Shared Moment: Beam Me Up

An otherworldly antlered fly appears in all its glory

Photograph by Gil Wizen
PhotoZone
Jun 01, 2018

LOOKING EVERY BIT the extraterrestrial, this antlered fly is an earthly being from Ecuador—yet it proved elusive for Canadian entomologist Gil Wizen. Less than a third of an inch long, these “skittish” flies dwell under leaves in the cloud forest. Applying a technique called focus stacking, Wizen combined several frames to create this detailed portrait of bulging red eyes with their protruding antlers above a shiny black thorax. “It took me four years to get the photo I wanted,” says Wizen. His persistence paid off.

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