The best microscope videos of the year reveal the ferocious, mesmerizing behavior of Earth's tiniest creatures

The Nikon Small World in Motion contest highlights the best microscope videos taken each year.This year's first-place winner is a video of a polyp bursting out of bright green coral like a beating heart.Other winners include videos of a developing mouse embryo and a microorganism that creates a whirling vortex to capture its prey. Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

It's tough to capture the world's tiniest organisms in photos, but it's even tougher to capture footage them in action. After awarding the best microscope photography of 2019, Nikon has revealed the winners of a second competition, called Nikon Small World in Motion.

The contest was launched in 2012 to showcase time-lapse photography or short clips taken through a microscope. This year's winning videos reveal how life looks beyond what the naked eye can see, giving rare glimpses into the bizarre and fascinating ways microorganisms transform and interact. 

Sometimes, those interactions are vicious, as the 2019 selection shows: The best microscope videos of the year include a parasite emerging from its dead host and two "water bears" eating a member of their own kind.

Take a look. 

Original author: Aria Bendix