November 18, 2009 | 2 comments

Illuminating the Lilliputian: 10 Bioscapes Photo Contest Winners Revealed

A gallery of images captured by light microscopy reveals the high art of the natural world

By Gary Stix

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6. Dr. Alvaro Migotto

Deadly tentacle of a Portuguese man-of-war stands out as a delicate pink ribbon containing toxin-filled beads (each about 300 microns in diameter) that can be released in the presence of prey or by inadvertent contact with an unwitting human victim. Alvaro E. Migotto of the University of São Paulo captured this photomicrograph soon after a floating colony of Physalia physalis was plucked from a canal near the university’s center for marine biology. The muscle bands, responsible for the tentacle's flexibility, appear as whitish, winding lines in the background.

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