Indiana State Museum and Historic Sites

INDIANAPOLIS – The 20 winning photos from the Nikon’s Small World 2020 Photomicrography Competition, an annual contest showcasing the beauty and complexity of life as seen through the light microscope, will be on display in the Indiana State Museum’s Thomas A. King Bridge Gallery from Nov. 13 until March 21, 2022.

The exhibit is free with museum admission.

The winner of the 2020 competition is a dorsal view of the head of a fish with fluorescently “tagged” skeleton, scales (blue) and lymphatic system (orange), taken using confocal microscopy and image-stacking. The image was captured by Daniel Castranova, assisted by Bakary Samasa, at the National Institutes of Health. It’s particularly significant because it was taken as part of an imaging effort that helped Castranova’s team make a groundbreaking discovery – zebrafish have lymphatic vessels inside their skull that were previously thought to occur only in mammals.

Other photos in the exhibit include an image of the embryonic development of a clownfish and the tongue of a freshwater snail.

Nikon’s Small World competition began in 1974.

The Indiana State Museum, 650 W. Washington St., Indianapolis, is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesday through Sunday. Admission is $17 for adults; $16 for those 60 and older; $15 for college students; $12 for ages 3-17; and free for children under age 3.