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
Meanwhile ... back in the wonderful world of beasties ... look what havoc this one has wreaked on my Hydrangea Paniculata
I am assuming 'sawfly' larva
And is this mosquito larva (clinging to pond weed algae but quite dead though)
2013 photos & vids here
eff37 on Flickr
I'm so glad that no-one was hurt Wendy. The fact that you're still posting hopefully tells me that it wasn't your house that was on fire? In regards to your Mosquito Larva, to my eye it looks very much like a Damselfly nymph. I don't know the correct terminology or even the actual full life cycle of Damselflies but I'm wondering if your 'dead' beastie is possibly the discarded 'shuck' of a Damselfly nymph. Perhaps if aiki sees your post she may be able to shed more light on all of this. Great photos again though.
My bird photos HERE
No, not my house PA but the one directly opposite, choking black smoke smothered us though!!
Interesting that it could be damselfly nymph & good to read that they predate mozzie larvae!!
Will have closer look to see if it is empty case ... was on side of glass container at one stage!
WendyBartter said:Will have closer look to see if it is empty case
In the meantime, today I managed to get some vid action of a beautiful Comma butterfly showing the defining mark on the underside & then one of it with a rather portly Bee Bumble but am not good at identifying bee types!
Now that the two rather large Buddleias are in full bloom I am lucky to have a great number of 'flying insects' of allsorts of varieties & all are a very welcome sight!
It's been an age since I have been on here but can never resist a good insect thread ;)
My contribution
Queen of Spain ( a first for me)
The Forester
Tachina grossa - Giant Tachinid fly rear view
Front view
Giant Green bush cricket
That's it for the moment - have another couple of dragons but need to reduce the file size
Caroline in Jersey
Cin J
Good to see you CinJ, been reading up on your rare QofS butterfly, very pretty & if spotted at all in UK is likely to be Sussex & Kent so will keep a lookout as I'm in E Kent!
The Forester is a beautiful colour but that fly ... talk about 'does my b*m look big in this' ha ha! Interesting face though, looks like it's wearing a gas mask!
How giant is that Cricket in feet & inches?? Last year I only saw one grasshopper, where have they all gone?
Hi Wendy, we have had sightings of the QofS over the last couple of years in 2 separate areas of the Island - it is smaller than you would think and has the most stunning underwing of which I don't have a photo :(
The Tg fly is huge and sounds like a bomber - lays it eggs on furry caterpillars.
We seem to have a good number of hoppers and crickets this year - I would think that it's down to land management in your area and maybe weather.
One thing I have noticed this year is the amount of Burnet moth - huge numbers, I couldn't walk a step yesterday without seeing seeing them. Lovely.
Hi Caroline, great to have you back. How are your butterfly counts going? I love the blue burnet i've only ever seen one & never seen that fly before!! I think this is a good year for moths judging by the increased numbers in my traps this year compared to last year, although the location if different (I moved house).
I'm quite pleased with this one <massive understatement> - a male Brown Hawker at my local reserve on Friday. Taken with manual focus because I couldn't lock onto it in flight - might have done with my 300mm f4 but the 180mm macro (aka 'BigMac') just doesn't focus quickly enough. So I prefocused along its flight path and when it came into range fired off lots of shots. And then checked them, deleted them all, and repeated, and again and again. After about 1.5 hours I had a couple of sharp ones!
My blog: http://mazzaswildside.blogspot.co.uk/
My Flickr page: https://www.flickr.com/photos/124028194@N04/
Fabulous image A, you have such patience & dedication!!
Do you happen to know what caterpillar this is
Was found at my local NR but they do not recognise it ... neither do I, after leafing through hundreds of google images & various ID sites I am none the wiser! Will also post this on Moth forum