Today’s photos come from our intrepid regular, Mark Sturtevant. Mark’s text and IDs are indented, and you can enlarge his photos by clicking on them:
In a recent post, I shared some pictures of arthropods taken the previous summer on a trip to my home state of Iowa. Here are more pictures that came out of that trip.
To begin, readers may recall that the previous set included pictures of a large wolf spider (Tigrosa aspersa). To jog your memory, here is another picture of her:
One thing about wolf spiders is that their eyes produce a lot of eyeshine when you put a light on them at night. Like cats, these nocturnal spiders have a reflective layer in their eyes, and so a simple walk outside with a flashlight can reveal many glowing eyes of these spiders. Strangely, the internet does not offer very detailed pictures of this phenomenon, so I decided to take the spider home to give the internet a real close look at wolf spider eyeshine. Back at home, I put her in a bucket of sand that was topped with a glass box that I had made from thin picture glass. The photographs below were taken from long exposures with a pinhole flashlight, in a dark basement, while the camera was fixed on a tripod. Getting eyeshine from a distance is super easy. But I found that when working up close, the angle between the light and the camera lens had to be very exact to get much of anything.
I soon learned that she liked to hide in a burrow, and so here she is glaring up at me from a tunnel that I made for her. The radiant pattern of light is a cool camera artifact that lights and reflections can have when a lens aperture is stopped way down. I am here reminded of Shelob, the giant spider in The Lord of the Rings – “an evil thing in spider form”.
The remaining pictures were taken while still back in Iowa. All but the first were taken over a couple nights while staking out my brothers’ porch lights. The family is quite accustomed to this sort of thing, of course.
A recently emerged Annual Cicada, Neotibicen sp.:
Adult Antlion, I think Myrmeleon immaculatus. This species is a considerably bigger than the Antlions back home! :
Tachinid Fly, either Leskia or Genea sp. One has to peer at hairs on wing veins to tell the genera apart:
Ragweed Flower Moth Schinia rivulosa:
The final pictures are various Geometrid moths. First, a lovely Chickweed Geometer (Haematopsis grataria):
Next is a Crocus Geometer. Xanthotype sospeta:
And finally, here is a Large Maple Spanworm (Prochoerodes lineola). Can you imagine a Spot the Moth game with this on a pile of dead leaves?:
Fascinating work. Thanks, Mark.
Your photos are just awesome in the true sense of that word. Those eyes!! Those scary little faces!! And the moths are wonderful. But my favorite is the beautiful Tachinid Fly.
What a literally brilliant, and clever idea, to look at the shine!
I presume the “layer” is the retina?
Also remember the spider ambush in Mirkwood in The Hobbit – there was a line about the eyes, I think.
I don’t think the movie showed eyeshine in Shelob. That would have been pretty cool!
Wonderful photos – thank you!
These are amazing. Those wolf spider photos are unlike anything I’ve ever seen.
I am so happy to see a post about spider eye-shine, and those beautiful close-up pictures—I’ve never seen pictures like that. For the last few years, I’ve been going out on summer nights with a little light to look over the spiders around my yard. I’m not sure I would want to see so many of them in the light of day, but at night, transformed into an expanse of tiny glittering gems, they are a wonder.
Beautiful, wonderful photos, as always! I truly love the photos of the wolf spiders. I’ve always loved wolf spiders in particular.
So cool, especially the eye shine!
This is such an exciting post! Thanks so much!
I love the lit up eyes on that wolf spider.
Over the top! Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed wolf spiders!
Thank you, made my morning.
The spider’s eye shine reminds me of my wife, who has had cataract surgery in both eyes. The effect of her ocular reflections can be quite pronounced at night, given certain angles of artificial light. Of course, her eye shine is caused by the implanted lenses, not by any reflective layers next to the retinas, which cats have, and apparently some spiders, but humans don’t. I hasten to add that though I find arachnids fascinating, I love my wife much more than any spider.
Brilliant, quite literally!
Splendid photos. Yes, you definitely Shelobed that wolf spider- too cool! The eyes look like mini LEDs.
I also loved the background of the Crocus Geometer- the “splatter marks” of the background and moth wings worked perfectly.
The behind-the-scenes explanation of how you make your models comfortable to get those great shots is wonderful!