Microorganism Devours Its Prey in Award-Winning Video

A microscopic ambush took home the top prize in Nikon's 2015 Small World in Motion Competition. (Credit: Screenshot from NikonMicroscopes/YouTube) It’s a ciliate-eat-ciliate world out there. As you read this, protozoans in pools of water everywhere are engaged in a perpetual battle for survival. We’ve been spared images from the battlefield, due to the microscopic nature of the struggle. But thanks to award-winning camera work, the plight of the microorganism is now abundantly clear. Wim van Egmond of the Micropolitan Museum in the Netherlands took home the top prize in Nikon’s 2015 Small World in Motion Competition for his gritty video of a Trachelius ciliate feasting on a Campanella ciliate in a scoop of water taken from a pond in his backyard. He happened to have his camera handy moments before the attack.