Photo of the Day
a close-up detail of a fruit fly’s eye
May 17, 2015
Eye Sight
A scanning electron microscope (SEM) captures the intricacies of a fruit fly’s eye. The compound eye is a tightly packed collection of single lenses that gives the fly a gridlike view of the world. Scientists suspect the bristles may help protect the lenses, which have no eyelids, from dirt and debris. Photographer Martin Oeggerli specializes in shooting very small things using an SEM at the School of Life Sciences in Muttenz, Switzerland. His images appear in the story “Bug-Eyed” in the June 2015 issue of National Geographic magazine.
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