Tiny Creatures Captured with a Laser-Scanning Microscope

The Extraordinary Details of Tiny Creatures Captured with a Laser-Scanning Microscope OCTOBER 12, 2016 Acilius diving beetle male front tarsus (foot) 100x If you’ve ever wondered how a diving beetle swims through the water or manages to rest just on the surface, the answer is in part because its foot is infinitely more complicated than your own. As seen above, this microscopic image of a male Acilius sulcatus (diving beetle) by photographer Igor Siwanowicz reveals the extraordinary complexity of this aquatic insect’s tiny appendage. This is just one of many examples of Siwanowicz’s work as a neurobiologist at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Janelia Farm Research Campus. His brilliantly colored images show the tree-like structures of moth antennas, the wild details of barnacle legs, and the otherworldly shapes of plant spores. The photos are made with a confocal laser-scanning microscope capable of “seeing” vast amounts of detail beyond what you might capture with a traditional lens-based microscope. You can see much more of his nature photography here. (via Synaptic Stimuli, Wired) Barnacle Midge Pupa Paraphyses & Sporangia Isopod appendage Front leg of whirligig beetle Moth antennae Moth antennae, detail ................................................................................................................................................................................................
Front foot (tarsus) of a male diving beetle Cybister fimbriolatus. The tarsus expands to form a large adhesive pad used by the male to hold on to the back of a female during mating. The rows of individual flexible suction cups assure firm grip on the female's smooth exoskeleton. Cuticle bleached in KOH/H2O2, stained with Calcofluor White + Congo Red, imaged with Zeiss LSM 710, 5x NA 0.25, 405, 488 and 562 nm laser lines. Note that the thin cuticle of the suction cups didn't take the bleaching step too well - hence the shriveled, withered look (compare the morphology with the non-bleached sections below). Bleached and CW/CR stained, imaged with 10x 0.45. Bleached and CW/CR stained, imaged with 10x 0.45. Tarsus embedded in 7% agarose, sectioned with Vibratome @ 400 um (David, this is for you: this technique can handle some REALLY thick chitin  ), stained with CW and Texas Red-phalloidin (I wanted to see if the suction cups are controlled individually by muscles - but the muscles were gone...). As above. As above, imaged with a 20x NA 0.8 objective. Close-up of the lowest segment in the image above. The blue tube is a trachea, but what is the red stuff, hyphae of a fungus, some protists? Where are the muscles?? The beetle was an old male, with bunch of suction cups missing - the empty sockets would make perfect entry ways for infection. Any thoughts?