Ever wondered what biological witchcraft is going on inside the chrysalis (‘cocoon’) of a developing butterfly? One team from Manchester University and the Natural History Museum has a better idea than most – Tristan Lowe and colleagues used CT scanning technology to trace the development of living animals undergoing metamorphosis. Their use of CT ingeniously…
Tag: arthropod
#FossilFriday: Ingenious camouflage found in ancient amber-preserved insects
While many species are known to have evolved specialised colouration to better blend into their environmental backgrounds, there is another important form of camouflage: incorporate your environment into your appearance! This can be seen across the animal kingdom, including in insects and their larvae, sea urchins, and snails. Now, researchers have found some of the…
Incredible electron microscope GIF gives an amazing sense of scale!
//giphy.com/embed/26BRQY7cHMMVzU6n6 This series of SEM (scanning electron microscope) images shows a tiny crustacean called an amphipod before zooming in on a miniscule diatom resting on its head, and finally picking out the shape of a single bacterium on the surface of the diatom. A truly awesome science GIF! Via Smithsonian mag, GIPHY.
New photographic project captures intricate beauty of insects
A new collection of images launched this week by the Oxford University Museum of Natural History reveal in stunning detail the intricacies of insect anatomy. Each image is a composite of around 8,000 individual photos, with the artist Levon Biss painstakingly adjusting the lighting and settings for each one to best highlight the microscopic details…
It’s a leap day! Frog hoppers accelerate at equivalent to more than 500g to beat nature’s high jump record
Although the flea is well-known for being the greatest animal high-jumper, researchers have demonstrated that the frog hopper could steal the crown for insect acrobatics. Compared to the previous title-holders, frog hoppers take off almost five times faster, exerting a force equivalent to over 400 times their own body-weight where the flea produces around 135…
Dragonfly eyes detect up to 30 different ‘colours’
Our retinas contain four different types of light-sensing photoreceptor cells: rods, which detect low levels of light, and three cone cell types which detect red, blue and green wavelengths of light. These allow us to see in (relative) black and white when it’s dark, and in vibrant colour when it’s lighter. The wavelengths that different animals…
#fossilfriday: Preserved brain visible in 520 million year-old arthropod
Almost all fossils represent the hard parts of long-gone animals: teeth, shells, bones and others. But palaeontologists do occasionally find fossilised soft tissue, too. This remarkable fossil was the first to be described where the brain and parts of the nervous system are visible – astonishingly – after more than 500 million years! Fuxianhuia protensa, an ancient…
Parasitoid wasp Wallaceaphytis kikiae, discovered in Borneo
This minute wasp was discovered in the tropical forests of Malaysian Borneo and measures just 0.75 mm in length (750 µm). Its generic name, Wallaceaphytis, refers to Alfred Russel Wallace, who independently proposed a theory of evolution by natural selection at the same time as Charles Darwin after extensive travel, specimen collection and research in…
Leg of the female drone fly, Eristalis tenax
This confocal microscope image shows the pretarsus (the distal tip of the leg) of a female drone fly, with many fine hairs and bristles visible. The number, appearance and placement of bristles across the legs and thorax region of many insects can help biologists to identify specific taxonomic groups: species, genera, families, orders and classes (in ascending size…
#fossilfriday: Amber-encased spider’s head revealed
Although this image of a huntsman spider’s head looks modern, it represents the first clear view of a 49 million year-old fossil. Eusprassus crassipes remains encased in resin were scanned using X-ray computed tomography to reconstruct its anatomy in stunning detail for the first time. Researchers from the University of Manchester were able to conclusively described the…
Developing lobster egg
Developing lobster egg, with eye and legs visible at the bottom left and right, respectively. Image courtesy of Tora Bardal and the Nikon Small World competition.
Anatomy To You 