WATCH: This Is How Butterflies Create Their Brilliant Color

Working in the Amazon rainforest has its challenges. To name an obvious one, it can be difficult to lug equipment into remote field sites to conduct research. Fortunately we live in a time when technology is rapidly becoming both cheaper and more portable. I'd like to describe a couple tools that I used to examine the butterflies below. Then I'll discuss the fascinating ways these creatures create color. Macro shot of a Heliconius butterfly wing. The different colors (oranges, yellows, blacks) are caused by pigment production in each individual scale. For starters, digital SLR cameras and macro lenses are powerful handheld tools that I use to document the biological diversity of the tiny creatures that inhabit South America. I'm currently using a Canon 70D camera body equipped with the shockingly powerful MP-E 65 Macro lens. This lens is truly a macro beast, magnifying up to five times (a magnification ratio of 5:1), allowing me to get sharp images of microscopic structures, such as butterfly wing scales. For shots of the whole organism, I typically use the Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L macro lens, which I really love for its versatility and sharpness. The 100mm and MP-E 65 are a fantastic combination for macro photography in the field, allowing me to document small organisms such as insects, as well as zoom in even closer to resolve specific regions. At our remote outpost in Sumaco, Ecuador, I'm tinkering with my camera to photograph insects and butterfly wing scales. As an ...
Source: Science - The Huffington Post - Category: Science Source Type: news