Watch a Single Cell Grow Into a Full Organism in This 6-Minute Timelapse

Here’s a mind-blowing new short film by Dutch photographer and filmmaker Jan van IJken. Titled “Becoming,” the 6-minute timelapse shows a single cell growing into a complete organism.

“Native to central and southern Europe, the amphibious alpine newt breeds in shallow water, where its larvae are born, hatch and feed on plankton, before sprouting legs and moving to land,” Aeon Videos writes. “This timelapse video from the Dutch director Jan van IJken tracks the development of a single-celled zygote into the hatched larva of an alpine newt.”

Van IJken captured the shots at a microscopic scale and was able to capture the cell division and differentiation that occurs in the formation of all animals. 3 weeks of time was condensed into just 6 minutes.

It’s “a short film about the miraculous genesis of animal life,” the photographer says.