On a wing and a prayer: the hidden beauty of insect’s flight – in pictures

For the past decade, the Barcelona-based visual artist Xavi Bou has devoted his work to revealing “the hidden beauty of natural movement”. His initial focus was birds; now he’s moved on to insects. In collaboration with US entomologist Adrian Smith he’s created an eye-popping series that captures – by merging multiple frames into a single image – the rhythmic flutterings of butterflies and chaotic leaps of spittlebugs and treehoppers. As well as their beauty, Bou was struck by the crucial role that insects play in ecosystems, even as their numbers plummet – it’s estimated that the biomass of flying insect species has decreased by 75% over the past 27 years. “We need to move beyond seeing insects as mere nuisances,” says Bou. “They are fascinating, essential creatures, and we owe them a great deal.”