Wonderful Welded Wire Insect (with Spiral Tongue!) antique laboratory that’s how I see it

that’s how I see it

postage stamp

definitely made more so for the toll the years have taken on them

I believe the wood is walnut but am not entirely certain

Wonderful Welded Wire Insect (with Spiral Tongue!) antique laboratory that’s how I see itAt first I thought perhaps this was meant to be a cicada, but now I think maybe a long tongued fly; really, that long spiral out front is like the rolled tongue of a butterfly, or that of a salamander! Whatever the case, quite a wonderful bug it is, I think, composed of what looks to me a combination of iron, steel and copper wire creatively and dexterously welded together, with a lovely delicacy that comes especially from the treatment of the wings,