Topic: POW - Week 70: Insects, Bugs and Creepy Crawlies

After a quick search of POW topics I noticed this had not been covered recently afaik.
So...let the mini safari begin.
Bonus points for live specimens

Guidelines:
1. Photo needs to go along with the subject in some way.
2. Use thumbnails for photos with any dimension larger than 450 px or over 40 kb.
3. Post as many as you want.
4. At the end of the week the person who chose the topic (me) will pick someone to choose the next topic. This isn't a "winner," just someone who gets to suggest the next topic.
5. No critiques (unless requested) this is just to share our photos.
6. No sigs.

Sounds like fun...wish i could join but the bugs are still frozen here in Canuckland....give it a month

I tried to get a couple of photos of a spider today but I guess I must have been looking in the wrong place. So here are a couple I took last year.


Tao

I don't know if I'll be able to find any creepy crawlies this week, but if not I'll try to pick one of my favorites from last year to put up....

A bee in a rose

Click on the photo to see it larger

(Edited by briggl on 04-13-2005 05:45)

Recycled bug in case I don't get a chance to post another

Heh, gosh I picked the topic and I still haven't been able to get a decent shot of an insect this week at all.
Here is another from last year

I decided to enter the photo competition that axleclarkeuk mentioned in the other thread here with this photo.
It would be disgraceful of me to offer black pills for votes I know, so I'll just leave this here Ink and stuff contest and put my bag o' pills on the table by the open door of my cell.

Whoops nearly forgot great bug Ian, never seen anything like that before. Also that is a great bit of rust he is sitting on. If you have a bigger version that would make a great texture for PS.

Thanks Tao, I snapped it with a little Canon A60 whilst on a walk one day; wished I had my good camera as soon as I spotted it Let me know where you'd like them sent and I can send you two different pics that are 1600 x 1200.

PS I think two of your pills got lostTao, but Morpyre owes ya one back
Couldn't find your photo, axle, give us a pointer and another pill may disappear

(Edited by lan on 04-14-2005 00:31)

Oooooooo I just got a new camera, I spot a spider hiding behind the dog's water bowl, I remember Tao's POW theme (which I had laughed at because it is too early for insects!!, I run off to get my camera (after telling the spider to "stay!!!") and when I return it is still sitting their looking at me quizzically so I dashed off a few snaps of which this is the best:

http://www.the-emperor.org/graphics/spider_close_tweak3.jpg

It has been slightly tweaked for clarity - see this brief discussion for more details:

http://www.gurusnetwork.com/discussion/thread/3053/

Not great but I am happy with it as I'm still testing the macro and supermacro settings.

OK, I've finally gotten a few spare moments to go out and hunt some bugs. The weather isn't that conducive to bug hunting at the moment (it's a bit on the cool side and quite windy), but I figured I could hunt up some bugs in the greenhouse.

On my way out, though, I noticed this fellow in the foyer (vestibule? No direct parallel in Western homes--it's a tiny "room" where you take off your shoes before entering the house). It looks like a roach of sorts. Anyway, he was on his way to that big roach motel in the sky, so I snapped a few shots of him in his death throes and then put him out of his misery:



(Click for larger pic on this one and all following)

I then made my way out to the greenhouse. It's warm in there and smells of vegetation and manure--pretty much the ideal combination for bugs. They fly in through the front door (which is usually open) or through the vents (which are open in good weather) and then their tiny brains forget how they got in. They spend the remainder of their pathetic little lives bouncing off the plastic in an attempt to get at the blue sky that is on the other side. Kind of sad, but the sound of dozens of bugs bouncing off the plastic is pretty cool, too.

There were a bunch of these guys in there. At first I thought they were bees, but they don't look like bees close up. I've seen them before, but I don't know exactly what they are:



And here's another bug. Again, I have no idea what this is, but it looked pretty cool. He was by himself and, judging by the fact he seemed to have pretty much resigned himself to a (brief) life behind plastic, he's probably been here for a while:



There are usually a lot of spiders who set up shop in the greenhouse during the summer, but I didn't see any yet. I did take a few spider pics last year. In fact, I have an entire gallery at my site dedicated to arthropods. Yeah, I know, that's a wacky name for a gallery, but I wanted something that would include insects, butterflies, caterpillars, etc.

Of the photos currently in that gallery, this one is my favorite (it is also the one that freaks me out the most): Zombie bugs

What can I say, I like taking pictures of bugs... if only this topic came up a month later...

[Edit: All photos taken with my trust dusty Canon A80.]

[Edit2: Forgot to mention... if the zombie bugs photo isn't freaky enough for you at that size, click on it for a larger version. ]

(Edited by Suho1004 on 04-15-2005 07:38)

(Edited by Suho1004 on 04-15-2005 07:42)

My gf and I went to the St. Louis zoo a few weeks ago and I got some pretty good shots of creepy crawlies:

They had a butterfly exhibit which was basically just a rainforest type thing you could walk around in freely and there were butterflies flying all around you. It was very cool. We got to see two occasions of a butterfly or moth that had just hatched from it's coccoon.








This one was actually taken in my cupboard:


This one is tough to see because it was so dark in the cage but there are actually two bugs here, one brown, one green, and both verrrrry ugly:


Not really bugs but they are creepy and crawlie:




Finally, a huge praying mantis.


(Edited by krets on 04-18-2005 17:05)

(Edited by krets on 04-18-2005 17:20)

Wow, krets; bugarama

Yup... beautiful shots, krets. I just love bug pics.

Oooh, I know that moth. They're mega-big.
http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&lr=&safe=off&q=cecropia+moth&btnG=Search
On hands for scale:
http://insects.tamu.edu/images/insects/common/images/cd-43-c/img300.jpg
http://www.pikespeakphoto.com/images/butterflies/cecropia.jpg

(Edited by reisio on 04-20-2005 00:04)

Just back after another week "away". Funny thing is I'm starting to become accustomed to not being in front of the computer at least once a day, as well as not being online. I don't like it though .
Thanks for the support and the photos Ian you can email me on; tao dot boogie at gmail dot com. Looking forward to seeing the larger versions.
Fantastic shots krets and Suho, I find insects facinating as you both do it seems
Seem like I picked a bad time to photograph bugs here, not all that many around as Emps noticed. Come to think of it, I think you should pick the next subject Emps, I don't recall you choosing a POW here

quote:

---

Tao said:

Seem like I picked a bad time to photograph bugs here, not all that
many around as Emps noticed. Come to think of it, I think you should
pick the next subject Emps, I don't recall you choosing a POW here

---

Woo hoo.

As you say it isn't the best time and I'm hoping to get some better ones later - wait until my large selection o slugs and frogs really get going

And just finish a tiny insect I snuck up on the other day:

http://www.the-emperor.org/graphics/insect_trim.jpg