Project in progress (part 2)

It was possible to look at the butterfly under the stereoscopic microscope without having to take it to pieces. However, in order to get a closer look, I needed to get out the compound microscope which unfortunately meant that this pretty little creature had to be dismantled.

Part of the wing was removed and viewed with top lighting. The scales overlap, like slates on a roof. Long hairs are present in some areas of the wing.

The wings were fringed with longer multi-toothed scales.

I removed some of the scales using sellotape in order that I could view them using the transmitted light shining through from underneath.

The next set of pictures is of strewn scales from the wings.

Part three of the project is to look at scales from the upper and lower surfaces of the wing in more detail.  From initial viewings, it looks as if the lower surface of the wings have longer scales than the upper surfaces. it will be interesting too to see if there is any difference between the pairs of wings.