Nikon’s Small World competition highlights the microscopic beauty of weevils, butterfly eggs and more

The rice weevil is a pest that buries its eggs in rice grains. After hatching, the larva remains inside the grain and consumes it as it develops.

“I had observed rice weevils in grains before, but never with wings spread,” You said in a statement, according to a press release from the competition organizers. “This one was naturally kept on a windowsill, perhaps in a last attempt to escape.”

In a process called focus stacking, you captured more than 100 images at different focal points and layered them to create an image with greater depth of field.

2nd place

Second place went to German Jan Rosenboom for his image of a colony of algae in a drop of water.