In-vivo imaging of developing wings in butterfly pupa by using optical coherence tomography

Optical coherence tomography (OCT) is a non-invasive tomographic imaging technique and has been extensively used in biomedical and histological studies. Using OCT, we have succeeded, for the first time, in visualizing a developing wing in a butterfly pupa. Comparing the cross sections of the pupa in each stage of development with those obtained by using conventional invasive methods, we have obtained overall agreement between these different methodologies. Although the spatial resolution is by far inferior, it should be emphasized that OCT essentially offers real-time information.