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User / UVO_eber / Ear of an earwig
Ulrich Vogl / 467 items
Common earwig wing (Forficula auricularia (m))

Forficula auricularia (m)

The wings of earwigs are a fantastic invention of nature, more than 200 Mio. years ago. They can fold to 1/10 of the full size, are extremely thin, yet very resistant. The folding mechanism is more sophisticated than any modern man-made (telescopic) umrella construction. The whole wing fits neatly below the elytron (see left lower corner), once folded

Here I used perpendicular illumination, so the thickness of the wing corresponds directly to the colors cf.
here, lower diagram
Yellow regions are around 150nm (which is 1/4 of the wavelength of visible (green) light), magenta and blue areas are a bit thicker (180-220nm).

Full earwig can be seen here

Mitutoyo 5x NA 0.14, tube lens: Thorlabs 165mm
Illumination: Oblique
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Dates
  • Taken: Sep 11, 2024
  • Uploaded: Sep 11, 2024
  • Updated: Oct 27, 2024