Developmental Biology in the Ocean 2014: A larval Space Odyssey

While playing around with different illumination techniques, I stumbled across the sci-fi wonder of the dark-field, a technique which makes every subject look like the cover of an Orson Scott Card novel. Dark-field, which works by focusing only the light scattered by the subject, is a great way to image unstained/living animals. These little living space ships gain an otherworldly aspect, and one can being to admire their sleek design. The long arms of a D. excentricus swing wide, like an x-wing on an attack run while the prominent gut of P. giganteus looks like a giant star-drive, flanked by the twin fuel-tank coeloms. The prismatic colors and shallow depth-of-field make each larvae look simultaneously red and blue-shifted, as if we've caught them mid hyperspace jump. Cool stuff.