¶ GRUB’S UP
Mites on an insect pupa, 20x
These beady-eyed little critters tucking
into their dinner are mites. The meal and
the surface they’re standing on is the
body of a luckless pupa (the intermediate
developmental stage between a caterpillar
and a butterfly). There are estimated to be
nearly 50,000 species of mite in the world,
a large proportion of which are parasites
that live on other animals or plants.
Rogelio Moreno Gill, Panama
ANIMAL
¶ A REAL EYEFUL
Eye of a honey bee covered in dandelion
pollen, 120x
This year’s competition winner shows the
complex eye of a westerm honey bee (Apis
mellifera), dusted in yellow specks of pollen
from a dandelion. Each black segment
on the surface is one of thousands of
tiny, lensed units that make up the bee’s
compound eye. One eye unit supplies a
small section of the whole image that the
bee sees. This photo took four hours to set
up and shoot.
Ralph Claus Grimm, Queensland,
Australia³ SMILE
Jaws of a long-jawed
spider, 10x
This charming face
belongs to a long-jawed
orb weaver spider.
Spiders like this one
build webs near water
and hang motionless
in them, waiting to trap
unfortunate insects. The
jaws, scientifically known
as chelicerae, are used to inject
paralysing venom into their prey, which also
partially digests it before the spider sucks
up the soupy mess.
Geir Drange, Asker, Norway