Spot the insect!

March 2, 2018 • 2:30 pm

Reader Robert sent a photo that hides some insects (I don’t know where they all are). How many can you spot?

Robert’s notes:

A slightly unusual entry for your consideration: This is the “Spot the insect” display at the Oxford University Museum for Natural History, used to show the gradual steps in the evolution of camouflage. I think it’s the same one used by Richard Dawkins in his 1991 Royal Institution Christmas lecture.

The full display has 30 insects in it, but this is only a part, and I’m not sure myself how many there are – I count seven.

I haven’t tried yet, but it’s a good way to kills some time on a lazy Friday afternoon. Click on the photo to isolate and enlarge it.

23 thoughts on “Spot the insect!

  1. Seven – the smallest of the seven is only 1/3 the length of the yellow beetle & is more than half hidden under a leaf

    An eighth one which is probably a leaf

    I keep thinking there’s a master-of-disguise stick insect in there somewhere, but the candidate I have for that is such a silly arrangement [‘legs’ all at one end] that I’m not counting it in my seven

  2. Five for sure, one identification is a maybe. I like such picture puzzles, it’s amazing when at the first look there seems to be nothing to see and then, the more intensively one looks, the hidden objects, one after the other, emerge from the background.

  3. I found about a half dozen; but clicking on the photo did nothing to isolate/enlarge it.

  4. I only detect six, of which one is a hemipteran, two are lepidopterans and three coleopterans (of which the smallest I think is a click beetle).

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *