2011 Small World In Motion Competition

What is the subject matter of your winning entry?

The video shows a daphnia together with a volvox. The volvox is turning and moving along under the slide and at two moments the daphnia is moving its complex-eye towards the direction of the volvox and you get the impression, that the daphnia really is looking at the volvox.

Why did you choose to submit this particular movie?

I thought it was an extraordinary situation, the daphnia looking at a Volvox. The sample for this slide came from my garden pond when there was a bloom of Volvox in it in spring 2011. I decided to play around a little with these Volvox balls and fortunally could capture the situation shown in the movie.

Were there any imaging challenges you faced?

I concentrated the Volvox species with a plankton sieve and took the sample from that concentrate in order to be sure that enough Volvox were in the sample. At the same time of course, the Daphnia were concentrated, too.