The huge flea

This is probably the most famous of all the drawings in Micrographia, filling a fold out-page 43cm by 33cm – around 150 times the size of an actual flea. Hooke shows real admiration for ‘the strength and beauty of this small creature’, commenting on the unique way its leg joints can fold and spring, and describing its good looks: ‘all over adorn’d with a curiously polished suit of sable armour, neatly jointed, and beset with multitudes of sharp pins, shaped almost like porcupine’s quills, or bright conical steel-bodkins.’