Watch Some of the Best Microscopic Video Footage of the Year

Some of the world’s most stunning beauties can’t be seen with the naked eye. Every year, scientists and microscope devotees submit their images and movies of life science objects shot under a microscope to the Nikon International Small World Competition. The video category of the competition, titled Small World in Motion, “encompasses any movie or digital time-lapse photography taken through the microscope.” Here are this year’s amazing, pint-sized honorees, including a mouse whisker follicle, larva, soap film, and more in the video above.

“Trachelius ciliate feeding on a Campanella ciliate” won first place, “Gut contents of a termite” took second, and “parasitoid larva breaking out of its host” came in third.