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White-legged Damselfly

White-legged Damselfly – Platycnemis pennipes – Плосконожка обыкновенная

Russia, Moscow, 06/22/2011

White-legged Damselfly

White-legged Damselfly – Platycnemis pennipes – Плосконожка обыкновенная.

Russia, Moscow, 06/23/2010

White-legged Damselfly

White-legged Damselfly – Platycnemis pennipes – Плосконожка обыкновенная.

Russia, Moscow, 06/23/2010

Blue Riverdamsel

The Blue Riverdamsel is a common species damselflies in the Coenagrionidae family. It is also known as the Blue Sprite.

They grow to 38mm in length. This species can easily be found near running water or still water. They usually rest on the plants either in the middle of ponds or at the water edges. In a sunny winter day, this damselfly may be the only damselfly still flying over the water, even though a few of them can be seen. In the summer, a large number of Blue Riverdamsels are competing for a good perching position with other damselflies. The male of this damselfly is brightly blue in colour with black pattern on his abdomen. Its head, face, and eyes are also blue. Pseudagrion microcephalum looks similar to the the Common Bluetail and the Eastern Billabongfly. The female is blue-grey to grey-green in colour.

I dont know, I am getting interest in Macro ..I am trying to resist..but I see macros more around me :(

Maj 2010

The Robberfly

The robberfly (diptera family asilidae) is one of the carnivores of the insect world that preys on other insects: exceedingly common throughout the world, it can reach up to an inch in length. The short, strong proboscis you can see at the front of the photo is used to stab and inject victims with saliva containing neurotoxic and proteolytic enzymes which paralyze and digest the insides; the fly then sucks the liquefied meal through the proboscis. Nature isn’t a sentimental place! While dragonflies typically chase down their prey, robberflies sit on a leaf waiting, in order to anticipate their prey’s flight path and intercept the prey in mid-flight. They pounce, clasp their prey in their strong legs, inject their venom then take it to a leaf to do the business.

As an evolutionary aid, robber flies have developed characteristically hairy faces — which helps protect their eyes from the prey that they catch. As with other aerial predators, robberflies have excellent vision, characterized by two conspicuous compound eyes. But, the worst a robber fly could do to a man is administer a pinch with its sharp beak, and then only the largest could! In fact they are almost beneficial as they kill pests: the larvae do not harm crops nor infect plants with disease. That said some consider robber flies a pest as they can feed on bees one by one until they decimate the entire colony! However, they also handle plant pests the same way and are thus also referred to as assassin flies.

Note for the men amongst us, the girls are no walkover! With this insect, the predatory nature of the girls is so dominant that when a males tries to court a female robber fly, if he is not careful, she will fly out, stab him with her proboscis and eat him! It’s not the only arthropod that has such behaviour… we’ve got it relatively easy =).

Technical, preserved specimen, BG output onto SmallHD via HDMI matrix used as background; rear curtain sync .8s exposures; 210 photos into 26 sub stacks using zerene stacker, retouched from Dmap composite, finished off with CS4, NoiseNinja & Topaz Detail. Step size of 40µm, polystyrene chip cone diffuser. Resized to reduce noise. 40 year old Schneider Componon 35 f/4 enlarger lens reversed on slightly more than flat bellows so about 1.5:1 ish; 3 flashes @1/32 perpendicular @2,6 &10 o clock. Took me about 6 hrs or so. As a stack this only gets about a 7/10 from me, boo. I can do better. The eyes could be nicer, and I’m not really convinced by this blue in the background, it’s a touch too dark for my personal taste. I wanted to make it a bit menacing but it’s sort of in between. Maybe a warm medium brown next time, dunno!

Link to large version: farm8.staticflickr.com/7278/7509916888_a48ca1f16d_o.jpg

More extreme macro shots here

Dragonfly

Dragonfly

Dragonfly

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