Welcome to my blog

I am an exclusive photographer with istockphoto and produce a wide variety of images. Recently I have been experimenting with high magnification photography of insects, plants and anything else I find that looks interesting up close.

I am a first year undergraduate studying Biology at the University of Oxford. I have a particular interset in entomology and enjoy exploring the huge diversity of insect species in the UK.

I aim to use this blog to share some of the photos I have been taking which I find particularly interesting, I try to do a little bit of research on the subjects of my photos but am far from an expert. if I have made any big errors or misidentified something, please leave a comment or send me an email to correct me .

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Tuesday 15 June 2010

Bee antenna

This is a section of antenna from a Nomada bee, Nomada flava. The doughnut shaped indentations in the lower half are sensilla placodea also known as pore plates, they have an olfactory function, they detect airborne chemicals giving the bee a sense of smell.

The surface of each sensillum placodeum is perforated with many tiny pores, chemicals pass through these pores and are transported by carrier proteins to sensory neurones of which there are many for each sensillum placodeum.

The image is a stack of 83 shots, taken with a Nikon N plan 10/0.30 objective on bellows. The actual length of the bit of antenna shown is approximately 0.7mm.

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