The insects, arachnids and myriapods pictures thread

Best new thread 2017.

Guys, I’m really impressed with your photos. What is the simplest/cheapest set-up you need to do macro photography like that? We don’t need to go camera-techie here exactly, just the basics.

Can I pollute the thread up with some borrowed photos from the internet? Because I just found out that here in Colorado, we’ve got a serious threat to our ash trees in the form of the Emerald Ash Borer, an invasive species with no predators in the area. I think we probably want to get rid of them… it’s unfortunate they’re so beautiful!

What a looker, huh? Apparently one of the methods of control is to bring in a parasitic wasp that’s not quite as good-looking.

It’s strange because when I lived in Memphis, the stinkbugs I typically saw were of the brown variety as well. This one caught my eye because I’d never seen one like it.

It could be that this one was not a mature stinkbug.

Golden orb-weaver spider

Bluebottle fly

Unidentified butterfly

Common flatwing damselfly

Eastern billabong fly

A shieldbug orgy

Scarlet percher dragonfly

Colony of stinging caterpillars

Floury baker cicada

Crab spider on orchid petal

Oh man, what a great thread and what amazing photos!

@Penny_Dreadful, those mantis pics made me smile a lot.

I agree that jumping spiders are cute but, @Left_Empty, that’s one of the cutest I’ve seen!

Will try and post some of my own pics up when I get a chance.

These types of bees are definitely territorial vs other insects. We usually have one patrol our deck from end of April thru early June.

After that, the eggs must hatch or something because we see more around, but none are aggressively defending the airspace around our gardens or deck that they frequent.

Ah, thank you: I was hoping I wasn’t just making stuff up! So it may be a queen (which would explain why it was so large). I always assumed, I guess wrongly, bumblebees weren’t social creatures.

I had gotten a Casio Exilim Hi-15 camera about 5 years ago, because my mom showed me it and I was impressed with its battery life - you could put it away for weeks and it would still be fresh when you pulled it out. It also had a pretty nice picture quality (I guess roughly equivalent to an iPhone 6 nowadays sigh).
When fiddling with it, I discovered a “Super Macro” mode, which enforces the zoom to a certain setting, and allows you to do crazy close-ups. That’s how I did my pictures. It requires you to take pictures regularly as you get closer and closer to your target, hoping it won’t notice you and take off too soon :D When I get really close, I usually knock it against a hard surface nearby, as to not get blurry because of my shaky hands.
That camera was going for less than 100 bucks at the time: who knows what you could get for that price nowadays!

I dislike hornets and such, but I love solitary wasps: the way they build their little nest for their larva, putting the… let’s call it food, inside, is fascinating.

@Simonout, so many nice photos, but that scarlet percher dragonfly is just stunning (although I must confess the sh… err bluebottle fly was as well ;).

@Simonout your butterfly is a skipper. Your bluebottle fly really should have been photographed on a pile of dog poop, or a trashcan :)

Hummingbird moth in our backyard - not a great photo because it was hovering at the flower and all I had was my phone

Swallowtail butterfly:

Not my photo - Phalera bucephala (yes, there is a moth in this pic):

Okay, now I just have to post They Might Be Giants’ ode to the hummingbird moth and the general strangeness of nature:

The brown ‘marmorated’ stink bug a lot of you have been seeing is an invasive agricultural pest first seen in Pennsylvania in the late 90s.

Here is a yellow garden spider. I took this photo to show the “stabilimentum”, the bright zig-zag. One of the ‘mystery adaptations’ - why put something so prominently visible into something that is supposed to be as invisible as possible (the web)? Several theories, lots of papers, no definitive answer yet.

I had read that they were put there to prevent birds and crap from flying through their webs.

That would be one of the theories. It’s the sort of thing where it is a lot easier to dream up a theory than it is to devise a valid test. Like I said, there have been a pretty fair number of papers published on the topic and no real resolution.

I remember the first time I was confronted to an hummingbird moth, 2 years ago. One of my latest “WTF is that?!” moment. We have a bunch of them showing up in very late summer on the border of a national road here, each year. So beautiful also once you get used to its flying path, but no way I can take a decent picture of the local specimen.

Also, the camouflage on that bucephale is amazing.

Here is one camouflaged fellow I met twice and was able to catch the second time thanks to it being gentle enough to rest on a metallic door. I rushed up to my appartment and back down with my camera in the hope of capturing its image.

I tried to look it up, but couldn’t find anything very conclusive in any of my books. It looks like an Agathia carissima, but with its wings folded? Maybe I happened to spot them both times as they had just gotten out of their chrysalyds and were in the process of deploying their wings?

Like @Left_Empty, my camera was just an ordinary point and shoot with a super macro mode. My particular model was an Olympus FE-340 which was not even considered very good when it was released, so it’s not like I would recommend it. I will say though, that the nice thing about macro photography is that you do not need a high end DSLR or mirrorless camera and lens to get fantastic results.

I’ve been thinking about buying a new camera and getting back out there, actually.

What is the simplest/cheapest set-up you need to do macro photography like that? We don’t need to go camera-techie here exactly, just the basics.

Some of the best macro photography I have seen was made using an adaptor lens on a point-and-shoot camera. See Derek Hauff photography:
https://plus.google.com/collection/go_jGB
and in particular:
https://plus.google.com/collection/4O5FHB

Before he bought a large SLR and dedicated lens Derek used Raynox adaptor lenses in front of point and shoot camera lens to great effect
http://extreme-macro.co.uk/raynox-adapter-techniques/

I use a 12-50mm kit lens which has a semi-macro setting on an old Olympus OM-D E-M5. This kit could be bought 2nd hand for not very much money. It’s a terrific little camera.

All the best,

Simon

That link is terrific, thank you very much for it!
I am going to check this out when I get back: I had no idea there were such accessories for my silly camera. And the Raynox 150 is surprisingly cheap.
Next will be to manage and prevent all the shaking with their tips. I guess I may have to limit myself to area with a nearby wall ;)

Heteropoda venatoria, or the long-legged spider as it is commonly called in Japan, is the largest spider you can find here. I sadly haven’t met a living adult yet, and this one, while similar in form, is just a baby walking my room with his single centimeter of legs.
It predates on coackroaches, which are exceptionnally resilient in Asia. Their predators usually go for strong venom, like the local scolopendra whose bite is very painful I can attest to it, but this spider instead goes for the brute force of its disproportionate legs.

Total trivia, but no Japanese spiders are known to be harmful to man. The only exception arrived through a boat in the 90s: it is the dreadful Australian black widow. The ever-present vending-machines and the heat they generate are thought to have allowed the imported little devil to survive the harsh local winters. So Japan.
I have witnessed it a couple of times, and it doesn’t move like any other spider I have ever seen. It moves as if it is preying on the whole world. Brr!

Oops! Sorry… :)

They’re a type of widow, called a Redback. Potentially fatal if you don’t get the antivenom, but not even our most venomous (that’s the Sydney Funnel Web). ;)

That’s the one, the redback (which seems to have a red mark on the other side too, although it is too shy show it).
They translated that name litterally, I wasnt aware it was called the same in Australia.

This katydid was on our front porch.

Here’s a flower in our yard, with bug.

I don’t think the myriapods have been represented yet, and this guy was bopping across the sidewalk this morning on my run:

I had an uninvited guest in my shower:

I had spotted this grasshopper on my roof, and it seemingly decided to jump down in my bathtub to get some refreshment. Good thing I spotted it before squashing or drowning it.
Yes, I was naked when I took this picture ~_~
It is the absolute first time I witness a grasshopper in Paris, let alone in my bathroom.