Chrysalis of Gulf Fritillary, Agraulis vanillae,
Nelson Farms Preserve, Katy Prairie Conservancy, Texas.
NABA Butterfly Count, 10 September 2006.
This is a case of mimicry where the chrysalis resembles bird poop.
Image: Biosparite.
I am receiving so many gorgeous pictures from you, dear readers, that I am overwhelmed by the beauty of the images and the creatures and places in them. If you have a high-resolution digitized nature image (I prefer JPG format) that you'd like to share with your fellow readers, feel free to email it to me, along with information about the image and how you'd like it to be credited.
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More like this
Gulf Fritillary, Agraulis vanillae incarnata.
A Gulf Fritillary basks in the sun in early afternoon at the West 11th St. Park in Houston on 12 November 2006. It was cool the previous Sunday with temperatures in the 60s, so this butterfly, an ectotherm, was warming its wing muscles in the sun…
Green Tree Frogs, Hyla cinerea.
Nelson Farms Preserve, KPC, NABA Butterfly Count, 4 September 2006.
Biosparite writes; For the sake of completeness, here is the entire frog photo from an earlier image. The male is supposed to be smaller than the females. Color is variable, but the paler specimen…
Mystery Caterpillar on Gaura,
Nelson Farms Preserve, Katy Prairie Conservancy, Texas.
NABA Butterfly Count, 4 September 2006.
Image: Biosparite.
I thought this image was appropriate for the day, given this caterpillar's sporty Hallowe'en stripes.
If you have a high-resolution digitized nature…
Green Tree Frog, Hyla cinerea.
Nelson Farms Preserve, Katy Prairie Conservancy, Texas.
NABA Butterfly Count, 4 September 2006.
Image: Biosparite.
If you have a high-resolution digitized nature image that you'd like to share with your fellow readers, feel free to email it to me, along with…
@ biosparite:
those are some pictures grrlscientist has posted that you took. i'm camera and photographically challenged, but what kind of camera(s) are you using?
(and how do you get dragonflies and butterflies to sit still and pose when you are that close? do you train them to do that? ;))
"some excellent pictures"
(i'm also adjectively challenged)
Jamie,
The camera is a Fuji Finepix S-5200, which I like and which is relatively inexpensive ($359 or so with a decent-sized flashcard) (I'm not sure flashcard is the right word anymore). I think the color saturation/fidelity are excellent with this camera. It also has a crisp, telephoto macro zoom that allows one to stand off a bit from the subject. My only complaint is that LCD screens do not serve as even a poor substitute for a bright SLR focusing mirror and that one's ability to take effective, manual control of focus is, therefore, severely compromised. Also this and many other digital point-'n'-shoots will not reach out and grab some of the thinnest damselflies or smallest bees. But I still manage. I am tempted to say I put a hoodoo on my subjects to freeze them, but it is really just patience and determination. One excellent feature of Finepix digital cameras that I have handled is that one can crop the photo using the camera software on the camera's LCD screen. I also must salute the professionalism of the Fuji marketing folks in Dallas, who not only talked with me at length about their products but also lent me by mail a Finepix S-5000 last year when local photoshops in Houston did not have a display model for me to play with. I am now contemplating the purchase of a Fuji digital SLR with some various lenses.