Beauty of the Butterfly Egg: Insects have been around for at least 300 million years. There are over a million species representing more than half of all known living organisms. In fact, they may account for 90% of all multicellular animals on earth.
• Yet insects abandon their young just about anywhere, leaving them to survive on their own. The secret may be hidden in their eggs: tough, yet varied, insect eggs are camouflaged or flamboyant, colorful or embellished with spines, stripes and helices. This gallery represents just one tiny fraction of diversity in the eggs: they are all butterfly eggs.
• Who knew that a butterfly egg less than 2 mm in size could be so beautiful?
Source of scanning electron micrographs: http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2010/09/insect-eggs/dunn-text
#sciencesunday #scienceeveryday
madame scientist's not-so-mad musings 
Stunning!
Mahesh Sreekandath , 90% of the animal world. There are more micro organisms, and of course plants! Do you have a song for the Garden of Eden? 🙂
Iron Butterfly – In A Gadda Da Vida
Mahesh Sreekandath ?
All hail the power of Google. That, and some guessing based on my knowledge of the source 😉
Rajini Rao was this supposed to be for #ScienceSunday or is it just #ScienceEveryday ? Electron micrographs are always amazing. BTW, Mahesh Sreekandath there are about 10x more bacterial cells in a human than human cells. http://goo.gl/8Oujg
Oh, I love that microbe in the gut statistic Chad Haney . I think I did a post on that once just for the pleasure of asking who is occupying whom? (It was during the Occupy movement). It’s nearly always #scineceeveryday with me 🙂
That was a subtle hint to add the tag :~).
Which one, Rashid Moore ? The Iron Butterfly number? Wow, that would be impressive.
LOL, okay (I stopped using my brain after I solved Mahesh Sreekandath quiz).
I thought your message was metal, Mahesh Sreekandath !
Butterfly is basically a flying beauty. This may trigger my interest and keeping me busy if I have an electron microscope in my garage . 🙂
What else do geeks keep in their garage, Tom Lee? 🙂 Have you posted your cool pix of the day yet?
Many things Rajini Rao beside the tennis rackets, balls, old guitar, amps, … even boxes of university baseball caps collection. Cool picture is coming up shortly. 🙂
Tom Lee : Mine has potting soil, assorted old pots, daffodil bulbs that I never got around to planting (but am guilty to throw out), and every type of gardening implement (mostly spotted artistically with rust). Also, bikes that my kids have outgrown.
Isn’t that funny? when I wanted to throw some old stuff away I just took a second look and decided to keep it around again. The bike is another thing, I haven’t rode my bike for 10 years now but still keep it around collecting dust. The time comes when someone in my company wants to get rid of the electron microscope I might want to savage it and keep it in my garage 🙂
Hehe, I’ll be sure to ship you our old scientific equipment in that case. We are sure to have some centrifuges, microscopes and spectrophotometers that could go to a good
homegarage 🙂May be i would recondition it and put it on Ebay. Your lab may turn around buying it back ?
LOL, quite the entrepreneur Tom Lee ! I’d better watch out…
Haha !
Upjohn (now Pfizer) donated a lot of used equipment to my high school. I remember everyone used to wait for the fancy Metler balance rather than monkey around with the double pan balances. The digital balance used today are so common place but would have been way too expensive back then. In graduate school we picked up some broken HPLC systems from Abbott Labs. I was able to make a working system out of the parts because my adviser was too cheap to get a proper system.
There’s such satisfaction in acquiring hand me downs..knowing that they are free, Chad Haney . At one point I had to put my foot down and tell my lab to stop carting back lame (mostly useless) items from ancient labs that were closing shop..you should have seen how crestfallen their faces became ;(
Chad Haney large companies used to be more generous on the donation side. Nowadays they are playing more frugal cards. Most advisors are cheap anyway, not just that particular one of yours. Advisors in my graduate program were also cheap. But I don’t think Rajini Rao is one of them. 🙂 my guy drove a Corolla while Rajini is so comfy in her Beemer!
At times I felt like Sanford and Son but we actually made things work. I grabbed an analog to digital converter card out of the trash and hooked it up to a Grass chart recorder. I’m an engineer, I don’t try to figure out mean arterial blood pressure from a piece of chart paper. It was one of my mini-triumphs as a grad student.
It a great feeling for an engineer who can make a throw away to work in a system and see that machine starting to run. I know you you feel!
Haha, Tom Lee , you know I only drive that because of the 16 speaker Harmon Kardon system. Where else can I listen to Jim Morrison sing Light My Fire all by myself 😉
Rajini Rao my MINI has HK too but I don’t blast the Doors, more like Led Zeppelin.
Of course, the Mini is made by the same company!
