Hidden Life in a Drop of Water

Most species on our planet remain undescribed. You don’t have to go to the ends of the Earth to find interesting organisms or even discover new ones! By using a tool like a microscope, it becomes possible to gain a new perspective on biodiversity and our place in the world.

Microscopy might seem like an esoteric activity reserved for those in the scientific community, however, this is actually a fairly accessible hobby that anyone can enjoy. There’s even a large and growing online community for amateur microscopists on Facebook, Instagram, and iNaturalist, most of whom have no formal scientific training. The goal of my work is to show how beautiful common, everyday life can be with the hope that others might want to try out hobby microscopy and take a look for themselves. I use an inexpensive microscope (Amscope T340B) and collect water from local sources like ponds, puddles, and the beach when I can. I don’t approach this work as an artist per se, because I think microbes are inherently beautiful and the artistic aspect ends up speaking for itself. I deliberately use minimal or no editing and stay away from fancier microscopy techniques so viewers can gain the most realistic view of what these organisms actually look like in nature. The artistic part of all of this comes from how I curate the photos and video online to create more impact and present short, digestible information about each organism that the public can understand.

 Julia collecting a water sample roadside in the Great Swamp in New Jersey. Here she is using a small plankton net to concentrate the solid matter from the water.

If you take a microscope to any drop of water from a slimy part of a pond, or even a puddle you walk past after a rainy day, you will see microorganisms like amoebas squirming around and eating bacteria. You will see bright green algae, typically sessile cells with gorgeous symmetry. You will see lots of diatoms, famous for their circular, star-shaped, ovoid, and triangular geometries that are secondary to the fact that they produce about one quarter of all the oxygen we breathe. You will see ciliates that are ‘hairy’ cells of many sizes that can be found alone or in colonies and whose superficial simplicity masks their complex genomes that teach us new things about our own genetic code each time we study a new species. Maybe you will see choanoflagellates that share a common ancestor with animals and help us learn about where we came from. Maybe you will see these microbes dying, dividing, having sex, or you’ll witness some combination of these cells eating or living inside one another. You can also view small animals or parts of macroscopic organisms in detail you can’t imagine. The scales on a butterfly wing, the hairs on the leg of a bug, the individual cells and extracellular structures on a leaf.

 A jar of bay water collected by simply scooping up sediment, water, and grabbing a few pieces of floating seaweed. Taken in Loveladies, New Jersey.

I can spend an hour looking at a single drop of water which might contain hundreds or thousands of microbes that can be clearly visualized. Think of how many drops of water are in the jar I collected and then how many jars of water would fill up the small pond I collected from and then think about how much pond, lake, and ocean water is on the planet. No one will ever see it all, but it feels special just to view little parts of this unseen world. The Science New Wave movement encourages citizen (now, community) science which is a fundamental part of the discovery process for observing and describing new microscopic species. The SNW manifesto provides a philosophy and platform for showcasing short works of film that highlight the extensive biodiversity on Earth and the weird and unusual imagery therein.

 A view of Julia’s microscopy setup. She is looking away from the microscope because it connects directly to her laptop where she’s recording live video.

About the author

Julia Van Etten is a hobby microscopist and science communicator always on the lookout for slimy places to observe new microbes. She currently works as an National Science Foundation postdoctoral research fellow at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Previously, Julia received her PhD in Ecology and Evolution from Rutgers University (2024) and she has a bachelor's degree in Marine Biology from University of Miami RSMAS (2016). In 2017, she founded Couch Microscopy, a multimedia project showcasing the hidden diversity of microscopic organisms on the planet. Under this umbrella, she produces video projects independently and with filmmakers, musicians, and others, and hosts and produces the Tiny Living Beings podcast where she interviews a scientist each week about a topic in microbiology. Julia is also a freelance contributor to various publications in the popular media.