On show in the main court of the Museum, surrounded by stunning Neo-Gothic architecture, the largest of Microsculpture’s photographic prints measure up to three metres across and surround the visitor. Seen alongside the tiny insect specimens themselves, this huge transformation of scale offers a unique viewing experience.
Text provides information about each creature in the show, while the photographs allow visitors to scrutinise tiny structures up close and then step back to take in the beauty of the insect as a whole.
The Museum of Natural History receives around 650,000 visitors a year and was a Finalist in the Art Fund Prize for Museum of the Year 2015. Its internationally-important insect collection contains more than seven million specimens drawn from every country in the world, including specimens from some of the most remote regions and islands. Combined, the Museum’s collections represent a vast repository of information on biodiversity.
The entomology collection also has significant cultural and historical value, containing the world’s oldest pinned insect specimen and many thousands of insects collected by pioneering Victorian explorers and biologists such as Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace.
www.oum.ox.ac.uk
Formed at scales too tiny for us to perceive and with astonishing complexity, the true structure and beauty of insects remains mostly hidden. Their intricate shapes, colours and microsculpture are dizzying in their variety, but it takes the power of an optical microscope or camera lens to experience insects at their own scale.
At high magnification the surface of even the plainest looking beetle or fly is completely transformed as details of their microsculpture become visible: ridges, pits or engraved meshes all combine at different spatial scales in a breath-taking intricacy. It is thought that these microscopic structures alter the properties of the insect’s surface in different ways, reflecting sunlight, shedding water, or trapping air.
Alongside these elements are minute hairs adapted for many purposes. They can help insects grip smooth surfaces, carry pollen, or detect movements in the air, to name but a few. The shape of these hairs is sometimes modified into flattened scales – structures so small they appear like dust to the naked eye. In some insects, such as butterflies and beetles, these scales scatter and reflect light, creating some of the most vibrant and intense colours seen in nature.
The evolutionary process of natural selection should account for all this wonderful diversity of microstructures, but for many species their specific adaptive function is still unknown. By observing insects in the wild, studying museum collections, and developing new imaging techniques we will surely learn more about these fascinating creatures and close the gaps in our current understanding.
Dr James Hogan
Life Collections, Oxford University Museum of Natural History
At high magnification the surface of even the plainest looking beetle or fly is completely transformed as details of their microsculpture become visible: ridges, pits or engraved meshes all combine at different spatial scales in a breath-taking intricacy. It is thought that these microscopic structures alter the properties of the insect’s surface in different ways, reflecting sunlight, shedding water, or trapping air.
Alongside these elements are minute hairs adapted for many purposes. They can help insects grip smooth surfaces, carry pollen, or detect movements in the air, to name but a few. The shape of these hairs is sometimes modified into flattened scales – structures so small they appear like dust to the naked eye. In some insects, such as butterflies and beetles, these scales scatter and reflect light, creating some of the most vibrant and intense colours seen in nature.
The evolutionary process of natural selection should account for all this wonderful diversity of microstructures, but for many species their specific adaptive function is still unknown. By observing insects in the wild, studying museum collections, and developing new imaging techniques we will surely learn more about these fascinating creatures and close the gaps in our current understanding.
Dr James Hogan
Life Collections, Oxford University Museum of Natural History
No comments:
Post a Comment