver, denouncing the U.S. Federal Reserve and urging customers to close their accounts with large banks and deposit their funds into local credit unions. (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images)

U.S. Army Sgt. Patricia Foust receives a free Christmas tree on December 7, 2011 at Fort Carson in Colorado Springs, Colorado. More than 600 soldiers and military families at the base chose trees as part of the annual Trees for Troops program. (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images)