My other recent wing post a couple of days ago were made with transmitted light with the wings "mounted" in water.
For these I put them "dry" under the BH2-UMA vertical illuminator, and used the darkfield cube. The direct light (either darkfield or brightfield) coming through the objective produces extremely intense iridescence with these wings. No compensators or polarization was used.
Mosquito wing II epi, iridescence
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- Charles Krebs
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Fabulous Charles! I believe you have just independently discovered a new and exciting method, called the "Wing Interference Pattern" (WIP), that helps discriminate between species of flies (and other insects) -- which was announced in 2010 (see HERE ). And -- not surprising to us -- you have improved on the existing methods with your great photographic skill!
It seems these iridescent wing patterns may allow the insects that have them signal to one another; and photographing the patterns provides another means for entomologists to tell the insects apart. So far, this WIP pattern has been found in many families of flies (it is particularly well developed in mosquitoes) and chalcidoid hymenoptera (zt02873p026.pdf, an adobe reader file, shows WIP being used in a revision of a wasp genus).
Beautiful work,
Eric
It seems these iridescent wing patterns may allow the insects that have them signal to one another; and photographing the patterns provides another means for entomologists to tell the insects apart. So far, this WIP pattern has been found in many families of flies (it is particularly well developed in mosquitoes) and chalcidoid hymenoptera (zt02873p026.pdf, an adobe reader file, shows WIP being used in a revision of a wasp genus).
Beautiful work,
Eric
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- Charles Krebs
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Thanks.
Eric,
As I was reading your reply...
"a new and exciting method, called the "Wing Interference Pattern" (WIP), that helps discriminate between species of flies (and other insects)"
... I actually smiled, and for a fraction of a second thought you were "pulling my leg" a bit
But then I saw you were serious! . Thanks for the link. Fascinating. Curiously, when I observed how intense it was, I did wonder if it served any "purpose". I have seen it on flies, but not this extreme (although I never observed those wings when illuminated with a microscope vertical illuminator in this way).
Eric,
As I was reading your reply...
"a new and exciting method, called the "Wing Interference Pattern" (WIP), that helps discriminate between species of flies (and other insects)"
... I actually smiled, and for a fraction of a second thought you were "pulling my leg" a bit
But then I saw you were serious! . Thanks for the link. Fascinating. Curiously, when I observed how intense it was, I did wonder if it served any "purpose". I have seen it on flies, but not this extreme (although I never observed those wings when illuminated with a microscope vertical illuminator in this way).
These are spectacular Charles, I wish I could achieve this intensity for my in flight images. Here is one of the best examples I obtained for fruit flies. http://www.flickr.com/photos/13084997@N ... 0450102014. Do the wings need to be at 90 degrees to the light source to obtain the intensity you are seeing
Linden
Linden
Linden Gledhill http://www.flickr.com/photos/13084997@N03/
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- Ernst Hippe
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