ABOVE: A Peruvian pseudoscorpion imaged using the Mesolens light microscope
GAIL MCCONNELL, ROSS PIPER, AND DAVID WILCOCKSON
Researchers from the U.K. are using a novel confocal microscope, called Mesolens, to look inside a previously unknown pseudoscorpion found in Peru by Ross Piper and David Wilcockson of Aberystwyth University. The microscope, developed by Gail McConnell at the University of Strathclyde and her colleagues, can view structures within the cells of big organisms, without having to cut into them.
McConnell’s team used a fluorescent dye to visualize the nuclei within the cells and a chemical treatment to make the insides of the pseudoscorpion—a scorpion lookalike—visible through the exoskeleton. Laser scanning was used to examine sections of the organism at various depths and the above image was created by stacking 180 such snapshots.
