20+ Unusual and Astounding Living Lives (you Never Seen Before)

In every part of the surrounding, in which humans dwell in, no matter in water, land, air, or elsewhere, there reign tiny yet complex lives. The in depths study of these living organisms bring human a face to face consequence with an astounding miracle of the creation of God. The astounding part of the living organisms have led us some understanding of the awe-inspiring structure of every life from as small as 0.0000001 to over 0.1. These photomicrographs unveiled the miracle and astounding lives as illustrated below.

This microscope image was captured by Spike Walker. It shows a trachea of the silkworm which carries oxygen from the openings within the surface of its body or spiracles. The tracheal tubes are divided into a branch of Tracheoles in order to dispatch oxygen efficiently to the required tissues of this insect.

(Source: Klaus Bolte, Natural Resources Canada Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.)

This photo shows a parasitoid wasp (Amisega floridensis) (90x). The parasitoid wasp is considered as beneficial to plants as it helps to control the populations of agricultural pests.

(Source: Annie Cavanagh and Dave McCarthy, School of Pharmacy, University of London, UK.)

This photo shows a carpet of red blood cells (also called erythrocytes) which clearly demonstrated their slightly indented, flattened and biconcave disc shape, in which the shape enlarges the surface area for the efficiency of the absorption and release of oxygen and carbon dioxide. This in turns enables the cells to move flexibly via the tinniest blood capillaries. These iron-rich protein hemoglobin cells are mainly manufactured in the bone marrow (soft tissue inside the bones), particularly in the bones that make up the spine, pelvis, skull, sternum (breastbone) and ribs of the vertebrates. Their lifespan is only 4 months and each day our body produces new blood red cells to replace those that are dead or lost from our body.

(Source: Dr. Jeffery Bowen, Bridgewater State College Bridgewater, Massachusetts, USA.)

This photo shows a dragonfly (Kaleidofly of a Halloween Pennant) (1x). It looks like a delicate masterpiece of the mosaic.

(Source: Steven Valley, Oregon Department of Agriculture, Plant Division Salem, Oregon, USA.)

This photo shows the eggs of a spider (Mimetidae sp.) with a sheath of silk (30x). After laying the eggs, the spider will spun silk through spinnerets located on its posterior part of the abdomen to protect its eggs. At this stage, as you could see from the photo, its silk looks like a fried egg.

(Source: Christian Gautier, BIOS/PHONE Photo Agency Avignon, France.)

This photo shows the cross-section of the cedar leaves (Cedrus atlantica)(200x).

This image was captured by Shao Jin Ong. This photo shows the bacterial of meningitis. It is an infection of the fluid of a person’s spinal cord and the fluid that surrounds the brain. The yellow dots you see in this photo are Neisseria meningitides bacteria which dwell in the human airway cells. They can also find living around the nose and throat of us without causing disease or symptom. This viral and bacterial infection is scary that it can lead to a severe case of brain damage, learning disability, or hearing loss. Furthermore, if these meningitis-causing bacteria break through and go into the blood stream, they can cause potentially septicaemia (a life-threatening infection caused by bacteria as well as a serious infection that usually spreads from some other part of the body to the blood, where the bacteria multiply) and fatal meningitis.

(Source: Dr. Stephen Lowry, University of Ulster Coleraine, Northern Ireland, UK.)

This photo shows a soft-bodied animal or a mollusk (Coiled radula of Patella vulgaris) (20x). This animal is mainly found in marine environments, with many of its species discovering in the shallow sub-tidal and on the continental shelf. They are generally characterized by a shell-secreting organ, the mantle, and a radula, a food-rasping organ located in the forward area of their mouth.

(Source: Dr. Robert Markus, Institute of Genetics Biological Center of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences Szeged, Hungary.)

This photo shows the opening stamen of purple jasmine flower (mirabilis jalapa) (125x).

(source: Charles Krebs, Charles Krebs Photography Issaquah, Washington, USA.)

This photo shows the marine diatoms attached to red seaweed plants (polysiphonia) (100x).

(Source: James Sharpe, Medical Research Council’s Human Genetics Unit, Edinburgh.)

This photo shows the mouse embryo which has been stained to show parts of its heart in red, the floor of the spinal cord and other tissue in blue, parts of the nervous system in green, while the unstained tissues appear in grey color. With the advance technology of Optical Projection Tomography (OPT), scientists could study the internal structure of stained whole embryos and tinier pieces of tissue without even need for their cutting sections as this new technique can reveal different elements of the staining pattern in details.

(Source: Lorna McInroy, Durham’s Cancer Research UK laboratories, UK.)

This photo shows a development of the colon cancer cells growing in a culture dish. As you could see in this photo, the green cells refer to a type of pectin protein, which links the cell’s internal skeleton to other proteins on its surface by attaching to each other. Different subtypes of this protein can affect the cells to migrate to the new locations of the body (metastasise), causing the consequence of the colon cancer becomes more complex.

(Source: Rodrigo Mexas Oswaldo Cruz Foundation Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.)

This photo shows a parasite worm (Trematode sp.) (400x). The species of its own can be found in our food, water, pets, and gardens, to list a few. Some of them can release as many as 200,000 eggs per day. Once in the human’s body, they can dwell almost everywhere and cause the damage to the organs, or may have blocked the nutrients from being reaching their hosts.

