Origins

Although the origins of Life are muddied in secular and scientific controversy, it remains a beautiful thing to simply behold at the micro scale where a whole dimension of Nature lies in store to explore…

This selection of amateur photomicrographs tells the story of Life’s origins and diversity in order to attempt a brief snapshot of it’s beginnings, with an emphasis on how the microscopic world reflects Nature on the “macroscopic” level we take for granted daily with the naked eye:

Our story of animal and plant life begins with chromosomal DNA and a glimpse of the photosynthetic algae that represents the origins of multicellular complexity – tracing the emergence of cell division through an individual parasitic worm egg mid-division to a snapshot of onion root tip cells actively dividing…

Specialised insect structures then follow, with a glimpse at the minute ridged scales of butterfly wings, that mirror a forest scene, and the eye and surface of an ant mirroring that of an ancient tree or that of an elephant, through to the branching tubules of a fly’s mouthparts, the stubby leg of a silkworm larva and the feathered barbs of a mosquito sting. In the mouthparts of a butterfly we are reminded of a fingerprint…

Primordial specialised animal tissues then emerge, exemplified by fish gills, and our story culminates in early embryology of the chicken (with visible gill slits at this early stage of development), to reiterate how Nature has conserved and expanded upon the patterns of its design principles between species:

The spinal chord of a mouse finally caps out the conclusion to the story and hints at the remarkable structural complexity of mammals.