Readers’ wildlife photos

Reader Mark Sturvant, an expert in insect photography, sent some lovely photos on June 6; his notes are indented:

Attached is another set of pictures for the readers of WEIT. In the first picture we have the lovely Eastern pondhawk dragonfly (Erythemis simplicicollis). This male is nearing completion of its transformation from a youthful green color to the robin’s egg blue of a mature male. You can see the carnage of what was probably his last meal on the lily pad.

There are several pictures that I really wanted to share with your readers, and the next two are some of them. This very weird insect is a mantisfly (Climaciella brunnea), which is in the order Neuroptera, so it is related to more familiar insects like lacewings and antlions. I found this marvelous oddity while out ‘bugging’ with a good friend of mine from work who also does insect macrophotography.

There are several weird or at least interesting things about this insect. First, the obvious:  it shows convergent evolution to preying mantises. Mantisflies are predators, and so that resemblance is for good reason. Second, this species is a mimic of Polistes paper wasps, so it is presumably afforded some protection from predation. Finally, and this is the best part, I think, the life cycle of this species and some other species is pretty crazy. Since it is a Neuropteran it has a carnivorous larval stage, but this is one of the species that grows up as a parasite in the egg sacs of wandering spiders like wolf spiders. The tiny larva must first find an appropriate female spider, and then it must cling on to it. There it waits for the spider to start making an egg sac, and while she is doing that the larva sneaks inside. While the mother spider guards her precious egg sac, the larva is feasting on the eggs.

The next two pictures are of some pretty common insects, but I like them. The fly is a robber fly (Machimus, possibly M. notatus), and the big weevil (I love weevils) is Lepyrus oregonus.

Finally, the last two pictures took me several excursions to get. These are American ruby spot damselflies (Hetaerina americana). The first is a young male, and the second is a mature male. These damselflies are found along rivers, and they are very common along certain stretches of the river in the background, which is the (in)famous Flint river near Flint, Michigan. One of my favorite parks backs up to this river near Flint, and it is actually quite beautiful there.

Anyway, ruby spots are a bit of a challenge to photograph since they really want to hang out over the water, so I am compelled to lie on my stomach and inch out over the water with my precious camera for pictures. Their metallic colors are also tricky to represent accurately, and the red wing markings on the males must be backlit just right, in my opinion—hence the several trips just to get these pictures. After all that, I later realized I had never taken a picture of a female of the species! So I will be hanging out over the water some more this summer.