Attracted a rather late Red Admiral butterfly to my sugar honey sprayed camelia leaves the other day. It allowed me to get reasonably close with the MPE-65 lens. These have very hairy eyes !

Brian V.

Fantastic images Brian.
Do you have any of the wing patterns?
Seems like 'our' supreme macro efforts concentrate solely on the eyes of our critters and a lot of the visual beauty is lost?
But from an inquiring mind, why do they have hairy eyeballs?
Bruce

Excellent sequence Brian

Thanks Bruce and John for the comments

Bruce - not got any good closeups of the wing patterns on this butterfly- they are normally fairly hard to close to - but one below, - have managed it a few times with comma butterflies which are a bit easier to get close to (see below).
Not actually seen any definitive evidence on the hairy eyeballs of some butterflies and other insects but it does seem to occur mostly in insects that come into close contact with pollen and i suspect it is a method of stopping pollen sticking to the eye surface - easier to clean off if it is on some hairs.

Brian V.

Wow,
Those wing close-ups are insane! Kinda like fish scales and animal hairs all joined in one? Madness, but I would certainly bet there is a very valid reason for it?
BTW, the hairy eyeball theory that you have is certainly plausible. . .great idea.
Bruce

Last frame is gorgeous. By the by, its' 'tongue' appears to be pretty hairy too.

Kenny

Thanks Kenny

Brian v.

The pattern on the bf's eye is mesmerising.

GillR wrote:
The pattern on the bf's eye is mesmerising.
Thanks Gill
Brian v.

Great series, my favs are the last one, I like the abstract sense on that one, and the fourth, excellent close up work. Well done.

FerBatista wrote:
Great series, my favs are the last one, I like the abstract sense on that one, and the fourth, excellent close up work. Well done.

Thanks for looking and commenting
Brian v.

wow - great images, that last shot is like an electron microscope - super detail.

best

steve

Oh so very nice. Brian...the fidelity of these images are amazing!

-Roy

Thanks Steve and Roy for the comments
Brian v.