Photographic Moment

Award–Winning Fish (Photo)

This beautiful image of a juvenile zebrafish won first place in the 2020 Nikon Small World Photomicrography Competition. The creator was aquatic research specialist Daniel Castranova, assisted by postbac Bakary Samasa, while working in the lab of Brant Weinstein in the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. Using confocal microscopy and image-stacking, Castranova stitched together more than 350 individual images to create this visual of a dorsal view of the of head the fish with fluorescently “tagged” skeleton, scales (blue), and lymphatic system (orange).