photo details: Tamron 11-18mm F/4.5-5.6 wide angle zoom on a Canon EOS 7D polarizing filter ISO 125, f/5.6, 1/500 sect
Posts from ‘April, 2011’
Friday Beetle Blogging: An Early Soldier
The first soldier beetle of spring, in eastern North America, is often Atalantycha bilineata. This one was perched along the grape hyacinths in our meadow garden. As an exercise in perspective, look at the difference in visual effect is when the same individual, in the same pose, is photographed from the side: photo details: Canon MP-E [...]
Another cover
Original here. Back in the day I would correspond with photo editors about the particulars of a photo licensing arrangement. I’d email a file or two over, we’d have a back and forth, I’d write up an invoice, and a few weeks later I’d walk to the bank and cash a check. All told I [...]
Household pest insects
Because I get a lot of requests for pest insect pictures, I’ve created a new gallery: Household Pests Rather than the untrammeled nature I usually shoot, this collection is a bestiary of roaches, mice, flour beetles, bed bugs, ants, termites, and other creatures that enjoy the great indoors.
Failed Photography: The Worst of Myrmecos
[I've been getting plenty of fan mail recently. So I thought I might stem the tide by reposting The Worst of Myrmecos, from 2008] I have thousands of absolutely awful photographs on my hard drive. I normally delete the screw-ups on camera as soon as they happen, but enough seep through that even after the [...]
Answer to the Monday Night Mystery
Yesterday’s challenge was conquered in record time- just under 2 minutes. Chris Grinter, of The Skeptical Moth, noted that the mystery structure was the eye of Apis mellifera. 10 points to Chris! But, 10 is not enough to win the month. Our Supreme Monday Mystery Champion for April, with 15 points, is MrILoveTheAnts. Contact me [...]
Drama on the sidewalk
The two most conspicuous insects on our front walkway are Lasioglossum soil-nesting bees and Tetramorium pavement ants. Their co-existence is tenuous. Pavement ants are predatory, and yesterday afternoon I snapped this series of a bee in trouble. As if there wasn’t enough action, a little Solenopsis molesta thief ant- also predatory- took advantage of the [...]
Monday Night Mystery
What in the world is this? I will award one Myrmecos point to the first person to name the structure, and nine to the first to pick the species. The cumulative points winner for the month of April will win their choice of 1) any 8×10-sized print from my photo galleries, or 2) a guest post [...]
Fire ants repel water to make rafts
The science blogosphere is buzzing with news of a study by Nathan Mlot out in PNAS documenting how fire ants make living rafts. Rafting behavior has been known for some time, enough so that fire ant researchers regularly make use of the ants’ natural raft-building to collect colonies. Until now, though, no one had looked [...]
Dandelion Bee
I think this is an andrenid mining bee, but if you have a different opinion let me know in the comments. photo details: Canon MP-E 65mm 1-5x lens on a Canon EOS 7D ISO 100, f/13, 1/250 sec Diffused twin flash
A personal weblog by Illinois-based biologist and photographer Alex Wild.
