The crane fly is an amazing creature close up, those huge eyes, the complexity of the sensory organs and the elephantine front of the thorax are never suspected when someone casually swats the life from one.
These are the parts responsible for the click beetles huge jumping ability which is equivalent to a human jumping about 120 feet vertically from a standstill. The beetle is upside down here, the prong is on the thorax, the grooved plate on the head. At a sign of danger the prong is inserted into the recess of the plate groove, the muscles tighten to tension the two together and then the beetle straightens again to part the two. With the pressure between the two, release when it comes is violent, the prong and plate tips striking the surface with force propelling the beetle into the air. When the beetle is inverted as here, escaping is the same, but it's the tips of the head and abdomen that strike the surface.
Above, the head of a garden spider, its eight eyes just visible, four in a centre group, two to the right, and the two to the left just possible to see at the edge
At the right, a tiny leaf beetle crosses the ravine between a fingernail and tip.
At the left, a silverfish head and feelers.
Crane fly photo by a cheap computer microscope; click beetle, spider and silverfish with HP 850 digital camera fitted with 10x and 7x Tiffen close up lenses, Pentax Optio S digital camera used hand held for the leaf beetle.
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