Monday, October 1, 2012

Evolution
This photo, taken of a fly from the Dolichopodidae family, demonstrates how beautiful compound eyes can be. The Dolichopodidae family (or long-legged flies) are "true flies" of the order Diptera, meaning they only have one pair of functional wings. The remnants of their second pair are known as halteres and appear to be used as stabilisers or airspeed detectors.

Like the chicken embryo photo we s
howed you previously, this image was also taken from Nikon's Small World competition using stereomicroscopy. If you want to see more amazing photos, head over to http://www.nikonsmallworld.com/

Photo credit: Laurie Knight.


On Dolichopodidae -
http://www.nadsdiptera.org/Doid/Dolichar/Dolichar.htm

On Diptera -
http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/arthropoda/uniramia/diptera.html

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