I was looking through a magazine today that had a lot of close-up pictures of bugs, and as usual the colors were distorted to polarized-looking (is that the phrase?) blue and brown shades. But only now did the question hit me: just why are close-up pictures of bugs colored like this? Any help would be appreciated.
Depends how close up it is and what type of microscopy has been used.
The colour of many “bugs” is due to the refraction of light through various structures on/in the cuticle. Many of the gaudy, irridescent green and blue colours for example aren’t actually green but are actually the result of light diffraction. When viewed in close up the colour effect is lost somewhat, leading to strange shades.
There is also types of light microscopy called polarisation and difraction microscopy, where the light is run through a polarised filter or played on the subject indirectly to highlight patterns in what is being viewed. Commonly used for viewing things like the scales of insects, it produces some very stange colour effects.
However the most likely cause is that you’re looking at an electron micrograph. These aren’t real photographs, but electronically rendered images produced by the pattern of electrons bouncing off the insect. Any colours seen in these photographs are also not real, but added by a computer to aid in studying the specimen. If the close-up is real extreme, like you can see the hairs on their faces, it’s probably an electron micrograph.
If you could find an online picture with the same type of colour we’d be able to offer a much more definite answer.