Bristles on fly face

[Charles Krebs]

While cleaning out some old files I came across this shot taken about a year ago. I didn't post it then because I was not happy with the background, but the subject is sort of neat looking, so here it is.

I was playing around with an old epi-illuminator and some old objectives. I had a fly on the microscope that I had prevoiusly photographed "normally" and decided to see what I could find with a 40X and epi-illumination. Here are a couple of the heavier bristles on the fly face.

[Bruce Williams]

Surprising result - would not have anticipated such elegant fluting/ribbing.

Interesting to speculate on purpose. Increased surface area to improve sensitivity to vibration maybe? Tune sensitivity to specific frequencies? Strengthen (would fluting do that?). Look nice

Neat photo Charles and artistic too!

Bruce

ps - May or may not be related but is interesting anyway, see:

http://www-biology.ucsd.edu/news/article_032300.html

[beetleman]

Great picture Charles...it does make you wonder