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Category Archives: Featured Photos
Pendant Cocoon
January 26, 2010 | Caraça Natural Park, Minas Gerais, Brazil
I really have no idea what’s responsible for this odd sweptback cocoon.
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Spittlebugs sans Spittle
January 26, 2010 | Caraça Natural Park, Minas Gerais, Brazil
Isn’t it cool to see these normally hidden spittlebugs exposed like this?
These spittlebugs surprised me by having no bubbles present to camouflage them. I have a few theories about what’s going on here, but it’s all speculation.
Their orange color suggests they might be unappetizing in some way. Or maybe that sap flow itself is poisonous. Of course, they drink it, but that doesn’t mean they haven’t evolved an immunity and that the toxin isn’t broken down once ingested.
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Late Summer Luna Moth
Twelvestones, Roswell, GA, USA | August 22, 2010
I spotted this luna moth while returning from a walk in a nearby park. It was at the base of some landscape timbers, maybe having just eclosed. I coaxed it onto a finger and brought it home. I picked these grass blades as a perch and took a variety of photos.
After dark I found a spot where I could get the nearly full moon in the photo. There’s no way to get both the moth and the moon in focus at the same time, so I simply took one photo with the moon in focus and another with the moth in focus, and then combined them digitally.
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Pumped Up Snout Beetle
January 26, 2010 | Caraça Natural Park, Minas Gerais, Brazil
This one looks like it has been doing push-ups on that leaf. Check out those foreleg femurs!
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Patterns in Beech Leaves
Looking up from a forest trail at a nearby nature center, I saw the leaves of a beech tree backlit by the afternoon sun. I picked off a few of the interesting ones and held them by hand so as to take some closeups. I find the patterns interesting in the same way ink blots are interesting.
What do you see in these abstract images?
Flames? | Twelvestones, Roswell, GA, USA | September 5, 2010
Mandelbrot Fractal Set?
Stained glass window?
Leaf within a leaf?
What do you see?
Can anyone explain what’s going on here? Is this how leaves start to turn in the fall? A disease of some sort?
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Dagger Fly with Prey
Awhile back, Alex Wild posted some shots of dagger flies. I commented at the time that I had recently seen and photographed the flies, but didn’t know what they were. Thanks, Alex, for saving me the effort of figuring out what I photographed here.
May 22, 2010 | Twelvestones, Roswell, GA, USA
I can’t make out what it has captured, a beetle maybe?
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Resigned Parasitized Caterpillar
September 5, 2010 | Twelvestones, Roswell, GA, USA
This caterpillar from a nearby park with head held low seems resigned to its fate as a parasitoid host. OK, I know that’s a normal position — allow me to anthropomorphise a bit.
You can see some white eggs on its back. I assume a tachinid fly left those, placing them close enough to the head that they couldn’t be removed.
In this next image, you can see there are also some already hatched eggs, sealing this little guy’s doom.
Closeup showing hatched eggs
I know tachinid fly larvae have breathing tubes that pierce the host’s skin. Could those long fibers amongst the eggs be those breathing tubes? I wouldn’t think they would be so long. I’m more inclined to think those are just bits of debris that maybe got stuck to whatever holds the eggs in place.
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Assassin Bug Mimicking Bee
January 26, 2010 | Caraça Natural Park, Minas Gerais, Brazil
Tropical assassin bugs come in an amazing variety of forms. This one reminds me of a bee, though I didn’t see anything on my trip that might serve as a model. Despite extensive searching of the internet, I didn’t turn up any photos of a species resembling this individual.
A couple of my books do mention assassin bugs that mimic bees and wasps, so I think that’s probably what’s going on here.
[book:0962515019]
[book:0520078497]
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Snout Beetle with Orange Bands
January 26, 2010 | Caraça Natural Park, Minas Gerais, Brazil
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White-spotted Leafhopper
January 26, 2010 | Caraça Natural Park, Minas Gerais, Brazil
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