insects
sb admin | April 27, 2009
Trimerotropis pallidipennis - Pallid-Winged Grasshopper - Arizona
Technical details:
Lens: Canon MP-E 1-5x macro lens
Body: Canon EOS 20D
Flash: Canon MT-24EX twin-flash, diffused through tracing paper
Settings: ISO 100, f/14, 1/250 sec
sb admin | April 25, 2009
Are these two ants sharing an intimate moment?
No.
This is just one of a long series of Azteca ant-plant ants I shot while they were coming and going from their nest. The ants were running every which way, sweeping their antennae about, and I just happened to push the shutter when two of them chanced to have passed each other in an anthropomorphic arrangement.
Yet this image, no more or less representative of the ants' actual behavior than the dozens of other images in the series, generates far more attention that any of the others. This is the one people like. It taps into something in…
sb admin | April 24, 2009Those of you who haven't got an ad blocker installed have probably seen this ant floating about in a promotional banner in the ScienceBlogs sidebar:
I can't speak for how others react to this image. Most, I imagine, filter it out as yet more clutter on the screen. But for a picture of an insect it's kind of personal for me, and rather odd it to see it splattered across the ScienceBlogs. Sort of like seeing photos of one's relatives in the news, or the family dog used to advertise pet food.
To set the scene, let me explain that when I took this photo I was road-tripping across southern…
sb admin | April 23, 2009
Nature photographers William & Matthew Burrard-Lucas explain the magic behind some recent images of mosquitoes emerging from their pupae.
While they list the equipment and lighting they used for the session, the key factor seems to have been the determined patience with which they watched pupae develop over two weeks so that they'd be able to catch the event in the scant 5 minutes it took to complete. Although the gadget industry does its best to convince us that photography is all about owning the latest and best gear, it remains true that the best images come from the most skilled…
sb admin | April 22, 2009
Ectatomma edentatum, Argentina
Equipment details: Canon EOS 20D, using an MP-E 65mm 1-5x lens (at 5x), lit with an MT-24EX twin flash diffused through tracing paper.
Several years ago, before I became serious about photography, I shot the same species in Paraguay with a little Nikon Coolpix 995. Here's the result:
sb admin | April 21, 2009
A Brazilian leafcutter ant (Atta sexdens) harvests a leaf while her little sister stands guard against an intrusive photographer.
(Incidentally, image searches for this genus return an unnerving mix of terrorists and ants.)
Photo details: Canon MP-E 65mm 1-5x macro lens on a Canon EOS 20D. ISO 100, f/13, 1/250 sec, twin flash diffused through tracing paper.
sb admin | April 19, 2009Compare these two images, both of the same swarm of mating ants:
What's the difference?
The lighting, of course. In the first image I stood facing the rising sun so that the insects' translucent wings glowed, while in the second I moved to shoot the swarm from another angle, the sun hitting them from the side. A much plainer result, to my eye.
Managing light is the most important aspect of photographic composition. Entire books (as well as some fantastic blogs) have been written on the subject. I can't compete with that level of detail in a short blog post, so let me instead distill the…
edyong | April 19, 2009
A large study weighs up the existing evidence on the impact of GM crops on local insect life, providing some much-needed scientific rigour to the GM debate.
In Europe, the 'GM debate' about the merits and dangers of genetically-modified (GM) crops is a particularly heated one. There is a sense of unease about the power of modern genetic technology, and a gut feeling that scientists are 'playing God'. These discontents are stoked by the anti-GM camp, who describe GM crops with laden and fear-mongering bits of unspeak like 'Frankenstein foods' and 'unnatural'.
In a debate so fuelled by…
awild | April 18, 2009
Mycocepurus smithii: an ant without males?
An image I took a couple years ago at UT Austin is featured today in Nat Geo's "Photo in the News". This laboratory nest was one of the colonies screened in Anna Himler's study to determine that the species is parthenogenetic.
One correction to the Nat Geo article. Mycocepurus are not leafcutter ants themselves but part of an earlier radiation of fungus-growers.
sb admin | April 18, 2009...these would be the beetles of choice.
Onthophagus taurus dung beetles,
showing size and horn variation among males.
Dung beetles in the widespread genus Onthophagus sport a bewildering array of horns. Not only do the horns of different species vary in shape, size, and the body part from which they grow, many species show a marked dimorphism within the males.
Consider these two male morphs of O. nigriventris, an African species:
The big guy on the right is a major male, and he does pretty much what you'd expect. He bullies his way around with shows of bravado, guarding his burrows…
sb admin | April 16, 2009
A herd of bark lice (Psocoptera: Cerastipsocus sp.) grazes lichen across a tree trunk near Córdoba, Argentina. Here's what one of the adorable little beasties looks like up close:
Technical details:
Lens: Canon MP-E 1-5x macro lens, at about 1x (top photo) and 4x (bottom photo).
Body: Canon EOS 20D
Flash: Canon MT-24EX twin-flash, diffused through tracing paper (bottom photo), or held behind tree to backlight the psocids (top photo).
