Bug Wings On 55 Year Old Slides

Awhile back, I bought some old slides on E-bay. There are some prepared slides well into the 130 year mark that are better than some prepared slides made today. You just have to marvel at the knowledge and care given to mounting microscopic insect parts and the mountants those guys used to preserve them for a hundred years or more to the extent that such things as bronchial tubes inside the bodies of fleas can not only be seen, but seen in detail with modern scopes not even dreamed of in the day they were mounted.

However, these are not even in the same same class as the what the old masters made. These were made in Japan in the mid 50's by people in a country less than a decade out of total war. The quality suffered and the cleanliness of the factories can be seen in the fungus and bacteria that now infest the slides and slowly destroy what was mounted on them.

Still, some of them can be seen with modern equipment and the beauty that must have been there at one time still shows through. All of them were shot with a 20x Phase Contrast Objective at roughly 200x magnification. Lighting was flash.

1. A Mosquito wing with fungus that has entered under the coverslip into the mounting medium.

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Fascinating pictures. It's amazing the difference in insect wings.

Thanks Qbx. These old slides did not look good at all under normal light. I had been meaning to throw them out a number of times, but now I am glad I didn't.

wow, those are incredible. good find on Ebay.

Thanks Rick, it sure surprised me.

It's interesting how the mosquito wing seems to have such long hairs along the edge. I guess that helps with flight when the wing is that small...

I think that is the trailing edge of a female mosquito wing. When you hear a buzzing mosquito, it is a male. The females are silent. I think these hairs are to make the wing silent. I am basing this "guess" on something I saw in a Nat Geo program about Owls and how they fly so silently, which is because of soft fuzzy feathers at the trailing edge.

I plan to duplicate these slides this summer, when we come out of deep freeze mode, so maybe I will be able to shed some light on it.

Fascinating.