Cranefly haltere

Post your images made through a compound microscope or made with a stereo/dissecting microscope in this gallery. Images may be of any subject natural or unnatural, living or non-living.

Moderators: MacroMike, nzmacro, Ken Ramos, twebster, S. Alden

Locked
Charles Krebs
Posts: 1200
Joined: Tue Jul 13, 2004 10:50 am
Location: Issaquah, WA USA

Cranefly haltere

Post by Charles Krebs »

well... Wim asked, so here they are. :wink:

The halteres of flies are the small club shaped structures that are located where you might find rear wings on some other insects. (Flies only have one set of wings for flight.) They are quite prominent on this large cranefly. They are usually refered to as the "vestigial" or "rudimentary" rear wings. They serve as "gyroscopes" or balancers during flight. Interestingly, research has shown that (at least on some flies studied) they also receive the flight directing stimuli from the insects vision rather than that stimuli going directly to flight muscles, as might be expected. If this is of any interest you should read this link:
http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/rele ... 9_98a.html


Image


Image

User avatar
piotr
Posts: 445
Joined: Wed Apr 28, 2004 8:44 am
Location: San Diego
Contact:

Post by piotr »

Thank you for this very interesting post. Beautiful pictures, as usual.
Are these 3D reconstructions, too?
Piotr

User avatar
Ken Ramos
Site Admin
Posts: 4809
Joined: Tue May 04, 2004 7:58 pm
Location: Western North Carolina

Post by Ken Ramos »

Both of these photographs are absolutely beautiful. After reading the article linked, it explains why these little pests are so hard to swat at times. Their form of internal guidance can be compaired to that of an air launched missile, where "pick-offs" or potentiometers are used to relay guidance information to the control surfaces from the navigational gyros. Cool eh! :D 8)
Site Admin.
Kenneth Ramos
Rutherfordton, North Carolina
Kens Microscopy
Reposts of my images within the galleries are welcome, as are constructive critical critiques.

Charles Krebs
Posts: 1200
Joined: Tue Jul 13, 2004 10:50 am
Location: Issaquah, WA USA

Post by Charles Krebs »

Piotr... these are both done with image "stacks" and HeliconF. The first one (2.5X objective) could probably have been done OK without it, the second one (10X objective) could not have.

Ken... I thought the link was pretty interesting as well. How would like to have been the guy trying to stick electrodes into specific flight muscles of a live fly? Neat stuff.

Wim van Egmond
Posts: 440
Joined: Fri Apr 08, 2005 5:17 am
Location: Rotterdam, the Netherlands
Contact:

Post by Wim van Egmond »

Wonderful!

I have ask Charlie to do the work since the first test film with my new flash set up was all over exposed. It is good that I have so much patience. :D

Wim

User avatar
Mike
Posts: 217
Joined: Sun Dec 12, 2004 10:26 am
Location: Northeast Ohio, USA

Post by Mike »

Hello Charlie,

Wow! You take an ordinary subject and make an extraordinary photo.

Thanks, again.

All the best,

Mike

lacerta
Posts: 139
Joined: Sat Feb 12, 2005 10:16 am
Location: Georgia, USA

Post by lacerta »

One of the tests we had in zoology was to key insects. To complicate matters, most of them were just dismembered parts. The order Diptera was always a no brainer, because if you had a thorax with a haltere, you knew immediated it was a fly of some sort. Great shot Charles.
George

User avatar
GreenLarry
Posts: 360
Joined: Sat May 07, 2005 8:54 am
Location: North East of England
Contact:

Post by GreenLarry »

Wow, i thought the first pic was cool enough, then i saw the second one-fantastic!

Locked