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B.N. (Bobbie) Sullivan has a strong affinity for the sea and everything in it. She first learned to dive in 1970 and has since logged thousands of dives. A wish to document the marine life she encountered prompted her to learn underwater photography more than 20 years ago. More recently, she began to write about the marine life she has photographed. A research psychologist by profession, she approaches her subject matter with the mindset of a scientist, but targets her writing to a general readership in whom she hopes to foster an appreciation for the ocean and its inhabitants.
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Alex Wild is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign where he works on the molecular phylogenetics of various groups of insects. He is also a part-time photographer whose images appear in such venues as Ranger Rick, Smithsonian, BBC Wildlife, and even ScienceBlogs.
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Category: Insects • Photography
Posted on: May 4, 2009 9:50 AM, by Alex Wild
Lens: Canon 100mm f2.8 macro lens
Body: Canon EOS D60 dSLR
Flash: Canon 550 EX, bounced off white paper above mantid
Settings: ISO 100, f/19, 1/200 sec
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Comments
Cute 'cockroach'! =D
(still not over the whole mantids being in Dictyoptera with 'roaches and termites thing...I thought they were Orthoptera for the longest time >_> )
Posted by: Psi Wavefunction | May 4, 2009 11:53 AM
They´re actually very cockroach-like: Elongate, mobile prothorax and coxae (first leg section), thin filiform antennae, big compound eyes, placing of eggs in oothecae (egg cases)... they also share the same type of wing, and there are transitional mantis/roach fossils preserved in amber.
Pretty interesting relationship methinks!
Posted by: TEO | May 4, 2009 1:34 PM
Just curious--how many shots did you take of this cutie? Do you tend to snap away for a bit and examine later, or take a relative few, look some over, and stop when you have some keepers?
Yes, I am a nosy person.
Posted by: Anon | May 4, 2009 1:39 PM
Anon- It's been a few years so my memory of the shoot is a little fuzzy, but as I recall I did at least a hundred or so exposures. I shoot a few, then check, shoot a few, then check. I move on once I get a couple of keepers, usually.
For this mantis I tried a variety of compositions, some on a passionflower, some on a lily, some on an iris, some against a plain green backdrop, some close-in, etc. For each setting I shot until I had a few good ones.
Posted by: Alex | May 4, 2009 10:35 PM
Thanks!
I think I will start to appreciate nature photography even more now--we normally only get to see the finished product, and it looks so good, it makes one (well me, anyway) kind of overlook the tremendous amount of effort, practice, and skill that goes into these wonderful images.
Posted by: Anon | May 4, 2009 10:59 PM
On the other hand, after I took this shot- which was casual and only minimally planned- I spent about 60 more exposures trying to improve on it. Not one was the equal of the first.
Posted by: Alex | May 4, 2009 11:06 PM
Alex
That photo was not taken at our place:-)
Posted by: Keith | May 5, 2009 6:11 AM
Crickets are close to roaches, too, but I don't hold it against them. (It's difficult for anyone who's spent part of their impressionable youth in roach-ridden city apartments to be objective about them.)
When you were photographing the mantis, did it ever exhibit its camouflage behavior of extending its arms straight forward and flattening itself against the stalk it was sitting on? I saw one do this against a cornstalk in my garden once and have never forgotten it. Very effective protective maneuver - if I hadn't been so close and actually seen the movement, I probably wouldn't have seen the mantis at all.
Posted by: Li'l Innocent | May 5, 2009 2:25 PM
I've always had a soft spot for mantids, ever since I was a little kid growing up in northern Connecticut and terrifying the bigger kids by waving live mature Mantis religiosa and Tenodera sinensis in their faces. :-)
It's amazing how placid they always appear, even when devouring their prey.
Posted by: Julie Stahlhut | May 5, 2009 9:57 PM