Liquid crystal
Face of a clothes moth with its antennae projecting up to the left and the labial palps down to the right. Its compound eyes are just outside the antennae. The moth’s surface is covered with various types of scales. Scales are small rigid plates that cover an animal’s body. They have very different structures and functions in insects, fish and reptiles.
Imaged using scanning electron microscopy by Darren Brown, University of Queensland.
Size: the area in the image is 4.1 millimetres wide.
