Fly

This public domain image features an up close and personal illustration of a fly and cross-section of its wing. The drawing is part of Robert Hooke’s 1665 scientific work Micrographia, which explores the use of microscopes and telescopes in studying organisms.

Because the work has an expired copyright, it is in the public domain.

The image is 556.5 KB, 1200×1929 px, and is hosted by the National Institute of Health.

1. Shibin Balakrishnan
   03.18.10

   This image gives a schematic sketch of a honey bee. It also shows a enlarged sketch of a wing of the bee. The different parts also marked. There are only indications of the mark. The descriptions are not provided in the sketch. The three legs in arrow on one side are visible. The legs on other side are not visible. The legs are jointed legs totally 6 in number three on each side. The two compound eyes are marked as ‘A’. The antennas are also visible. the entire body is divided into three portions head thorax and abdomen. The antennas originate from the head. After head there is thorax. The wings and jointed legs are from the thorax. We can see two types of wings. They are fore wings and the hind wings. After thorax it is abdomen. The stinger originates from the abdomen. But the stinger is not visible in the image. The entire body is covered with hairs which causes an awe full feeling. The entire image is black and white. The image is not much dark. The image gives a feeling that if it got faded due to oldness. It gives almost complete picture of a honey bee even though the stinger is missing which reminds the horrifying memories of bee stings.

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2. Jane
   03.27.10

   The subject of this image is a photograph of a very detailed sketch from Hooke’s text 1665. I believe then it is the same Hooke that was one of the inventors or first propagators of microscopy. Ths sketch’s subject looks to be a house fly. The image title is in Dutch and Fig:1 and it is covered with shorthand labels, but none are defined. A fly’s wing is broken off and lying flat next to the fly. The sketch is in black and white and incredibly detailed. This was very high tech and cutting edge science for the time. It was likely the first time people saw the texture of a fly’s skin and body. Until seeing this I did not realize that fly’s wings were so textured. I had also not seen the body segments and specialized mouth parts. They are also very hairy. My first thought upon seeing this image was my mother’s job in college. She told me that she spent a lot of time sorting through anesthetized fruit flys looking for genetic mutants with red eyes. Her work would not have been possible without the work of early scientists who developed microscopy and also studied flys over 300 years ago.

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