Settings: ISO 100, f/13, 1/250 sec.
awild | April 16, 2009I never met Carl Rettenmeyer.
I regret this.  Rettenmeyer forms a part of my heritage as an ant photographer.  As a kid, my first exposure to army ants came through Rettenmeyer's stunning imagery in Ranger Rick magazine. His photos adorn the pages of E. O. Wilson's 1971 classic The Insect Societies as well as the later tome The Ants.  Before I ever picked up a camera, or even considered myrmecology as a career, Rettenmeyer's ants were well seared into my memory.  They still simmer there, forming a mental backdrop for thoughts of army ants.
So as a tribute of sorts, I've…
sb admin | April 16, 2009
An Amblyopone oregonensis huntress delivers a paralyzing dose of venom to a centipede. This lets the ant larvae consume it alive later, at their leisure. Ow. Ow, Ow. Yes, that is the stinger you see, sunk deep into the head.
A cricket is impaled on the mandibles of a Malagasy trap-jaw ant, Odontomachus coquereli. That's gotta hurt.
Mantids don't wait for their prey to expire before they tear them to pieces.
An aphid receives the egg of a braconid wasp (Aphidius ervi).
But that's probably better than getting your innards suddenly schlorped out by a syrphid fly larva.
edyong | April 15, 2009Autumn is a time of incredible beauty, when the world becomes painted in the red, orange and yelllow palette of falling leaves. But there may be a deeper purpose to these colours, and the red ones in particular. In the eyes of some scientists, they aren't just decay made pretty - they are a tree's way of communicating with aphids and other insects that would make a meal of it. The message is simple: "I am strong. Don't try it."
During winter, trees withdraw the green chlorophyll from their leaves, and textbooks typically say that autumn colours are produced by the pigments that are left…
sb admin | April 14, 2009
Aedes triseriatus, Eastern Treehole Mosquito (Larva)
I have a symbiotic relationship with other scientists. They let me in on their cutting-edge studies, giving me and my camera unfettered access to their charismatic little subjects. When the research is published and the science press picks up the breaking story my photos go along for the ride, sometimes garnering license fees. If the story is big enough, the photos are also positioned for the textbook market. In return, the researchers get photos that help them promote their work in talks and on laboratory web pages.
On Monday I…
sb admin | April 13, 2009Fire ants aren't the only formicids that have to worry about parasitoid phorid flies. Many species are hosts to this diverse fly family.
Below are a pair of photos I took recently near Jujuy, Argentina showing a trio of an unidentified Pseudacteon species hovering over an ant nest. One of the flies hit her target, inserting her ovipositor between the ant's abdominal sclerites.
I don't say this about all my images, but these shots were truly lucky. The flies are much smaller (1mm) and more erratic than the phorids I posted previously. The oviposition itself took a fraction of a second,…
sb admin | April 12, 2009With 12,000 described species, ants dominate global terrestrial ecosystems. Here are a few of them.
Name: Nothomyrmecia macrops
Distribution: Australia
Famous for: The story of its rediscovery (As told by Bill Bryson- scroll down)
Name: Dinoponera australis
Distribution: South America
Famous for: being the largest ant in the western hemisphere
Name: Polyergus sp.
Distribution: North America
Famous for: piracy, taking of prisoners
Name: Dorylus helvolus
Distribution: Africa
Famous for: terrorizing subterranean arthropods, taking of no prisoners
Name: Pogonomyrmex maricopa…
sb admin | April 12, 2009Whirligig beetles inhabit the interface between air and water. The series below depicts Dineutes sublineatus, a large species common in the mountain streams of Arizona.
Whirligigs are named for their habit of swimming in frenetic loops along the water's surface, a behavior that makes them difficult to photograph in the field. To get these shots, forgive me, I cheated.
I set up a 10 gallon aquarium in the relative comfort of my living room. This not only confined the beetles to an area small enough that I stood a reasonable chance of capturing one in focus, I was also near both the…
sb admin | April 10, 2009In Argentina, an ant-decapitating fly (Pseudacteon sp.) attempts to separate a fire ant (Solenopsis sp.) from her nestmates:
More photos- and the story behind them- below.
An ant burdened with prey is the easiest target of all:
The ants aren't defenseless. The classic "run-and-hide" works well enough:
What's the deal with the dreaded Ant-Decapitating Flies? The University of Texas Fire Ant Project explains:
"Female phorid flies are attracted to fire ants swarming over a disturbed mound or foraging along a trail to food. They hover over ants looking for a preferred individual. (Each…
edyong | April 10, 2009We get a lot of information from watching other people. We read reviews, we follow links to recommended websites and we listen when our friends vouch for strangers. The opinions of strangers may even be a better guide to the things that make us happy than our own predictions. But humans aren't the only species to make decisions based on information gleaned from our peers - even animals as supposedly simple as flies can do the same.
Frederic Mery from LEGS (the Laboratory of Evolution, Genomes and Speciation) studied the fly Drosophila melanogaster and found that females have a tendency to…