Insects wings

Like butterflies, different species of fruit flies decorate their wings with a great diversity of spots and patterns. Digging deep into a single gene that produce pigmentation in the flies, a group led by UW-Madison biologist Sean Carroll has found the molecular switches that control where the pigmentation is deployed. The finding explains how common genes can be controlled to produce the seemingly endless array of patterns, decoration and body architecture found in animals.

cicada wings Make these etsy.com/shop/OnceUponaTimeCo

Dog-day cicada wings, imaged on a scanner

The other species of cicada I saw on Barro Colorado island, Panama. When newly metamorphosed it is similar in appearance to the first species, but there are a few differences like eye colr, size, body hair, head shape, etc... This species maintains prettier colors afterwards in comparison to the duller tones on the first species.

This guy is just 5 minutes old. I released him when his neon green wings and disco gold body hardened, turning to a dark brown and bronze-green. The cicadas are a superfamily, the Cicadoidea, of insects in the order Hemiptera. They are in the suborder Auchenorrhyncha, along with smaller jumping bugs such as leafhoppers and froghoppers

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An informal, yet informative meander in and around the animal kingdom