The world’s oldest snakes, a superstar squid hunter, exoplanets and more have made the cut for the first Nature images of the month for 2015.

Squid hunt

Margaret McFall-Ngai, a zoologist at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, has spent most of her career exploring the relationship between Hawaiian bobtail squid (Euprymna scolopes) and the Vibrio fischeri bacteria that live inside these animals. In this picture, shot for a News Feature in Nature, McFall-Ngai collects squid specimens in Kaneohe, Hawaii. For more, see 'Here's looking at you, squid'.

Exoplanet excursions

Torture chamber

At NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, sits the giant Chamber A — a huge testing facility that simulates the devastating vacuum and cold of space. In this image, engineers prepare the chamber to test the James Webb Space Telescope, the successor to the Hubble Space Telescope that is due to launch in 2018.

Bloomin’ heck!

The glittering lights of Hong Kong over the water at night have been joined by an eerie glow. The fluorescent blue is courtesy of a bloom of Noctiluca scintillans algae, also known as sea sparkle — a deceptively attractive name for something that is probably caused by pollution from farms.

Sharper image

Iceberg capsize

Like many things that float on water, icebergs can capsize. Photographer Alex Cornell captured this haunting image of an upended 'berg in Cierva Cove, Antarctica, in 2014.

Hiss-toric record

The world’s oldest known snake fossils — dating back some 170 million years — were revealed in a paper in Nature Communications this month1. This artist’s impression showsParviraptor estesi swimming in a freshwater lake.

Staying dry with lasers