Editor’s Note: Call to Earth is a CNN editorial series committed to reporting on the environmental challenges facing our planet, together with the solutions. Rolex’s Perpetual Planet initiative has partnered with CNN to drive awareness and education around key sustainability issues and to inspire positive action.

An animal grazes, oblivious to another tracking it silently from behind. The predator waits for the perfect moment, then pounces. It’s over in a flash.

It’s a scene most of us might associate with an open savannah in a nature documentary, but photographer Andy Murray is watching the drama unfold from his back garden in Somerset, UK. He’s on his knees, staring through a loupe (a small magnifying glass) as a 6-millimeter-long pseudoscorpion takes out a springtail more than half its size.

To Murray, these microscopic soil animals are as fascinating as the lions and zebras you might see on safari – just far more accessible, if you know where to look.

“They live in this tiny world; it works like our world, it’s just on a really small scale,” he tells CNN. “If you watch it long enough, you can see the same things go on: you can see hunters and the hunted, you can see grazing animals, you see bizarre and funny interactions.”

And your chances of seeing some form of soil life, albeit through a magnifying glass, are high. According to a recent study published in the journal PNAS, more than half of all species live in the soil, making it the most species-rich habitat on Earth.

Yet despite this wealth of life, the creatures living in the soil beneath our feet are relatively unknown. Murray wants this to change and hopes that through macro photography he will be able to unearth the quirks and characteristics of these extraordinary animals and make a case for their protection.

“Photographing a world that hasn’t been photographed much before is a huge thrill,” he says. “It’s an explorer feeling, it’s exactly the same as why people went up Everest or to the North Pole, just on a small scale.”

Exploring the unknown

Murray, 56, recalls how his interest in the microscopic dates to when he was a child, but for years technology limitations meant he was unable to share what he saw. Over a decade ago, when macro photography became possible on a digital camera, he devoted himself to the craft, juggling it alongside jobs as a musician, a chef, and currently as a freelance copy editor.

While he has no scientific background, Murray says he has “the tools and the passion” and has clocked up well over 10,000 hours in the field in Europe as well as Australia and New Zealand.

During this time, he estimates he has discovered 30 new species, including one in a pond in his garden. His photographs have been used in scientific reports, including the recent PNAS study, and he also documents his findings on his website “The Chaos of Delight.”

But there’s a danger that some soil animals may go extinct before they are even identified, as their habitat becomes increasingly degraded due to intensive agriculture and deforestation. According to the United Nations’ Food and Agricultural Organization, a third of the Earth’s soil is already eroded and this could reach a shocking 90% by 2050.

Losing these organisms would have huge ripple effects, explains Mark Anthony, an ecologist at the Swiss Federal Research Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research, and co-author of the PNAS report. The tiny creatures play an outsized role for the planet, both as decomposers and as a key food source for animals higher up on the food chain.

“That decomposition is critical. Without it, we wouldn’t have carbon accumulate in the soil and we would be buried in organic materials,” he says.

The report found that soil is likely home to 59% of the species on Earth, from microbes to mammals (although it notes a large error range of 15%, pointing to the difficulty in estimating soil biodiversity). Anthony hopes that illustrating the sheer scale of soil life will help to conserve it, comparing the research to a government census: “You take a census to get a sense for where people live, or where you need to distribute resources to support them. This is basically a census to try and say, ‘Hey, we have resources we’re putting into the biodiversity crisis, we should reallocate more of those resources to focus on soil conservation.’”

Cute critters

The challenge is making people care about soil’s creepy-crawlies as much as they do about elephants, penguins, or other conventionally cute and more visible animals.

This is where Murray’s photography comes in. Capturing the colors, bulges, textures and faces of these otherworldly creatures can make them relatable.

His heart is with the springtails, the first soil animal, besides regular worms and wood lice, he ever set eyes on. The tiny critters are found all over the world, capable of surviving extreme temperatures, but they are often considered pests and controlled with insecticides because of the damage they can cause to crops.

He believes that if people could see them up close and witness their colors and complexities, this view might change. “They’re just weird and squashy and interesting, and they’ve got faces,” he says. “It’s very hard to look at them and not find them cute.”

By observing the creatures interact in their natural habitat, Murray is also helping to feed the science. “He captures moments of soil life doing interesting and cool things,” says Anthony, such as laying eggs in a place where we would never expect. “It gives us an appreciation of what they’re doing when they’re in their home.”

Despite the seemingly limitless subject material, Murray believes he may be one of only a dozen or so professional photographers in the world focusing on soil animals. There is so much more to be discovered, and these extraordinary, alien-like animals are on all our doorsteps.

“Every single person with a loupe can go into a garden or a park and they can see the things that I see,” says Murray. “It’s all there – it’s just another world.”

Wendy Ewald, Johnny watching television, 1981

Wendy Ewald is an American photographer and teacher. Ewald has collaborated on photography projects with children, families, women, workers and teachers. Her projects start as documentary investigations and move on to probe questions of identity and cultural differences. Her work is in the collections of Detroit Art Institute, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Duke University, Rhode Island School of Design and Whitney Museum of American Art, among others

Photograph: Wendy Ewald/Courtesy Stephen Bulger Gallery

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Amateur photographer Ockert Le Roux has been on a nine-year duck hunt — of a different kind.

Since moving to South Australia’s South East from Melbourne in 2014, Mr Le Roux had been searching locally for the flying duck orchid (Caleana major) covering “extensive distances” across the region and even taking trips across the border into Western Victoria to find it.

But it was a tip from a friend last Sunday that led him to a location only about 30 minutes’ drive out of town.

“I was working at that moment in time when the text came through,” he said.

“I didn’t want to miss that opportunity … I’ve been looking for it for the past nine years.  I’m not going to give that opportunity away.

“I left work, rushed home, and grabbed my camera and my wife and I travelled to this area where the plant was pointed out to me.

Orchid’s local scarcity

Mr Le Roux said while the species was more abundant in other parts of Australia, recorded in every state or territory except the Northern Territory, he had not heard of any recent sightings in the South East.

“There were recordings back in the 80s, but very rarely have I come across anyone who could point out any of these orchids (sighted) since that time,” he said.

“The land use in the South East of South Australia has changed significantly over time.

“There are a lot of forestry areas and a lot of agriculture introduced over the past 140 to 150 years in this region.

“The natural habitat of the orchid was taken up by other land use.”

When he reached the location, which he has chosen to keep secret, Mr Le Roux found two plants, with the larger orchid flower only about 15mm tall.

“You would think that the burgundy or purplish-red colour and the yellow beak would give it away, but it was truly well camouflaged,” Mr Le Roux said.

“I think that’s another reason why they are scarce, or seldom seen.

“It’s just wonderful to see this remarkable creature that mimics a duck in almost all of its anatomy.”

Next search already underway

A forester by trade with an educational background in botany, Mr Le Roux said nature photography was a “natural match” for him.

With one long search over, Mr Le Roux said his focus was now shifting to another rare sight in the region: bioluminescent algae at the Glenelg River in Victoria’s South West.

He has already been trying to photograph the phenomenon for the past four years.

“It’s not as easy as a daytime visit to all these conservation and forest reserves,” he said.

“If there’s kinetic energy in the water, it transforms into a very translucent violet colour of light inside the water.

“The light is very strong; it’s almost like switching on a neon light.

“That’s my next challenge.”