Beauty, magnified.

@beautymagnified

Just my own little catalog of beautiful/awesome pictures of things that we don't get to see (at least not in much detail) with the naked eye. This includes microscopy, macro photography and marine photography (macro or otherwise). If invertebrates are not your thang, press "back" before you see anything icky, because that is mostly what this tumblr focuses on. Feel free to send submissions!

884 posts

Posts

1i by Pathology Outlines on Flickr.

unfortunately the photographer or poster of this image declined to give any info, so i have no idea what this is, but it sure are purdy.

Worm King by Alexander Semenov on Flickr.

I've shared this one before, and will continue to do so every time i see it because this creature is simply magnificent.

Cestum veneris by Alexander Semenov on Flickr.

i mean what even

Pegea confoederata by Alexander Semenov on Flickr.

Trachipterus trachypterus by Alexander Semenov on Flickr.

Alexander Semenov's work continues to be some of my absolute favorite photography. 😍

Grumpy Cusk Eel NOAA Ocean Explorer on flickr

Marbled Newt (Triturus marmoratus)

bogleech

This is the clearest photo I have ever seen of a leech’s teeth.

Nearly all fictional leeches mistakenly have a whole ring of teeth in a gaping mouth but the real thing has an almost microscopic throat opening - they only drink liquid, after all.

(my website’s front page leech is a monster anyway)

bogleech

The tooth ring thing is definitely confusion with lampreys, though there’s a bit more to them than that, too. The assumption a lot of cartoons have is that an iris of teeth closes up to bite into the skin, but what lampreys have is kind of like a “scrubby brush” of teeth they use to scrape away their host’s flesh. Their actual mouth opening is also very small, and has “upper” and “lower” beak-like teeth in it!

Here’s a photo but I know they’re super trypophobic to a lot of people so I’m tagging:

You can see how there isn’t really a “ring of fangs” to bite down with but just a whole beautiful expanse of teeth for rasping and scraping.

I’ve mentioned this before but the closest thing in nature to that cartoon iris ring of fangs are the five teeth of a sea urchin. This tooth structure’s common name is “Aristotle’s Lantern:”