Action photography including surfing, karting, motorcycles and cars is the exciting new direction that I currently follow. Bugs and macro photography somehow finds a suitable place in the busy schedule of life.
This is an ant mimic spider. The first image is for illustration purposes and the spider resembles an ant. The spider uses a pair of legs to resemble or mimic the ant's feelers/antennae. A giveaway (that it is an ant) may be the spinnerets at the hind end of the abdomen.
The second and third images show the spiders fangs and its large eyes (8 in total with the anteria median eyes being oversized). The flash "blew" out the eyes and they should be glassy smooth. Magnification was 7 times so it is never easy to get the perfect image. The spider webs are not visible to the naked eye.
Leaf mimic fly - I did find a reference to this fly on the internet, but lost my bookmark with the pc crashing. The wings / colouration (patchy brown and opaque and also translucent) assist the fly to blend in. Size of the fly - very small maybe 3 to 4mm head to tail.
Brown button spider - latrodectus geometricus - missing two front legs. Beautiful spider, but venomous.
Orange-eyed leafhopper - used maximum magnification to get the eye in focus to display the segments - downside was the blue hue that resulted. The leafhopper has a dark blue (almost black) thorax and body - I believe the blue hue came from the flash reflecting/bouncing off the side of the leaf on the right. These leafhoppers can jump - not quite a far as a flea, but I would estimate 1 metre as a fair distance. Size of the leafhopper - 3mm approx.
I had a bit of time and did some processing of the image - took a photo of this painted lady (butterfly) [Cynthia cardui] on the protected dunes at the beach. Sand and pollen grains were blowing around (see background). I drained the background colour (changed to black and white) and left the butterfly and flower in colour.
Parathiscia - so difficult to get this bug into focus all over due to the size and undulations on its wings.
The foot of a baby gecko - total length including tail - less than normal matchbox.
Jumping spider (5mm) on a ruler.
Common yellow garden weed - up close - and with a little creative licence to remove some of the "excessive yellow".
One does come across weird bugs from time to time. Here is "sweetpea" who looks kind of like a dried out peanut shell.
Sweetpea emerges from its shell.
The terrible worm with a shell on it back heads off to terrorise some other macro photographer.
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6 comments:
Love your photos. Can't pick a favourite from this bunch.
Are those needle-sharp fangs I can see on the ant-mimicking jumping spider? That's almost enough to give me nightmares. (And I really quite like spiders!)
Some really great stuff as usual, Zane. That DCR-250 is still paying off. I must admit that trying to get the leaf hoppers in focus is a substantial challenge for anyone, so very well done!
Amazing pics. These must be some of your best makros yet. I think its time you start submitting to nature magazines.
Always worth the wait for your next post! Great again... I need to pop over for lessons... if only ;-)
Thanks for a nice share you have given to us with such an large collection of information. Great work you have done by sharing them to all. simply superb. Photo Recovery
i saw a worm with a gray shell. its small and has two holes on its shell. i was searching the net. and saw it was similar to the "sweetpea". By the way what is the technical term for the sweetpea worm you were saying? I'm just so curious what kind of worm was all over our house sticking to our walls. It just might be a "sweetpea" but a different type.
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