Tag Archives: rainforest
Invisible barklouse
Not so difficult to spot this camouflated barklouse (Psocoptera) among the lichen, is it? It might even sound dumb to be calling this one invisible:
Camouflated Psocoptera at 2:1
Canon Xsi, ISO 200 | f/11 | 1/200 on a 28mm reversed, stack of 2 shots.
Except… how about now, without the help of magnification? The natural view to the naked eye:
Canon Xsi, ISO 200 | f/18 | 1/200 @35mm on a 18-55 5.6 IS… Continue reading
Acanthoponera queen
Last week I went into my usual rainforest spot and came across a very nice finding, a queen of the pretty uncommon Acanthoponera genus, you can find the full story on the Meet your Neighbours page.
Acanthoponera mucronata queen
Canon XSi, ISO400 | f/11 | 1/200 @28mm on a reversed Soligor 28-35mm
One flash on camera and one held at the left. Stack of 3 shots.
Acanthoponera mucronata queen
Canon XSi, ISO800 | f/18 | 1/200 @45mm on 18-55mm 5.6 IS +22 diopter (Raynox msn-202)
Despite the Acanthoponera being a first timer for me, looking through my archive I see in the past I had come across at least one ant of this same subfamily in the area, another predator, a worker of Heteroponera flava, I remember this one was seen during the day (as well as another one in a different region) on a rotten log on the ground, as opposed to the nocturnal sighting of the Acanthoponera.… Continue reading
Posted in Blog, Photo Journal, Science
Tagged ant queen, brazil, rainforest, rare insect
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Lycosidae & Pompilidae aka the wolf and the hawk
Pepsis species vs wolf spider
ISO400 | f/22 | 1/200 @55mm, under the sun with fill flash
I find parasitic wasps the most challenging ones to get their pictures taken, they are not social so you can’t find a bunch sitting in a nest like we are used for most. They are solitary, and when looking around for hosts they barely sit still, always walking and frenetically scanning the ground with their antennae. Pepsis is a genus with about 130 species from the Americas, these wasps belongs to the Pompilidae family bearing some of the biggest wasps in the world. They are specialized in spider hunting, hence the famous tarantula hawk nickname for some of the species.… Continue reading
Posted in Blog, Photo Journal
Tagged Insects, macrophotography, parasitic wasp, parasitism, rainforest
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Larvae living on jelly
A gooey looking transparent insect, when I encontered it last year I thought it could be the larva of a either a fly or a neuroptera, after a bit of research it turns to be the larva of a crane fly, prior tipulid and now placed in it’s own family, Limoniidae.
The majority of species in this family have aquatic larvae, and only three recent papers makes observations of larvae living in terrestrial habitat surrounded by a mass of jelly. These observations were all very similar and on species of the same genus, Geranomyia, in Costa Rica and the Fiji, I believe this one is also Geranomyia.… Continue reading