No one really likes getting up close and personal with a mosquito.
Except when it's under an electron microscope.
While you may be aware of the many parts of an eye that some insects have, you've probably never seen them on a microscopic level. FEI gives you that opportunity.
Imaged using an FEI Quanta microscope, this frontal view has a real-life width of just 284µm. Under 450x magnification, this bug truly looks like an alien creature.
The image seems almost like a computer rendering, but it's not. In fact there's a good reason for the odd look.
The description, from the original posting:
Frontal view to the compound eyes of a mosquito. The surface of each single eye has a rough appearance which gives them a violet shimmer in real life. Between and above the eyes fine scales, similar to the ones at butterflies can be seen.
Mosquitoes can transmit a wide variety of diseases, and estimates suggest that over 800,000 people die every year from malaria.
FEI has provided The Huffington Post with some incredible images in the past, including this view of a hydrothermal worm, which took the internet by storm.
The Full-Size Image (From FEI via Oliver Meckes):
