Iridescent Brown lacewing

[MarkSturtevant]

A staged quick stack of this insect (Micromus posticus) which came to the porch light one night. Photographing against a black background made it easier to get an iridescent effect on the wings.
The colors can be better appreciated if you click on the picture, and then click again to enlarge.
Brown lacewing by Mark Sturtevant, on Flickr

[Marcepstein]

The iridescents came out pretty nice

[dy5]

Lovely, and fascinating.

Not only beautiful, but maybe also informative: To what extent can you infer the fine details of the wing structure via the pattern of iridescent colors? For instance, it looks like there are ridges in the spaces between veins. The square cells along the edges have red centers surrounded by blue - maybe different thicknesses of the membrane?

Cheers, David

[MarkSturtevant]

Lovely, and fascinating.
Not only beautiful, but maybe also informative: To what extent can you infer the fine details of the wing structure via the pattern of iridescent colors? For instance, it looks like there are ridges in the spaces between veins. The square cells along the edges have red centers surrounded by blue - maybe different thicknesses of the membrane?
Cheers, David

Those are good ideas. It would require some sort of calibration from wing sections to see if that is what is going on.