An up-close portrait of a corkscrew-shaped plankton, a peek into a painted turtle's eye and a magnified view of a marine worm are among this year's winners of a photography contest that honors all things microscopic.

The prizing-winning images of Nikon's Small World competition were announced Wednesday (Oct. 30). Top honors went to a stunning photo of a colonial plankton organism, Chaetoceros debilis, taken by Wim van Egmond, a freelance photographer from the Netherlands, associated with the Micropolitan Museum in Rotterdam. (Nikon)