Photomicrographer James E. Hayden, RBP has been a consistent winner of the Small World competition for many years. Featured below is a photomicrograph of a mouse tongue specimen taken with darkfield illumination.

Mouse Tongue Papillae Original Magnification: 62.5x Specimen: Hematoxylin stained section Technique: Darkfield Illumination

This specimen of mouse tongue was essentially monochromatic when viewed in brightfield. Everything was a different shade of blue and differentiation of the softer tissue and rougher areas in the papillae was not overly apparent. When viewed in darkfield, the refraction of the denser keratinized areas is very different than the refraction caused by the less dense supporting structures. What started out as all blue was refracted into different wavelengths by the density of the specific structures resulting in excellent visual differentiation of the structure of the mouse tongue.