Alex Wild on insects, science, and photography
During the day our showy goldenrod (Solidago speciosa) is visited by the usual sun-loving suspects: bumble bees, sweat bees, hover flies, butterflies, and so on. I was curious about what happens after dark, though, so I just popped out to have a look. It’s nearly as active at night, too, but with a different set [...]
A dark green-yellow mottled background helps along this photograph of a swallowtail caterpillar’s defensive osmeterium: Subtle & tasteful. Scaled up for a larger insect, though, and the fact that I’m using a watermelon for backdrop becomes perhaps a bit too obvious: A large papaya might have been better.
Evo-devo biologist extraordinaire Antónia Monteiro is visiting campus this week, and she shared with us this photograph of a simply unbelievable Malaysian moth: Do you see the mural? Mimicry is common in insects. Some adopt the cryptic appearance of sticks or leaves, some ape the stripes of stinging wasps, and some sport the colors of [...]
We have, I think, a new time record for guessing the Monday Night Mystery: 1 minute. JasonC’s quick pick of Hyalophora cecropia eggs nets him 10 points, plus the two-point bonus for 12 total. Congrats, Jason!
…make up the wing pattern of Hylalophora cecropia, North America’s largest moth:
What was that Tiger-Skin Rug? It was a close-up of the abdomen of North America’s largest moth, Hyalophora cecropia. I happened across a mating pair while taking out the garbage the other night, of all things, and spent the next couple hours arranging the above photograph. Ten points to MrILoveTheAnts for a game well played. With two [...]
What was that dashing, color-coordinated tropical moth? This mystery was difficult on two counts. First, it’s a tropical moth from a poorly documented fauna. Second, the family-level taxonomy of this group was just revised and the once-proud Arctiidae, the tiger moths, is now a mere subfamily (Arctiinae) in a larger Erebidae. What was the genus? [...]
Midway through my recent Ecuador trip an ant photographer’s nightmare came to pass. My trusty MP-E 1-5x macro, the lens responsible for 95% of my images since 2003, died. The electronics failed with the iris stuck full open, rendering it incapable of providing any depth of field. It became a doorstop, essentially, and there was [...]
The BBC covers one of Charles Darwin’s most famous predictions:
Here are two photographs depicting a bevy of young caterpillars skeletonizing a parsley leaf: In the first, light is provided by two diffused strobes from above. In the second, the diffuser is removed, eliminating the even reflection off the surface of the leaf, and one of the strobes is shifted to bounce off a plain [...]
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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