Extraordinary close-up images show insects as you’ve never seen them before
The petrol-blue wings of a swallowtail butterfly, soft fur of a giant Patagonian bumblebee, and oil-painted smudges of a ladybug are some of the details captured by British photographer Levon Biss in a new book that documents insect decline.
Released on 22 November, “Extinct & Endangered: Insects in Peril” is a collaboration between Biss and the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH). It features photographs of 40 insect species that are either vulnerable, threatened or already extinct.
Biss spent two years photographing the insects, capturing every extraordinary detail from strands of hair to the reflection in a wing. Each individual image was created from over 10,000 photographs taken using a bespoke rig and microscope lenses. They were then layered together, producing a single shot that’s fully focused and contains minute details normally invisible to the human eye.
He hopes that the clarity of the photographs will allow the viewer to see insects in a new light, inspiring respect for the tiny creatures that are too often seen as an irritation – waved off with the shrug of an arm or squashed with the back of a book.
“Hopefully people can look at one of my images and just marvel about how beautiful this thing is, look at the engineering that nature has created within these insects – they’re beautifully functional,” he said.
Insects, whether beetles, bees or butterflies, are essential to the planet’s survival. Some are pollinators, helping in the production of fruits and vegetables, others are decomposers, recycling plants and animal matter into the soil, and many form the base of food chains that underpin natural ecosystems.
The petrol-blue wings of a swallowtail butterfly, soft fur of a giant Patagonian bumblebee, and oil-painted smudges of a ladybug are some of the details captured by British photographer Levon Biss in a new book that documents insect decline. Released on 22 November, “Extinct & Endangered: Insects in Peril” is a collaboration between Biss and…