Tristan Lowe

Butterflies undergo metamorphosis from caterpillar to winged creature

By Tia Ghose
LiveScience

Stunning new pictures of butterfly metamorphosis have been captured using common medical imaging.

The images of the tiny insects, which are described Tuesday in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface, were taken with a CT scanner that has the resolution to image insects as small as 0.2 inches (5 millimeters).

The new technique could be used to study insect development in place of dissection. Dissection can be a time-consuming, laborious process that requires killing a different specimen for each stage of development. [See the Amazing Caterpillars Morph into Butterflies]

Masters of Earth
Insects make up between 50 percent and 85 percent of the animals on the planet, said study co-author Russell Garwood, a geologist at the University of Manchester in the United Kingdom, who studies fossilized insects.

"To a first approximation, every living thing is an insect, so they're worth understanding," Garwood told LiveScience.

Yet despite insects' prevalence on Earth, most researchers study only a few model organisms, such as the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster.

Scanning butterflies
To see whether there was a simpler way to study living insects as they developed, the research team used computed tomography (CT) to scan nine Vanessa cardui pupas (the life stage after the caterpillar stage) as they underwent metamorphosis into painted lady butterflies inside a hard outer shell.

The 3-D images revealed the fine structure of the pupa anatomy as the insects matured, including the tracheal airways, the antennae and the midgut.

The radiation from the scanning didn't seem to be a problem for the pupas, many of which successfully hatched into butterflies.

The findings suggest the technique could be a viable way to study living insects as they develop.

Insect solutions
The researchers envision several ways to use the new techniques. One possibility is studying how pesticides affect bees' development. Currently, honeybee colonies have seen great declines and some say pesticides may be to blame for this so-called colony collapse disorder; a definitive culprit is still not known.

"Insects are the main pollinators for the majority of our crops," so understanding what causes them to become ill is critically important, Garwood said.

The researchers said they can also see the technique being used in forensics to study flesh-eating maggots that eat decomposing bodies.

Follow Tia Ghose on Twitter and Google+. Follow LiveScience @livescience, Facebook and Google+. Original article on LiveScience.com.

• Gallery: Dazzling Photos of Dew-Covered Insects
• Butterfly Gallery: Beautiful Wings Take Flight
• Amazing Tropical Butterflies

NASA / JPL-Caltech / ASU

Three Martian whirlwinds, known as dust devils, whirl in this picture captured by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter on Feb. 11.

It's eerie enough to see one whirlwind swirling across the Martian surface, but three? Get out your 3-D glasses and spot the three dust devils rising from Amazonis Planitia, as seen by the high-resolution camera aboard NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

These mini-twisters are analogous to the dust devils that are whipped up on sunny afternoons on Earth, due to the rise of hot air through a low-pressure pocket of cooler air above it. In February, the Mars orbiter spotted a couple of prominent examples of the phenomenon that rose as high as 12 miles into the Red Planet's thin atmosphere. These three dust devils aren't nearly as big, but seeing them simultaneously in one 3-D picture gives you an idea just how active the wind patterns on Mars can get.

"The active dust devils seem to float above the surface," says Arizona State University's Alfred McEwen, principal investigator for the camera, known as the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment or HiRISE. "There are also some bright lines present ... those are the tracks of dust devils that passed through this region in the prior two weeks."

For more from Mars, check out the HiRISE website — and as long as you have your 3-D glasses out, take a look at HiRISE's 3-D image gallery. What? You don't have your 3-D glasses yet? This NASA webpage lists some online vendors. While you're at it, think about picking up some sun-viewing spectacles for the May 20 annular solar eclipse. On Friday, I'll be giving away a combo pack of 3-D glasses and eclipse glasses as the prize in our weekly "Where in the Cosmos" photo contest; watch for that on the Cosmic Log Facebook page.

More about Mars:

• NASA re-creates dust devil in 3-D
• Video: Watch a Martian twister spin
• Twisty dust devil captured on Mars
• Watch a dust devil spin in the Martian arctic
• Slideshow: Greatest hits from the Red Planet

Alan Boyle is msnbc.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter or adding Cosmic Log's Google+ page to your circle. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for other worlds.