The beauty and diversity of moths is often overlooked in favour of their more colourful ‘cousin’, the butterfly.
But the University of Aberdeen’s Kevin Mackenzie has produced an image of a moth so striking that it has won a prestigious award.
The manager of the Institute of Medical Science’s Microscopy and Cellular Imaging Facility used a scanning electron microscope to capture in detail the wing surface of a Madagascan moon moth.
To further enhance the intricate pattern and texture of the moth’s wing scales he added a green tint to the black and white image.
Kevin is among 21 winners of the Wellcome Image Awards 2011 – ‘a story behind every picture’.
The Awards celebrate the most striking and technically excellent images acquired by the Wellcome Images picture library* in the past 18 months.
Kevin said: “I’m absolutely delighted my image has been selected as one of this year’s winners, especially to be compared with the other amazing images on display.”
The 20 winning images and one animation were selected by a panel of judges including anatomist, author and science broadcaster Alice Roberts, medical correspondent at the BBC Fergus Walsh, picture editor at The Guardian Eric Hilaire, and TV presenter, science writer and multimedia editor at Nature magazine Dr Adam Rutherford, who also presented the awards.
The awards ceremony was held last week at the Wellcome Collection in London where the images will be on display until July 10. Images can also be viewed online.