Community post
Amazing butterfly wings under a microscope
Me and my daughter found a butterfly on the road that passes by our house, and my daughter (6) was curious about what makes a butterfly fly. We have a cheap X200 microscope at home, so we decided to find out...
The general mechanical structure of the wing at low magnification and back-lighting...
X50 magnification: Close up of 'veins' and white spots on the butterfly wings...
The color variation and perfect alignment of scales is amazing...
Bottom-lighting without top-lighting...
The wing and scale structure reminded me of a computer program continuously looping...
Maximum zoom, Captain!
Let's scrape off some butterfly scales and take a look...
This is the 'powder' that you get on your fingers from touching butterfly wings...
That's cool, dad. That's cool.
Hope y'all enjoy!
@steemike
Replies (4)
She is right, that is cool dad. Really neat designs the wings have when enhanced compared to just the cool designs they already have when we just see them directly.
Totally agree. I never expected to see that type of uniformity at such a small scale. :)
Those scales are so delicate. It's neat to see how closely packed they are, in those uniform rows. Very nice project with your daughter!
Thank you!
Just amazing that those little 'scales' are so small, that it's just powder to the naked eye. Glad you enjoyed :)