David Maitland's Image

David describes the dissected trachea of a silkmoth caterpillar as ‘a Medusa from another world’.

The trachea acts as an insect’s lungs. The branched network of tubes delivers oxygen directly to every part of the body. The tiny passageways are prevented from collapsing by hoops of chitin, a substance that gives them a ridged appearance (an insect’s exoskeleton is also made up of chitin). ‘I find the fine structure of nature fascinating,’ says David. He captured this image from an old Edwardian microscope slide, using the very high magnification of a light microscope. ‘Once I had selected the frame of view, the main challenge was to adjust the lighting to create the atmosphere that I wanted.’ Working with a very shallow depth of field and little light, he revealed the exquisite detail of a caterpillar’s life-support system, which would normally be invisible to our eyes.