South American Flea Beetles

I created these illustrations for a USDA entomologist while working as an intern at the Smithsonian institution, taking instruction from an experienced scientific illustrator. This project required me to match the style of other illustrations completed for the same book, following an established procedure to create accurate, descriptive depictions of these flea beetle paratypes.

Each beetle is only millimeters in length. I closely studied them under a microscope to represent the size and distribution of punctations and setae, the number and length of antennae segments, and the shape, color, and luster of the body.