A Scientist’s Incredible Photographs of Microscopic Creatures

A Polish scientist's sensational images of tiny creatures and plants

Microscopic Creatures Midge Pupa

Midge Pupa

Photographer Igor Siwanowicz took these incredible photographs of tiny creatures. Dr Siwanowicz, a neurobiologist at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Janelia Farm Research Campus, Virginia, shows us the wonders of life in kaleidoscopic color. Produced with a confocal laser-scanning microscope, his work enlarged on the art of Ernst Haeckel’s vivid illustrations of microscopic life, Wilson Alwyn Bentley’s stellar pictures of snowflakes, Arthur E Smith’s photo-micrographs and Daniel Kariko’s intriguing images of mini-bests in our homes.

 

Portrait of a Chrysopa sp. (green lacewing) larva

Portrait of a Chrysopa sp. (green lacewing) larva

Underside of the brown dog tick and lone star tick mouthparts

Underside of the brown dog tick and lone star tick mouthparts x 100

Confocal imaging involves scanning the specimen to create computer-generated optical sections down to 250 nm thickness using visible light. These optical sections may be stacked to provide a 3-D digital reconstruction of the specimen.

He explains:

Laser scanning confocal microscope produces images in a very different way than a bright field microscope (your standard biology class microscope). It is a fluorescent microscope, which means that the imaged specimen is illuminated with light of a certain wavelength and emits light of a different, longer wavelength. It’s the same physical phenomenon that makes black light posters from the ’70s-‘80s glow. The microscope, which registers that light, takes a series of images of the tiny specimen by scanning it point by point. Because the specimen is much thicker than the plane of focus, a series of images—called “stack”—is collected by moving the sample up or down. From those “optical slices” a three-dimensional image of the structures within the sample can be reconstructed.

 

Drosophila (fruit fly) with mutant variations (middle and right images)

Drosophila (fruit fly) with mutant variations (middle and right images) x 250

Young juniper shoot cross-section

Young juniper shoot cross-section x 250

Incredible Photographs of Microscopic Creatures

Acilius diving beetle male front tarsus (foot) 100x

Eyes of a Jumping Spider (Salticus scenicus)

Eyes of a Jumping Spider (Salticus scenicus) x 20

Microscopic Creatures Barnacle

A Barnacle

Microscopic Creatures Paraphyses & Sporangia

Paraphyses & Sporangia

Microscopic Creatures Midge Pupa

Midge Pupa

Microscopic Creatures Front leg of whirligig beetle

Front leg of whirligig beetle

Microscopic Creatures sopod appendage

Sopod appendage

Microscopic Creatures Moth antennae

Moth antennae

Via: Nikon Small WorldWired, ThisIsColossal,

 

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