An eldritch abomination – or a baby starfish magnified twenty times its size?

Photos from this year's Nikon's Small World Photomicrography competition show a surreal, almost dizzying look at the natural world from underneath the lens of a light microscope. Cells taken from the human body transforms itself into a Lovecraftian landscape in this contest, while slime – disgusting in real life – turns into a work of art under the hands of a researcher.

This year's competition is Nikon's 48th celebrating the art and technical science of photomicrography. The first place winner, an image of a three millimeter long hand of a gecko embryo, was stitched from hundreds of images in order to capture the details of nerves, cells and bones.

See the full list of winners and honorable mentions here.

The natural world in otherworldly images.