Moth eggs

[Charles Krebs]

I can across some moth eggs on the underside of a morning glory leaf. While taking a few "macro" shots I was intrigued by the tiny caterpillars that could be seen within. I placed them on the microscope and took a few shots with a 4X. The top image is illuminated from above (using a fiber optic illuminator), and the second was fully "back lit" using the microscope brightfield condenser.

[Wolfgang Bettighofer]

Hi Charles,

I don't know much about this creatures, but most of your shot go beyond the subjects. All the time you're creating artistry works! The brightfield ones looks like calligraphy. Thank's a lot, once more...

Wolfgang

[rjlittlefield]

Lovely, simply lovely! The lower image is stacked, I presume?

I think we're looking straight into the faces of little caterpillars that are just about ready to hatch. In the brightfield view, the sharp reddish features would be mandibles, the very dark blobs would simply be markings on the head capsule (symmetric left and right), and the sharp long lines would be various bristles and hairs on the face (again, notice the symmetry) as well as on the rest of the body, which would be curled up in a circle.

I love looking at these things through a dissecting scope.

Were they moving around at all for you?

--Rik

[Charles Krebs]

Rik... you got the geometry just right!

Here's a tight crop showing how the mandibles appear.


They all moved about slightly, looked pretty cramped in there! Interesting in that the orientation (ie: "heads up") is the same in each egg... gives a little surreal look to the backlit version. One had already hatched when I took these, so I suspect when I check on them tomorrow I'll have a bunch on tiny caterpillars.

[discomorphella]

Hi Charlie---
That's incredible. You guys should all just get together and publish a biology textbook. I've seldom run across any photomicrographs that can even approach this level in any text. Did you get any shots of the hatching in progress?

--David

[Raul G]

Amazing work Charles.
What I like the most is the contrast in the first image