Like a mother ship from another galaxy, these images of a queen European wasp and her brood have emerged during National Science Week, a celebration of science in Australia.
Revealing internal workings of one of nature's brilliant architects, the nest's interior was taken with computer technology that makes paper cells invisible, allowing the queen wasp's brood to be seen clearly.
Canberra biologist Dr Philip Spradbery, who is studying chemical communication in colonies of the social wasp, collected the nest from under the eaves of a home in O'Connor, and stored it frozen until scanned at the Australian National University.
Dr Spradbery has collaborated with a physicist and a computer genius from the Australian National University to produce these images, which appear in his latest scientific paper published by the Royal Entomological Society of London.
"It is not often that three disparate scientific disciplines can get together informally and produce something that one can appreciate and enjoy," Dr Spradbery said.
ANU department of applied mathematics physicist Michael Turner used high-resolution X-ray computerised tomography scanning to scan an image of the nest.
Researcher Ajay Limaye from the ANU's national computational infrastructure generated 3D images and animations from the radiographs. Each wasp nest scan generated billions of data points that were imported into the super-computer which enhanced contrast and added colour.
The images provide a dramatic demonstration of the power of the computerised tomography scan, with larvae and pupae in their invisible cells and the eggs appearing as satellites in space. The highlighted queen and her daughters, the adult worker wasps, are clearly visible at the bottom of the nest.
