In which insect flight expert Micheal Dickinson explains that, while flies are small, they are anything but simple:
Posts Tagged ‘Flies’
Sunday Night Movie: Attenborough (and not Attenborough) on the Stalk-Eyed Fly
A short clip from BBC’s “LIFE” series: For a contrast in narrative style, here’s the American version:
Sunday Night Movie: The Handshake of Love
Here’s an adorable short video of a carrion fly courtship dance: (via thuso711)
An inflatable head
I recently had the opportunity to photograph one of the odder spectacles among insects: a common house fly emerging from its puparium using a giant inflatable head. What’s deal with this strange behavior? Many millions of years ago, some flies figured out an ingenious way to protect their delicate developing pupae. Instead of shedding their [...]
Maggot Art
With Maggot Art in the news again I thought I’d share an old painting. How was it done? I dunked a few maggots in non-toxic paint, dropped them one by one on art paper, and they did the rest as they crawled away. More samples from other artists here.
Flies!
My commercial gallery now has flies! Diptera photographs at alexanderwild.com I feel sort of embarassed at how few fly images I have, considering the importance of the group. That’s something I’ll try to remedy as we get into this summer’s photography season.
Slurp
photo details: Canon 65mm MP-E 1-5x macro lens on a Canon EOS 20D ISO 100, f/13, 1/250 sec, flash diffused through tracing paper
An intimate moment
Rhagoletis fruit flies mating, Arizona photo details: Canon MP-E 65mm 1-5x macro lens on a Canon EOS 20D ISO 200, f/11, 1/200 sec, backlit by handheld strobe.
Friday Beetle Blogging: The Wounded Tree Beetle
Nosodendron californicum – Wounded Tree Beetle California, USA From the Department of Really Obscure Insects, here’s a beetle that few non-specialists will recognize. Nosodendron inhabits the rotting tissue of long-festering tree wounds. These beetles are not rare so much as specialized to an environment where few entomologists think to look. If you can spot [...]
Busy, busy, busy
Can’t devote much to blogging at the moment, but since we’re feeling sorry for the dipterists this week here’s a fly for you to look at: Maybe one of you fly folks could explain in the comments why Cecidomyiids are so cool. Aside from looking like little fairies, that is. photo details: Canon MP-E 65mm [...]
A personal blog by Illinois-based biologist and photographer Alex Wild.
