I know, I know, I go from bugs to snakes – more of a lateral move instead of an improvement, but chill something else may be coming soon.
I see about one of these a year, and it seems to be about this time, too. I’m not aware of anything that would make rough green snakes (Opheodrys aestivus) appear in early autumn, so I’m going to guess this is only coincidental. I found
Most likely a white-banded crab spider (Misumenoides formosipes) with an unidentified hymenoptera. Good luck for the spider, bad luck for the bee. Taken on a shamrock plant that The Girlfriend’s Younger Sprog had obtained this past March. And since she doesn’t like spiders, probably better that she’s at college now…
I got my timing down the other day, and caught a set of lady beetle eggs as they hatched. The eggs are 1.2mm in length – yes, I have a loupe with a micrometer scale – so the details you’re seeing here are pretty fine. As you can see, the larva are visible through the translucent shells.
Hatching isn’t quick by any stretch, but it can still happen entirely while you’re
I came across this image in my stock yesterday and liked the abstract that could be created from a tight crop, especially since I missed prime focus.
Of course you recognized this as the fingers of a ring-tailed lemur, taken while visiting the Duke Lemur Center in Durham, NC. It just goes to show you that even with appropriate subjects, I just can’t do “cute.”
A related story:
In all seriousness, I don’t strictly photograph bugs, and I’m more than happy to do some mammals and cute critters, but I haven’t been coming across many recently. I’ll dig through older slides for something furry pretty soon, I promise.
But even when I tackle the “cuter” bugs, the bare truth is, they’re not always cute. The insects known
You might remember the above image from a post earlier this year. It came from April, when several newly-hatched praying mantises, probably Chinese mantises (Tenodera aridifolia sinensis) were found to be inhabiting the azalea bushes that flanked our porch. I was, of course, delighted,
So, here’s the story: I was out just a few minutes ago chasing a crab spider, because the lack of ambient light meant I could observe its actions without it being spooked by my looming presence. A macro flashlight mounted on the camera allowed me to see what was going on, focus decently, and so on – the spider would only see the rather erratic sun bouncing around.
The light, however,
I had started this post a little earlier, and then realized that it was referring back to a post from almost exactly a year ago, so I delayed it to make it line up. Humans do stupid things like that ;-)
Once again this year, the inchworm stage of the wavy-lined emerald moth (Synchlora aerata) has made its appearance on the flowers in the yard, and when I say “appearance,” I mean
I just had to upload this one, partially to break up two posts that are far too similar. But this is me doing my “Snow White” thing while setting up some shots the other day. A butterfly (I can’t be bothered to determine the species) alighted on my left bicep and stayed there for no small amount of time, tapping its way down my arm with its proboscis. While I suspect
On the same day that I snagged the eentsy frog seen here, I collected a significant number of other pics (of course.) There might even be another forthcoming post out of the one-hour casual trip, but right now, I’m going to concentrate on just one plant. Not one plant species, but one solitary