Rajini Rao that makes me feel bad for my advisor, his Corolla sounds system is only for listening to talk shows. You may have to make sure the sound from your H.K. doesn’t distract your driving. We worry for you, but then who doesn’t turn that volume up when the system is so awesome.
The egg of a butterfly, Ahmad J L 🙂
MINIs are made in the UK but are owned by BMW.
Rajini Rao AIPAD is up!
Wonderful and informative post! Thanks for sharing Rajini Rao
Bacteria do indeed have a form of group consciousness, known as “quorum sensing”. It’s a form of chemical consensus building. (But these eggs are about a millimeter wide, much larger than bacteria).
Ahh, I was wondering how butterfly eggs inspired a question about bacteria, LOL. Yes, Chad Haney brought that up. The flu is probably viral. Even more of those bugs!!
Beautiful
Beautiful Pictures! It needs a very close look at things to appreciate its beauty. 🙂
Eggstravagantly beautiful! 🙂
A cook who could ice a cake that well would win the gold medal.
Beautiful Pictures. I like
Utterly beautiful. High time to stop poisoning nature so these wonderful creatures can flourish again.
May they are fast learner and developed something on genetic level to survive, may be as long as earth exist. but butterfly egg is real beauty. we are on the way to achieve such level, till then enjoy butterfly egg beauty.
Eggstravagant Eggs, indeed! I should have borrowed from our recent duckling comment stream for the title, Nobilangelo Ceramalus !
Haha, Feisal Kamil , we all need to be plugged in for a few hours at least 🙂
Make sure you have enough coffee. You don’t want egg on your face.
Oh no, not the duckling comment stream again 😉 Don’t egg me on, Chad Haney .
I think Feisal Kamil is trying cross fertilization of threads.
I species what he is doing here.
I’m punned out.
Some Royal butterfly pics here http://goo.gl/2h7DB
Monarchs, Chad Haney , beautiful indeed. Annette Marin finds the most amazing images!
They sure do, Prabat Parmal . Anything that has a hard exoskeleton, a three-part body (head, thorax, and abdomen), three pairs of jointed legs, compound eyes, and two antennae is an insect. Did you know that spiders are arachnids, and not insects? They have 8 legs and soft bodies.
I don’t know, some of the spiders I’ve seen look pretty buff.
Spiderman sure does. Any superheroes based on insects?
Wow, that is one ambitious spider..a super arachnid for sure. I like the idea of Chuck Norris as some species of creepy insect. One that lives under a rock 😛
I did get that, Prabat Parmal . Now tell us why he resembles an insect? 🙂
LOL, Feisal Kamil !
Prabat Parmal , I must award you a demerit. Spiders are not insects, they are arachnids. Do pay attention, folks, there is a biology lesson in here somewhere 😉
Very cool link, Feisal Kamil . 8/10 are super insects (Black Widow and The Tick are not).
I’m guessing no pix of The Wasp because it would have been politically incorrect? Since bug is non-technical, feel free to use it for anything Feisal Kamil 🙂
Feisal Kamil I forgot about the Tick.
Feisal Kamil how about some Love-bug?
http://video.adultswim.com/robot-chicken/the-love-bug.html
Kimberly Chapman are you looking for this?
Feisal Kamil I’m waiting for my demerit.
Goodnight Feisal Kamil get some rest.
Get well soon, Feisal Kamil . I plus one-d your link above because I thought it was the same Family Guy vid you linked to separately, Chad Haney ! That was so off that I am speechless. How could you? :O
Feisal Kamil is not feeling well. So I’m just helping with his duty to add a little R-rated humor to your posts.
Ah, so the demerit is a badge of honor? Noble of you, Chad Haney 🙂
Depends who’s giving them out and who’s on the receiving end.
How do you make that most innocent comment seem R-rated, Chad Haney ? Being the only guy growing up with 5 sisters has clearly allowed you to get away with everything 🙂
I can’t help it if some people’s minds are in the gutter.
Ohh, you’re cruisin’ for a bruisin’ there, young Chad Haney 🙂
Pat Benatar- Hit Me With Your Best Shot
You’re lucky I’m distracted. Just realized that I’m traveling to San Antonio instead of Austin, LOL (they all sound the same to me:). However, I never forget a well deserved demerit.
Awesome creepy award winning vid of Preying Mantis from Mike Elgan . Quite a different vibe from the pretty butterfly eggs 🙂
https://plus.google.com/u/0/113117251731252114390/posts/8M3EemqEksp
woh..kya acha hai Dr. ji..
Wooow … wonderful !!
Please enjoy your weekend Rajini Rao … 🙂
wow
Jaw > floor.
I want butterfly egg pillows now. . . .
Good as decorative throw pillows on a plush sofa…
So beautiful I wish our eyes could see this!
It’s a good thing we have powerful microscopes to reveal these fine beauties!