![Honorable Mention: Soldier Fly](https://api.time.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/2012-hm-knight.jpg?quality=85&w=2400)
By TIME Staff
The folks at Olympus know a thing or two about what makes a pretty picture. One thing they appreciate is that the most striking images are often the ones that are too small to see. That’s why they sponsor the Olympus BioScapes Digital Imaging competition, soliciting photographs captured under the microscope by competitors from around the world. Of the thousands of images they received in 2012, they chose 10 winners. The first place finisher receives either an Olympus microscope or camera equipment, both valued at $5,000. The rest of us get some of the most improbably beautiful sights we’d otherwise never hope to see.
![Honorable Mention: Soldier Fly](https://api.time.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/2012-hm-knight.jpg?quality=75&w=2400)
![Honorable Mention: Mouse retina.](https://api.time.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/2012-hm-bridge-mouse-retina-40x.jpg?quality=75&w=2400)
![Honorable Mention: Mahogany wood](https://api.time.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/2012-hm-eberhard-swietenia.jpg?quality=75&w=2400)
![Honorable Mention: Pollen grains in the flower shaft of a hazel plant.](https://api.time.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/2012-hm-gibson-hazel-catkin-1.jpg?quality=75&w=2400)
![Honorable Mention: The bristle-like appendage of an amphipod—or type of marine crustacean. The bristles serve as a sort of fishing net for plankton.](https://api.time.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/2012-hm-siwanowicz-amphipod-appendage.jpg?quality=75&w=2400)
![10th place: Scales on a butterfly wing](https://api.time.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/2012-10-krebs.jpg?quality=75&w=2400)
![ImageJ=1.34s
unit=inch 9th place: The seed of a Delphinium plant](https://api.time.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/2012-9-khodaverdi-delphinium-seed.jpg?quality=75&w=2400)
![8th place: Henbit, an annual plant that is sometimes regarded as a weed.](https://api.time.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/2012-8-lee-henbit-anthers-filaments.jpg?quality=75&w=2400)
![7th place: A portion of the brain of a fruit fly in the larva stage, with visual lobes included.](https://api.time.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/2012-7-klambt.jpg?quality=75&w=2400)
![6th place: Live mushroom coral](https://api.time.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/2012-6-nicholson-coral.jpg?quality=75&w=2400)
![Micrasterias 5th place: A one-celled green alga photographed in a lake sample.](https://api.time.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/2012-5-moreno-gill-micrasterias.jpg?quality=75&w=2400)
![4th place: Claw of a crustacean](https://api.time.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/2012-4-sardet-claw-crustacean.jpg?quality=75&w=2400)
![3rd place: A common east-coast U.S. fern](https://api.time.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/2012-3-siwanowicz-sporangia-paraphyses-1.jpg?quality=75&w=2400)
![2nd place: Red algae](https://api.time.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/2012-2-wechezak-diatoms.jpg?quality=75&w=2400)
![1st place: A freshwater microorganism known as a rotifer](https://api.time.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/2012-1-grimm-firstplacelarger.jpg?quality=75&w=2400)
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