(Source: Shamuel Siberman Ramat Gan, Israel.)

This photo shows the flower bud of the opium poppy (papaver subpiriforme-corn poppies) (20x). The opium poppy is also known as the “sleeping-bringing poppy” due to its narcotic property. This is a type of plant from which opium and many refined opiates such as codeine, Pappaverine, Noscapine, Morphine and Thebaine are extracted.

(source: Charles Krebs, Charles Krebs Photography Issaquah, Washington, USA.)

This photo shows a water scavenger beetle or Hydrophilidae sp. (100x). It is a destructive pest that sometimes can grow up to 3 inches long with its average size of 1.3 inches. It is usually dark in color and is found in marshy area, weedy pond, stream, and grassy environment feeding on small fish, water insects and tadpoles. Some of its species could respond to sound over the low-frequency range, with the greatest sensitivity in the region of 200 to 640 hertz.

(Source: Stephen Fuller, wellcome Trust centre for Human Genetics, Oxford, UK.)

This photo clearly portrays the internal structure of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) particle using a technique of cryo-electron tomography. This is a single type of viral protein revealed by its conical red capsid. The blue color shows the membrane that encapsulates the virus, while the yellow color shows the area between the core and the membrane of the virus (lateral body) which also includes proteases and remnants of material from the host cell. Once in the body, HIV will weaken the body’s immune system by destroying a group of white blood cells called CD4 (T-cell) lymphocytes, making the body more vulnerable to many types of infections.

(Source: Anne Weston, an electron microscopist for Cancer Research of UK.)

This photo shows a color-enhanced development of a single breast cancer cell. It is considered as a malignant tumor that starts from cells of the breast and can occur in male but it is more common among the female. These cancerous cells can later invade the surrounding tissues or spread (metastasize) to other parts of the body.

(Source: Annie Cavanagh and Dave McCarthy, School of Pharmacy, University of London, UK.)

This photo shows a clump of breast cancer cells. The blue cells show the rapid growth of the cancerous cells, while the yellow one are cells that are nearly closed to death or are being programmed cell death (apoptosis) as they are being colonized and modified by the actively growing cancerous cells shown in blue color.

(Source: Gloria Kwon, Memorial Sloan – Kettering Institute, New York, USA)

This photo shows the embryo of double-transgenic mouse which has grown to 18.5 days.

(Source: Anne Weston, an electron microscopist for Cancer Research of UK.)

This photo shows a ruptured red blood vessel, with some of the red blood cells leaking out of it due to a mutation in the Ephrin-B2 gene that prevent the smooth muscle cells from being arranged properly in the wall of the red blood vessel. This stage shows the developing of cancers causing the blood vessels become extremely fragile to carry out their tasks in the body. The Color was used to enhance the visualized property of the image.

(Source: Wim van Egmond, Micropolitan Museum, Rotterdam, the Netherlands.)

This photo shows a cylindrical rotifer (Testudinella patina) with an anterior ciliated disk and posterior tail (400x). It is a microscopic at approximately 3mm but many-celled freshwater aquatic invertebrates that have their anterior end modified into a retractile disk bearing of strong cilia giving their appearance of rapidly revolving wheels.

(Source: Michael Hendricks, Temasek Life Sciences Laboratory, National University of Singapore, Kent Ridge, Singapore.)

This photo shows the brain part (midbrain and diencephalon) of the zebrafish or zebra danio (Danio rerio, a tropical freshwater fish) in its embryonic development (20x).

(Source: Stephanie Schuller, Royal Free Hospital, London.)

This photo shows a minute finger-like piece of tissue called villi in the small intestine. The villi along with microvilli help to enlarge the surface area available for more efficient absorption of nutrients and secretion of enzymes. Beneath the villi there are intestinal glands or called crypts of Lieberkühn, and the cells within these glands make hormones, including serotonin, a substance that helps to control the activities within the intestine.

(source: Michael Klymkowsky, MCD Biology, University of Colorado at Boulder, Colorado, USA.)

This photo shows the embryos of Xenopus (20x). Xenopus is a native of African carnivorous frog which is commonly used for developmental biology study.

(Source: Annette Bergter, Zoology Division University of Osnabruck Osnabruck, Germany.)

This photo shows an embryo of a marine segmented animal (Ophryotrocha diadema) (25x). You could clearly see its nervous system and the cilia via its transparent body. The cilia aid this worm to move around the water.

(Source: Annie Cavanagh and Dave McCarthy, School of Pharmacy, University of London, UK.)

This photo shows a clump of prostate cancer cells. The blue-green cells show the rapid growth of the cancerous cells, while the pink one are cells that are nearly closed to death or are being programmed cell death (apoptosis) as they are being colonized and modified by the actively growing cancerous cells shown in blue-green color.

(Source: Dr. Matthew Hooge, Portland, Oregon, USA.)

This photo shows a soft-bodied larva or planktonic mollusk (Clione sp.) (40x). It is a shell-less agile aquatic animal that has a relatively transparent and gelatinous posterior. It only has shells at its embryonic stage. It dwells primarily in the temperate and cold waters of all oceans. It is found abundant in the Arctic Ocean which constitutes a major part of food source for the Greenland whale. Its population normally measured no more than 3cm in length, but it can grow to a length up to 5cm. It feeds almost exclusively on small Limacina, and Thecosome pteropod.