A few insects to contemplate

I’m off to classes. I think today we are talking about invertebrate embryology, so I decided to put up a few of my recent ‘captures’ while bug hunting.

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A busy bumblebee buried in pollen. There were at least two species on this Rose of Sharon shrub.
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Mating Soldier Beetles. In honor of my reading the chapter on invertebrate embryology and sex this morning. Ever want to feel more normal about humans? Yeah… read about how bugs and snails and such do it.
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Eastern Tailed-Blue (Everes comyntas) a member of the Lycaenidae family
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Another Eastern Tailed-Blue, they were common along the meadow path.
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Probably a Fritillary, family Nymphallidae
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A Robber Fly, Dogmites species, family Asilidae

Comments

6 responses to “A few insects to contemplate”

  1. John in Philly Avatar
    John in Philly

    Great photos!
    “Birds do it, bees do it, Even educated fleas do it, Let’s do it, let’s fall in love”.
    Cole Porter’s song, and the song was covered by a surprisingly varied number of musicians.
    Technical details of the photos? Macro lens, close up filter, extension tubes?

    1. Most of these were shot with the kit lens (18-55 mm) and a 13 mm lens extension for macro. Some were simply shot with the 55-250 at 250 mm, and then in some cases cropped. I can go back and annotate each photo if you’d like. I don’t have a macro lens proper, but the lens extensions are great, so I’m not (too) tempted.

      1. John in Philly Avatar
        John in Philly

        Annotation not needed, more of a general curiosity. Our present camera is a super zooming bridge.
        I tried some magnifying filter attachments and they worked so so. I will have to check out if extensions are a possibility.

        1. You won’t be able to use extensions, they go between the lens and the body. Some of the ‘bridge’ cameras (I have an Olympus 820) have decent macro settings, though.

  2. Your mention of bug hunting cannot help but remind me of that line in Aliens. Thankfully, your bug hunt has resulted in pretty pictures, rather than mass casualties – and you won’t have to nuke it from orbit to be sure.

    1. Nuking from orbit I reserve for wasp nests 😀