Alex Wild on insects, science, and photography
Time for another long blog! Scroll down… It’s late in the season for ant mating flights, but this little queen showed up just now at our porch light. In life she’s only half a centimeter long. photo details: Canon MP-E 65mm 1-5x macro lens on a Canon EOS 7D ISO 100, f/13, 1/250 sec two [...]
From this afternoon: The crisp, bright colors aren’t photoshop. They’re a polarizing filter, one of those inexpensive bits of equipment that make an inordinate difference to image quality. photo details: Canon EF 17-40mm F/4L wide angle zoom lens & circular polarizer on a Canon EOS 7D ISO 100, f/8 1/125 sec exposure
By the end of the week we bug bloggers are so discombobulated we can’t keep straight what insects we’re supposed to be writing about. As you know, I sometimes stray from ants and post the occasional Friday beetle. Now fly guy Morgan Jackson has taken up Friday Ant Blogging, and coleopterist Ted MacRae is taking advantage [...]
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A tachinid fly, killed and consumed by a fungus: photo details: Canon MP-E 65mm 1-5x macro lens on a Canon EOS 50D ISO 100, f/13, 1/250 sec, diffuse fill flash & strobe behind backdrop leaf
June 20-26 is National Pollinator Week, when we as a nation drop whatever we are doing and watch bees for seven days straight. It’s an ancient tradition dating to 2006, and one so widely observed that at least a dozen people other than me are participating this year. Someone may have even made a t-shirt. [...]
Human houses provide warm, dry conditions that mice, cockroaches, silverfish and other animals exploit for a more comfortable existence. Ant houses do the same. Because ants create sanitary spaces with regulated humidity, a number of other species readily move in if given the chance. Here, for example, is a springtail:
The varied carpet beetle Anthrenus verbasci is perhaps the most common coleopteran in North America. That doesn’t stop it from being pretty. This individual was one of about 500 having a rolicking Anthrenus convention in our chives. photo details: Canon MP-E 65mm 1-5x lens on a Canon EOS 7D ISO 100, f/13, 1/250 sec, diffuse twin [...]
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 [...]
A personal weblog by Illinois-based biologist and photographer Alex Wild.
Myrmecos- derived from the ancient greek word for "ant"- hosts Alex's musings about these and other little creatures that share our planet.
Questions? Comments? Email alwild [at] myrmecos.net
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