They look out of this world...
Reporter LOOKING like alien creatures from a galaxy far, far away, these could have come straight from a sci-fit film.
But far from being the stuff of nightmares, these critters can be found in any North East garden.
These incredible 3D images capture never-before-seen detail of common insects such as house flies, beetles and moths.
Engineer Alan Shaw, of South Shields, uses an electron microscope to magnify the images by 300 times, revealing extraordinary detail.
Alan spent 20 years in the Royal Navy where he worked his way up to chief weapons officer.
After leaving the navy, the 57-year-old used his technical expertise to work as an engineer, and then grew his interest in taking these incredible pictures.
He said: “It was while I was working with microscopes that I first saw this style of picture. I thought they looked interesting and wanted to do it, so I developed a hobby on the side. I find bugs and insects interesting.
“I’ve seen people taking pictures of them before but never portraits where you can see such detail in their facial features. I’ve always liked science fiction and Alien is my favourite film. It blew me away when I first saw it.
“And when I first started doing this I saw real similarities between these bugs and Alien. These pictures could be from a sci-fi film.”
And the level of detail in Alan’s pictures wowed even seasoned experts.
He added: “The detail is extraordinary. It’s other worldly, you do not expect to be able to see this detail. When I showed these to experts they couldn’t tell me the exact species because they had never seen them in such detail before.”
He says what most impresses him with the images is the ‘engineering’ they reveal on their subjects.
For example, Alan said, when he first captured a weevil the