As a studying entomologist, I enjoy any chance to go into full bug-geek mode.
Mini-Monsters was the perfect chance. This app is an amazing collection of highly detailed imagery of insects, arachnids, and a few other groups of small animals. Each photo has been taken with and electron microscope and then professionally colored. While that’s all the app has to offer, I still feel it’s extremely impressive. Sure, you could probably find about half these images (or something similar) on a Google Image Search, although it would be very hard to find perfect information on each file (like who took the image, and a comprehensive, detailed description of what you’re looking at).
The app allows you to search, filter and view the images separated by animal group, and even tag images as favorites to easily look up later or watch in a slideshow. Each high-resolution image is extremely detailed and has a very descriptive title and additional information accessible by taping on the screen. You can also zoom into each image very closely to examine specific details.
There’s not much more I can really say about Mini-Monsters except that it’s something that can be very fun to share with children or a very neat resource for students of all levels. In fact, I even used it on an honors project in my Microbiology course that I’m doing on dust mite densities to help me identify genera better.
If you are as obsessive as I am about tiny little critters, be sure to pick up Mini-Monsters to see them more on their level.
