The conical configuration of these single-celled animals known as stentors is just one of many forms the shape-shifting organisms can take on. When they adopt this formation, the stentors’ golden, ...

Take a look inside the bladder of an aquatic bladderwort plant. You can see the single-celled algae, called desmids, that it has consumed. They will be digested to provide the plant with needed ...

This flowery tower is an underwater image of a community of coral polyps under blue light. The blue light makes naturally fluorescent compounds in the polyps shine pink and orange. This flowery tower ...

These spiked yellow pollen grains are still contained within the anther of this aster (a daisy-like flower) where they were produced. However, once they are released, they can travel great distances ...

This conglomeration of shapes and colors is a cluster of sporangia – known as a sorus – of a fern. A sporangium is where a fern produces the spores that allow it to reproduce. Get a closer view of the ...

This is a lonely little pollen grain, sitting on the petal of a thale-cress plant. Although it is solitary now, it was released into the air along with thousands of other pollen grains. This is a ...

While this might look like an impressionistic painting of a lush bouquet, it’s actually a microscopic image of mold growing in a culture dish. In fact, if you’ve ever wondered what the fuzz on those ...

These golden strands look as if they could be the “amber waves of grain” extolled in the song “America the Beautiful.” But they’re actually spore-producing filaments, growing from a tangle of fibers ...

Don’t let this ghostly image frighten you. Though spectral-looking, this depiction of a thale-cress flower is the result of chemically clearing its outer tissue so you can see inside the flower. Don’t ...

Wouldn’t it be great to have food constantly delivered to your doorstep? If you look closely at these coral polyps, you can also see zooxanthellae, single-celled algae, doing exactly that – providing ...

This is neither an award nor a sculpture. It’s the fruiting body of a slime mold – a structure that helps the slime mold reproduce and spread. Fruiting bodies contain spores that are released into the ...

It looks as if this juvenile crab got a dye job at the salon – but it’s actually an image taken under ultraviolet light. Tiny crabs at this stage of their life cycle are free-floating. As adults, they ...