Tortricid Moth, Cosmorrhyncha.
This is a shot of a Tortricid Moth from the Cosmorrhyncha genus ... the genitalia and perhaps the abdomen, though this is not absolutely clear to me. The slide was given to me by John W. Brown from the natural history Museum at the Smithsonian as an experiment to see if I could get a good shot of a slide mounted specimen. In this particular case the trick was to shine one flash head up into our standard Styrofoam box and shine the other flash had directly onto the back of the slide at a slight angle and rather than use a black background add a light-colored background (in this case a chunk of white plasticine clay). I was particularly impressed by the detail in the genitalia, quite beautiful really.
Beauty is truth, truth beauty - that is all
Ye know on earth and all ye need to know
" Ode on a Grecian Urn"
John Keats. Original public domain image from Flickr
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