Northern House Mosquito - ♀

Culex pipiens, Culicidae
Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada
Nikon D5100, 105 mm f/2.8
November 2, 2018

Accidentally saw this neat effect when photographing some mosquitos for Dan Peach. It looks a bit like the eyeshine you get from butterflies where light enters the eye, travels down the rhabdom where it interacts with pigments (visual and otherwise), is reflected by the tapetum at the bottom of the retina, and travels back through the rhabdom and exits the eye (see Stavenga 2002, Fig. 3). Flies lack a tapetum so I think what’s going is the structure of the compound eye is acting as a diffraction grating. This is the prism like effect is seen in LCD screens reflections and is commonly used in spectrometers