Bugs

[Pingu]

Forest bug on pants.


IMG_2495_01 by The Pingus, on Flickr

[Pingu]

Another common darter.


IMG_2523_01 by The Pingus, on Flickr


IMG_2528_01 by The Pingus, on Flickr

[Salvatore]

I recently came across this little (5-6mm) beast wandering across a vast white plateau



Vast white plateau

(click to show/hide)

[Salvatore]

I saw a fly moving in a suspicious way among the cow parsley flowers, and started snapping away. Only when I got home and saw it on a computer screen did I realise it was being manhandled by a sinister white spider and that it (the fly) was probably dead. The spider's rear end has markings looking like a shocked human face. I think it's a crab spider. They don't weave webs, just camouflage themselves and lie in wait for their prey.

[Little Jim]

The camouflage is superb, it wasn't until I read your description that I saw the spider.

[Salvatore]

A leafhopper nymph - issus coleoptratus. 6.7 mm from the front of its head to the end of its tail.



and another one on a neighbouring leaf



They have gears!

According to wikipedia
 "the nymphs of this insect have a small, gear-like structure on the base of each of their hind legs. These gears have teeth that intermesh, keeping the legs synchronized when the insect jumps, preventing it from spiraling. This is the first planthopper species in which the function of these gears was described, though their existence had been known for decades. The insects shed this gear before moulting into adults."

[sam]

Salvatore, your photos are almost (but not quite) enough to make me a fan of bugs. My own efforts are more… modest.

Here are a few I once spotted on a ride going about their business when I ducked behind a hedge for my own business:



Ladybird = Ladybug in the US
Waldo = Wally in the UK

[Salvatore]

An infestation of aphids on a leaf in my garden. The odd insect out (on the left)  is a parasitic wasp. The female wasp pierces the aphids' bodies and injects eggs. The egg hatches inside the aphid and it develops there, eating it from the inside. The aphid swells up, turns a bronze colour, and dies (not necessarily in that order). The bloated body of the aphid is known as a "mummy".



An aphid mummy on a leaf about 3-4 cm below its living chums above. There are about half a dozen on leaves within a 5 cm radius. I check them every day for signs of a new wasp, but as yet there's nothing see below.




It seems firmly attached to the leaf somehow.

[Salvatore]

While checking my aphid mummies I spotted another parasitic wasp. This one's victims are wasps and bees rather than aphids and it's much bigger.
I think it's Gasteruption jaculator

[Salvatore]

I inspected the aphid mummies this morning, and they each had a neat hole in what's left of their bodies. At some time in the previous 12 hours, the wasps developing in the host aphids had each cut a hole and escaped into the big wide world to lead a happy and fulfilled life as a parasitic wasp specialising in making life hell for aphids.



Because
(a) it was taken with a macro lens at 1:1
(b) I know the sensor size in both mm and pixels
(c) I can get the coordinates of 2 points from GIMP
(d) Pythagoras
I can calculate the size of the hole. In this case, 0.855 mm diameter.

[Pingu]

Shiny fly.


IMG_4562_01 by The Pingus, on Flickr

[Salvatore]

Very nice. I do like a shiny insect

[Salvatore]

A shiny face, but a rather lacklustre body.

Red-headed cardinal beetle.

[Pingu]

IMG_4853_01 by The Pingus, on Flickr

[Pingu]

Nom, nom, nom.


IMG_4921_01 by The Pingus, on Flickr

[Salvatore]

I'd been bothering damselflies for over an hour this morning but had called it a day and was trudging across a meadow when I spotted this huge (3 in long at a guess) Emperor dragonfly drying its wings in the morning sun. It didn't move for several minutes before it flew away.

[Salvatore]

And here's one of the damselflies I'd been bothering

[Mrs Pingu]

I was just aiming to grab a quick photo of this bee with my phone while I was doing something else but the water on the petals turned out to be quite pleasing
2023-07-27_07-11-12 by The Pingus, on Flickr

[Salvatore]

[Pingu]

 

[Pingu]

Another shiny fly.


IMG_5598_01 by The Pingus, on Flickr

[Salvatore]

Eriothrix rufomaculata , I think. i.e. a fly

[Salvatore]

Tachina fera, I believe.

[Salvatore]

As so often happens, a picture of one insect also includes another insect. In this case I'd uploaded the picture, cropped it a little, and posted it to flickr before I noticed  it. I think at first I dismissed it as some dirt on my PC screen. The hoverfly seems to be very interested in it.

Female common globetail (Sphaerophoria scripta) PLUS bonus insect insectum minimum




Using pythagoras to work out length in pixels, compared to estimated wingspan of hoverfly, I'd say it's length was about 0.3 mm.

[Salvatore]