My ambient light bug portraits are nowhere near as good as those by the amazing Rick Lieder. But I’m working on it. Here’s a coenagrionid damselfly: photo details: Canon EOS 7D camera Canon 100mm f2.8 macro lens ISO 200, f/2.8, 1/800 sec
Posts Tagged ‘Photography’
A queen in monochrome
A few days ago I posted a photo of a Prenolepis ant queen. It’s a decent photo, in focus and properly exposed. But probably not anything I’d print out and hang on the wall. Check out the monochrome version above, though (click on it to enlarge). I don’t often put my images through such severe [...]
Friday Beetle Blogging: Penthe pimelia
Penthe pimelia (Tetratomidae) Illinois, USA A couple years back I was working on the Beetle Tree of Life project as a molecular phylogeneticist. My main responsibility was to gather DNA sequence data for several hundred beetles distributed across the spectrum of Coleopteran diversity. As I’m not a Coleopterist, I spent most of my time lost [...]
Little Fire Ants
Wasmannia auropunctata – little fire ants Buenos Aires, Argentina One of the world’s worst invaders, the little fire ants have spread from the new world tropics to warmer regions around the globe, becoming especially problematic on oceanic islands. The ants above, though, are from an innocuous native population in northern Argentina. They arrived at a [...]
Prenolepis queen
Prenolepis imparis – winter ant (queen) Urbana, Illinois Photo details: Canon mp-e 65mm 1-5x macro lens on a Canon EOS 50D ISO 100, f13, 1/250 sec, diffused flash
Friday Beetle Blogging: Dendroides Larva
Cucujus clavipes – Dendroides fire-colored beetle Illlinois We in the Friday Beetle Department don’t often turn our attention to immature beetles. But these Cucujus clavipes Dendroides larvae are too striking to pass up. Cucujus Dendroides fire-colored beetles inhabit the flat, two-dimensional space under the bark of dead trees. The oddly compressed body helps this insect [...]
Ladybird in the sun
Hippodamia sp. Ladybird beetle Tucson, Arizona Photo details: Canon 100mm f2.8 macro lens on a Canon EOS 20D ISO 100, f4.5, 1/320 sec, ambient light
Like having a gerbil attached to your knee…
While photographing a Lasius alienus colony in the park yesterday I noticed a red, round mite hanging off the leg of this worker ant. I’m glad we humans don’t have parasites like these. Perhaps if we’re really nice, Macromite will tell us something about the little guy. Photo details: Canon MP-E 65mm 1-5x macro lens [...]
Termite photo gallery
I’ve moved some of my better termite photos to a new gallery at alexanderwild.com. Go visit.
Friday Beetle Blogging: A mealworm comes of age
Tenebrio molitor, pupa Tenebrio molitor is a darkling beetle known more for its immature stages than for its adults. It is the ubiquitous mealworm. You can buy these granivorous beetles at any pet store as food for fish, birds, and reptiles. The above shot of a developing pupa requires two sources of light. A flash [...]
A personal weblog by Illinois-based biologist and photographer Alex Wild.
