Carl Zeiss Supports Author with Plankton Project

Images from Royal Society Fellow, Dr Richard Kirby were selected by the Royal Photographic Society for its International Images for Science Exhibition and Royal Society Summer Exhibition Which opened in Bath on September 2nd.

Featured exhibits were of the Planktonic larval stage of the starfish Luidia sarsi and 'Ocean Drifters - a secret world beneath the waves' a 360° film, narrated by wildlife legend Sir David Attenborough FRS, in which the minute sea creatures appear as four metre long monsters and highlight the abundance of life contained in the top few feet of the world's oceans. The images were captured using Carl Zeiss microscopes and audiences at the Ocean Drifters film, also sponsored by Zeiss, were able to see live plankton samples under the company’s microscopes.

The exhibit was based on Richard Kirby's surprise best-selling book, Ocean Drifters, which contains dozens of amazing micrographs of the beautiful plankton.

"Plankton are hugely important and I am very privileged to try and help inform people about them," said Richard Kirby.

"The importance of plankton on a global scale is obvious when you realise that they underpin all sea life, that 50% of the world's photosynthesis takes place in the surface of the sea, sequestering carbon from the atmosphere into the oceans, and plankton play a central role in the global carbon cycle."

‘Ocean Drifters - a secret world beneath the waves’ has been released in the US by Firefly.