Seeing Insects In A New Light - Science Photo Library

Seeing Insects
In A New Light
Small flies and wasps were recently discovered to
display colourful wing patterns known as ‘wing
interference patterns’.

Science Photo Library Feature Stories
For centuries,
biologists around
the world have
collected and identified
thousands of
species of small flies
and wasps. The usual
procedure is to collect
samples from the
wild, preserve them
in alcohol, stick them
onto white card and
examine them under
the microscope. It’s
not an easy task due
to the insects’ tiny
proportions and fragile
nature. But until
recently, one glaringly
obvious aspect has
been entirely overlooked
– they all have
brightly coloured wing
patterns.
Scientists at Lund University
in Sweden and
University of Pennsylvania
noticed that
apparently transparent
fly and wasp wings examined
under a microscope
against a black
background revealed
distinctive patterns of
multicoloured spots,
stripes and bands. It
seems that these iridescent
patterns were
not noticed previously
due to the laboratory
standard of viewing
specimens against a
white background.
“Given favorable light
conditions, they display
a world of brightly
patterned wings
that are apparently
unnoticed by contemporary
biologists,” says
University of Lund entomologist
Ekaterina
Shevtsova.
The patterns are not
just random ‘soap bubble’
reflections, say the
researchers, but seem

to be stable and serve a function
for the insects, possibly in
a similar way that butterflies,
moths and beetles display colourful
signals on their bodies.
Although the patterns are visible
to the naked eye, they are
particularly vivid when viewed
by insects, which have eyes
that detect ultraviolet, red and
green instead of the blue, red
and green that most humans
see.
Excited by this discovery,
entomologists are now reexamining
other transparent
winged insects such as
dragonflies, cockroaches and
grasshoppers to see more
undiscovered iridescent wing
patterns.
ENDS 270 WDS © COPY-
RIGHT 2011 SCIENCE PHOTO
LIBRARY

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