The magnificent hidden world of microscopic plankton (pictures)

In a special issue of Science magazine, a team of 160 scientists has published a series of papers detailing the findings of the Tara expedition. What did they discover? A massive world of microscopic creatures dwelling in seas all around the globe.

Comb jellies are the largest animals thatuse combs of hair-like ciliafor swimming. This is one of the smaller species, which start at just amillimetre or so in length, but larger species range up to 1.5 metres.

When comb jellies swim, the rippling of their cilia causes light to refract, resulting in a rhythmic rainbow of neon colours. You can see a video of this effect in action here, and another here.

This semitransparent prawnish-looking creature is an amphipod-- a type of crustacean with no carapace.

The female of the species feeds on jelly-like salps,leaving just a hollow gelatinous shell behind. It will then climb inside anduse the empty barrel-shaped shell of the salp as a sort of mobile home, sailing the seasand snagging food, keeping her young safe inside.

Rumour has it that the tiny amphipod inspired the design of the Alien queen, Xenomorph Regina,from James Cameron's 1986 film, "Aliens." It's never been confirmed,but the resemblance is uncanny.

Copepods -- a group of tiny crustaceans -- live all over theocean. Some live on the seafloor, but this blue specimen was retrieved drifting in the ocean's current.

Most copepods are very small, measuring just a millimetre or two, and have a single compoundeye in the centre of their transparent heads.

These little fish in the genus Cyclothone grow to just 6 centimetres long, and live at ocean depthsgreater than 300 metres.

This makes them difficult to catalogue,but the numbers found are extremely abundant. Although it is a small fish,ichthyologists theorise that the Cyclothone genus contains more individuals,and possibly more biomass, than any other fish genus in the world.

At 200 microns (0.2 millimetres), Lauderia annulata is oneof the largest known kinds of single-celled algae. This onewas found in the Indian Ocean.

The green and yellow speckles are chloroplasts,the algae's food-producing organelles;the entire organism is encased in a shell of silicon dioxide, a type ofnaturally occurring glass, similar to quartz or sand.

This copepod, found in the Mediterranean Sea, is called Sapphirina -- the Sea Sapphire.

The male shimmers with aniridescent array of colour, created by microscopic layers of hexagonal crystalplates inside its skin cells. You can see a video of the phenomenon here.

To reproduce, the females parasitise salps. Poor salps, theycan't seem to catch a break.

A tiny squid hatchling.

The Lyriopemedusa is a very small jellyfish, measuring just 10 to 30 millimetres across. This individual has caught and devoured ajuvenile fish in its tentacles. Photographer and Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique research director Christian Sardet captured theprocess.

On the right, with whatlooks like butterfly wings, is what is known as a seabutterfly (funnily enough).

Sea butterflies are a type of sea snail, that, unlike their mollusc cousins,can swim, using a foot that forms a pair of wing-like flaps. It lives close tothe sea's surface and doesn't usually get bigger than 10 millimetres long.

Marine ragworm Platynereis dumerilii isn't your ordinaryragworm. It's considered a living fossil, having survived for millions of years inthe same environment, still with many of the same features as its ancestors.

This makes it a very good study case for evolution -- inparticular its eyespots. Eyespots are the most primitive form of eyes, ableonly to detect the presence of light, which allows the worm to navigate. Everything else, itperforms using touch. These eyespots, scientists theorise, are the nearest existing formation tothe earliest evolution of eyes.