insects and other creepy crawly photos

[bertha katzenengel]

I've taken these pics. Post your own, or post "bug" pics you find especially intriguing.

Same mantis twice. Except for turning its head to eyeball me :weird: it didn't move -- I took pictures of it for about ten minutes.



Shot this dragonfly before we got a camera that doesn't "shake"



EEEEEEWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW



My fave: a grasshopper at Harper's Ferry (playing peek-a-boo with me, clinging to the edge of a trash can)

[bertha katzenengel]

1. HEY! I want BUGS with my coffee on Sunday morning, okay?!

Get busy! ;)

'night, all

[bridgit]

2. then you're gonna looooove this...

http://planetquest.jpl.nasa.gov/AlienSafari_launch_page.html :scared:

[ghostsofgiants]

3. A mantis...

Attacking Space Ghost with a folding chair.

[liberaltrucker]

4. Helluva photographer, Ms K!!

:toast:

I'm a very rank amateur, and it'd be educational to know your lens choice, flash sync, aperture
and shutter speed. Please PM.

[VespertineIconoclast]

5. You took some great pics, bk!

Here are a few pics not taken by me, but they're vibrant:

Chrysochroa Ephippigera



Chrysochroa Raja Assamensis



Polybothris Quadricollis



Julodis Hiritiventris Sanguinipi

[NNadir]

6. Beautiful Bertha. I really enjoy your posts.

You really seem like an outstanding person.

[seemunkee]

7. Here's one

[mike_c]

8. nice pics!

Mantids are ambush predators, so they are very good at staying still while visually tracking. The dragonfly is probably an aeshnid, one of the blue darners. Hard to say because the pic is a bit blurry. The one below that is a reduviid bug, another predator. And the grasshopper-- well, it's a grasshopper, LOL. Not enough visible to tell you anything more about it other than the family-- Acrididae.

[ironflange]

9. OK, how 'bout this guy?

I found out this thing is called a Wind Scorpion, a sort of primitive spider. It's related to those big ugly Camel Spiders they play with in Iraq, but this little fella was photographed in Casper, Wyoming.

[Reverend_Smitty]

10. I usually can't stand bugs but I think the praying mantis is the coolest bug ever

We used to have one that "lived" on our back deck. He/she would come and perch on the deck every day around dusk for a good two weeks. I'd have to go outside each night just to say hello, it would give me the eyeball and eventually fly or hop off to do whatever praying mantises(manti?) do. Maybe it was a male because I never saw it again after his little 2 week visit...so maybe a lady mantis got the best of him. Still a cool little creature