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The thread of Creepy Crawlies
- Thread starter patrick
- Start date
^ He's a cute fella.
A few more Madera Canyon critters.
"Green Beetle." Not sure of actual species name. The colors are not enhanced - these guys are brilliant.
Ant Lion
Texas Longhorn!
It's really not that hard. I like to think the pics I posted on Pg 7 and 8 are decent. They were taken with a lowly Canon A540, something you can buy on Fleabay for $30. Just about any modern P/S will take good pics. What do you have? Practice controlling the focus point, aperture (if user adjustable), and flash compensation. Find a good bug-level point of view and start shooting. Then 5 minutes with Gimp, photochop, etc. to rotate, crop, maybe tweak the luminance curve, then resize and add a touch of sharpening.
A few more Madera Canyon critters.
"Green Beetle." Not sure of actual species name. The colors are not enhanced - these guys are brilliant.
Ant Lion
Texas Longhorn!
thegreenman said:
It's really not that hard. I like to think the pics I posted on Pg 7 and 8 are decent. They were taken with a lowly Canon A540, something you can buy on Fleabay for $30. Just about any modern P/S will take good pics. What do you have? Practice controlling the focus point, aperture (if user adjustable), and flash compensation. Find a good bug-level point of view and start shooting. Then 5 minutes with Gimp, photochop, etc. to rotate, crop, maybe tweak the luminance curve, then resize and add a touch of sharpening.
I've heard of the beetles before. We have some nice gold ones here in Connecticut, as well as some green and yellow shield bugs, but I obviously won't be able to get a pic until summer.
A few years ago I found a Chinese mantis in a windowsill in November and decided to keep him inside. Smartest insect I've ever seen. Sometimes knocked on the top of the terrarium when I went by. If you let him** out of the terrarium, it would fly* to the table and watch the people walk around the room. It ate anything you put on a stick: beef stew, scrambled eggs, cheese, lettuce(why, I have never known). Favorite food was fresh peppers though. Funniest thing is how I could never put him back in the box twice. Once you got him back in, it learned how he got stuck and would do his best to avert it the next time. Even though it only lived until February because of short lifespan, they are very much worth having around for the sheer number of funny things they get into.
*mantis flight is not exactly what I would call "flight". It looks more like a helicopter that's been shot down trying to find the softest way to land.
**"he" is important to remember if you want one around the house, The females are much more content to sit still, and so aren't a source of comedy gold when they try to avoid being put back.
A few years ago I found a Chinese mantis in a windowsill in November and decided to keep him inside. Smartest insect I've ever seen. Sometimes knocked on the top of the terrarium when I went by. If you let him** out of the terrarium, it would fly* to the table and watch the people walk around the room. It ate anything you put on a stick: beef stew, scrambled eggs, cheese, lettuce(why, I have never known). Favorite food was fresh peppers though. Funniest thing is how I could never put him back in the box twice. Once you got him back in, it learned how he got stuck and would do his best to avert it the next time. Even though it only lived until February because of short lifespan, they are very much worth having around for the sheer number of funny things they get into.
*mantis flight is not exactly what I would call "flight". It looks more like a helicopter that's been shot down trying to find the softest way to land.
**"he" is important to remember if you want one around the house, The females are much more content to sit still, and so aren't a source of comedy gold when they try to avoid being put back.
Nice shot Geo, I need to get back into more bugs this year....took the past year off for most part.
More flyers than crawlers
More flyers than crawlers
I love dragonflies!cruzzfish said:
cruzzfish said:That's one funny looking moth. Reminds me of the dumbo octopus a bit. Don't ask me how though.
.http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/11/20/664362/-Marine-Life-Series-Dumbo-Octopus
First picture=evil bastard. Too many cicada killers by my house for comfort.Geonerd said:Wasps, who doesn't hate the bastards?!
Chris, is this a Damsel, or Dragon?
The second picture is a damsel fly. A very nice one at that.
Edit: Some of the dragonfly species in CT are attracted to very dark red. I was wearing a shirt of that color when an AMAZING looking black one with yellow markings landed on my shoulder. If you follow them around enough, they can learn your not a threat and let you pick them up to put in front of the camera. Only the light blue ones with green eyes and the brown ones. The rest of them are a lot more scareable. It's an inverse relationship of how nice the color is to how easily pic-take-able they are. Large, brown, ugly looking one=not scared at all. Small, bright red one=cannot get within ten feet of.
Finally got the hard drive outta the broken computer and went through the pictures.
Small yellow dragonfly
Large blue/green one. Ghost Dragonfly, only seen it in the morning, and even then only every few weeks. Found no species records of one like this.(Green darner female is closest match, but this one has too much blue on the back and the wrong eyes.)
Blue one, these ones are easy to approach.(Blue dasher male)
Brown one, I think same species as blue but different gender. Equally approachable.(Yup, blue dasher female)
Same individual as above, not following me around.
Wolf Spider that lives in the log pile. Little M**********R moved into the basement when it got cold. And I saw it once since then, a few days ago. Meaning it's somewhere in my house right now and I dunno where.
Inchworm trying to hide. Did a very good job of it.
More pictures to come.
Small yellow dragonfly
Large blue/green one. Ghost Dragonfly, only seen it in the morning, and even then only every few weeks. Found no species records of one like this.(Green darner female is closest match, but this one has too much blue on the back and the wrong eyes.)
Blue one, these ones are easy to approach.(Blue dasher male)
Brown one, I think same species as blue but different gender. Equally approachable.(Yup, blue dasher female)
Same individual as above, not following me around.
Wolf Spider that lives in the log pile. Little M**********R moved into the basement when it got cold. And I saw it once since then, a few days ago. Meaning it's somewhere in my house right now and I dunno where.
Inchworm trying to hide. Did a very good job of it.
More pictures to come.
Why is there no double like button? I've been trying to get a pic of that butterfly type for a couple years now, and they always fly off before I get close enough.
Edit: The scariest moment I had with one of those spiders/it's cousins was when a fishing spider heard the water trickling into the sump pumps and climbed in. I went downstairs to hit the router when the wifi went down and was greeted by a spider the size of a tennis ball. Very aggressive one also. I had to catch him in a full size terrarium rather than the normal jar method.
Edit: The scariest moment I had with one of those spiders/it's cousins was when a fishing spider heard the water trickling into the sump pumps and climbed in. I went downstairs to hit the router when the wifi went down and was greeted by a spider the size of a tennis ball. Very aggressive one also. I had to catch him in a full size terrarium rather than the normal jar method.
Wow. Never take a hissing cockroach's heat mat for seedlings when they want to stay warm. For a while before, they used to enjoy watching the madballz seedlings on the mat next to them. Now that they went off the mat for a while and are back on it, they hiss violently whenever I so much as pick up one of the seedling starter cups. I don't think I've ever seen an insect that pissed about something, with the possible exception of a broken wasp nest. Then again, wasp are naturally violent and roaches are quite docile. Until they know that you're the reason they froze their asses off.
Pics coming of more stuff I just found. I saw a wolf spider run across my sunroom floor with a mini 7 pod that fell off on Wednesday, so I have to find what it wanted with that. I saw a lacewing yesterday, and the ant colony is waking up. Hope the pollinate the peppers again, that would be nice.
