Wellcome image awards 2014: life in extreme close-up – in pictures Beautiful, strange and occasionally alarming pictures from the shortlist for this year’s Wellcome image awards Tweet X-ray of a brown long-eared bat. Photograph: Chris Thorn Photograph: Chris Thorn/Wellcome Trust Transverse section through a stained lily bud showing the male and female reproductive organs. Photograph: Spike Walker Photograph: Spike Walker/Wellcome Images False-coloured scanning electron micrograph of a zebrafish embryo. Photograph: Annie Cavanagh & David McCarthy Photograph: Annie Cavanagh/Wellcome Images Bird's eye view of a model of a medieval human mandible, captured using a micro CT scanner. Photograph: Kevin Mackenzie/University of Aberdeen Photograph: Kevin McKenzie/University of Aberdeen/Welcome Images Mechanical heart pump, as revealed by a dual energy tomography angiography of a human chest. Photograph: Anders Persson Photograph: Anders Persson/Wellcome Images False-colour micrograph of an agricultural sludge sample after burning in an oxygen atmosphere. Photograph: Eberhardt Josue Friedrich Kernahan & Enrique Rodriguez Canas Photograph: Eberhardt Josua Friedrich Kernahan/Wellcome Images False-colour scanning electron micrograph (SEM) of a head louse egg attached to a strand of human hair. Photograph: Kevin Mackenzie/University of Aberdeen Photograph: Kevin McKenzie/University of Aberdeen/Wellcome Images SEM of an Arabidopsis thaliana flower, commonly known as thale cress. Photograph: Stefan Eberhard Photograph: Stefan Eberhard/Wellcome Images Photograph of a deer tick embedded in a man’s skin. Photograph: Ashley Prytherch/Royal Surrey County Hospital NHS Foundation Trust/Wellcome Images Photograph: Ashley Prytherch/Royal Surrey County Hospital NHS Foundation Trust/Wellcome Images SEM of a kidney stone (nephrolithiasis) – 2mm wide. Photograph: Kevin Mackenzie/University of Aberdeen Photograph: Kevin McKenzie/University of Aberdeen/Wellcome Images Computed tomography scan of the head of a seal. The image was created with a 3D volume rendering technique in which the skeleton has been made opaque and the soft tissues semi-translucent to reveal the skull. Photograph: Anders Persson Photograph: Anders Persson/Wellcome Images Photograph of Astrantia major, Hadspen Blood. Photograph: Dr Henry Oakeley Photograph: Dr Henry Oakley/Wellcome Images