Oh well, no sooner said than done. All you budding entomologists or photographers or anyone who likes nature, you can put your insect photos here!
I'll kick off with a few that I've had lately. This first is called a Mantis Fly & is a cross between a Fly & Mantis (funnily enough) & is in the Neuroptera family, which is a mixed bunch anyway, my first & I had 3 of them around the moth trap
& a Rhinocerus Beetle which was also attracted to the light & are quite rare now around here, he really was fabulous, very impressive,
& this Frelon was also in the moth trap, but seemed quite docile as long as I kept my distance!
& some Damsel flies, an Azure Damselfly (thanks for the ID Aiki)
a Large Red Damsel
& from early may a proper fly from the Dipteras, anyone know the English name, I think it's latin name is Otites lamed,
I usually only take photos of flies with interesting wings as I am hopeless at identiying them!
Thanks for looking & maybe you can post some of yours!!
Best wishes
Hazel in Southwest France
Thanks Tony, yes, I agree, the 100mm macro is a fabulous lens and I tend to start on f.11 and work upwards ! As you say with flying insects it's hard to have time to set up tripod so I'm often hand holding camera trying to chase them down and often there's no way of capturing those flutterbys as they rarely pause lol
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Regards, Hazel
Unknown said: ID'd this one as Myathropa florea
These are kicking about in good numbers.
I've not posted here for a while & there have been some great additions. Sorry to hear about your cat Paul, he was a great character. These are a few of my photos, this one isn't a great shot but made me laugh, the poor male is so SMALL......It's a type of longhorn beetle
a multicoloured bug that came to my moth trap
& one of my favourites that i've only seen once before, I think it's a Bee Beetle
Thanks for looking.
Two fabulous specimens there H, googled the multi one & surprisingly no matching images I could find!
Bee Beetle not found in many UK locations according to distribution map & definitely not at mine!
2013 photos & vids here
eff37 on Flickr
Only just twigged that I should have posted my vid on this thread ... been a funny ol' day!!
Plus today's update on Ladybugs in the making
Still working on the quality ... probably transfer them to glass terrarium but will have to have a super 'stopper' as they are reputed to be great escape artists!!
Wonderful Wendy, I had no idea what Ladybird larvae looked like.
My bird photos HERE
A few Damselfies from the weekend, nothing too exotic but nice to see all the same.
Male Blue-tailed
I think this is a teneral male Common Blue but I would be happy to be corrected if I'm wrong.
And finaly a lovely Emerald. I'm not sure of the gender of this one and it's not entirely in focus, but I like it.!! :-)
Paul A said: Wonderful Wendy, I had no idea what Ladybird larvae looked like.
If you look carefully in the vid there is a brief glimpse of a pupal case 'jumping' ... a couple of these teensy little Ladybirds which are the ones imported from Europe for use as biological control of aphids & red spider mite in greenhouses & polytunnels!
So teensy they are difficult to video (about half the size of our 7 spot ones)
Some pics which I enlarged & printed via Paint ... bit fuzzy
Newly emerged black variety
Juggling the pupal case whilst drying wings, still yellow but could turn red
An underview showing the pupal case
Really fuzzy this one but was interested in the yellow 'bobbles' on legs ... will have to look than up!
Feasting on the black bean aphids
Trying to get some footage of one actually emerging from pupa but it's not easy!!
Great video Wendy, the first 2 looked like they were doing persuit around the lid! We get lots of this variety around but they aren't very popular as they are taking over from the locals, supposedly!
I actually get very few 7 spots here in the quarry but I know others have great numbers of them ... I shall let these go on the runner bean plant which is infested with the aphids & hope that I don't start a population explosion ... maybe they are all girls (or all boys!)