Today Mark Sturtevant has returned with pictures of diverse critters, including insects, amphibians, and gastropods. Mark’s IDs, links, and narrative are indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them.
Here are more pictures of various critters in my area, which is in eastern Michigan.
The first picture is a young treefrog, and it is about as big as your thumbnail. This will be one of two sister species in the area, either Cope’s Gray Treefrog, Dryophytes chrysoscelis, or the Gray Treefrog, D. versicolor. They are commonly green in green surroundings. If it is the latter species, then it is tetraploid and that is why it is a separate species from the former. Polyploidy is one way to quickly form a new species, and this is a classic example.
Next up are a couple of our local snails, the Brown-lipped snails, Cepaea nemoralis. I was not sure what to do with them, and so I did this. These snails were introduced from Europe, and are now widespread in the U.S.
The next several pictures are manual focus stacks that were staged on the ‘ol dining room table. First up is a young Flower Crab Spider. That name applies to many species of crab spiders that often lurk on flowers to capture prey. Based on its eye arrangement and prominent hairs, I am pretty sure this one is Mecaphasa sp.
The jumping spiders that follow are species that I’ve shown here many times. The first is a Dimorphic Jumping Spider, Maevia inclemens. This one was very fidgety and it needed something to eat to help settle down. The lights in the eyes of the first picture came from an LED modeling light to help me to focus. I liked the look and so I did not remove the highlighting in post-processing. In the second picture you can see reflections of my fingertips in the large frontal eyes.
Another common spider is the Bold Jumping Spider, Phidippus audax. This youngster was very easy to work with.
The weird creature shown in the next picture is one of our Harvestmen, I think Phalangium opilio. I don’t see this species very often even though it’s distributed all around me. I like them because males have really long pedipalps and horned chelicerae. In some populations, the chelicerae horns are much longer than what is seen here.
Next is a moth that flew inside the house one evening. I think it’s a new species for me – the Lunate Zale Moth, Zale lunata.
And finally, I spotted this large caterpillar one day when out with the cameras. This is a mature Polyphemus Moth larva, Antheraea polyphemus, and it will become maybe the 2nd or 3rd largest moth in the U.S. For the portrait picture, I was trying to get it to look all haughty and Offended, as caterpillars like this often look very offended when being handled. But instead, this one looked like it was Eevil and plotting something, Mwa ha ha haa.
Very nice closeup pictures!
So much fun to look at – I see detailed, elegant, mechanical marvels of Nature, like the best robots ever designed – the reflections in the eyes merely highlight that….
… also love learning more about the tree frogs, because they are such a treasure to find – a couple times, I saw exactly one in the door jamb of a car – as in, where the door edge fits! She was totally happy there!
These photos are artworks. Just incredible! Who knew spiders could look so lovable or caterpillars so menacing? 😸
All are fascinating pictures and id’s; spiders scarily (a word?) so.
Lovely, lovely pictures, as always.
I once rescued a Polyphemus caterpillar that I found in the middle of a parking lot on warm asphalt and put it on a bush where it promptly formed a cocoon that let me monitor it thru the winter and into the spring, but I missed the pupation.
Caterpillars do tend to wander far from their host plant to pupate — later forming a chrysalis, or cocoon, or to bury themselves in the ground. I don’t know why they do that, as surely it leads to a lot of mortality.
I’ve observed Monarch caterpillars moving very far from their host milkweeds to form chrysalises in obscure locations. My guess is that it’s a parasitoid avoidance behavior (assuming the parasitoids cue in on the milkweeds to find victims, of which there are many). If so, there must be a trade off since you are surely correct that the wandering phase itself results in many deaths.
Those are awesome pics! Thanks Mark!
I love seeing what spiders look like!
Thank you. These are amazing photos.
Wow, Mark! You hit it out of the park again. Fabulous photos. I’m partial to the snails. Despite the havoc they cause to my garden, I like the little boogers.
I spent endless hours as a child with the snails that lived in the ice plant in front of our home in Carlsbad, California. I played “house” with them. There were “father snails” and “mother snails” and, naturally, loads of “baby snails” and I considered them my family. I derived much pleasure and comfort from those slimy, fragile critters. Thanks for the memories.
Cepaea nemoralis snails are common here in the Pacific Northwest. I know that they’re introduced, but I still like them. Love the spiders, too!
Fabulous! I love insect faces and the detail in these is extraordinary. Thanks.
Beautiful and informative photos, Mark, as always. Thank you.
Like paintings. Astounding detail.
Awesome. As always. Thanks!
So many arthropods exhibit faces within faces…they are great at deception, and/or just weird. You captured that aspect with great affect in a couple of these. Muwahaha, indeed.
Those snails have made it here to the PNW. I put the many I find (everywhere this time of year) into the turtle pond. The turts love escargot. Sometimes I notice an escapee crawling up the pond’s face and I save it and put it back in the field. I know it’s 99% luck that it escaped the doom of hungry red-eared sliders, but I pretend I’m doing some artificial selection whilst playing a capricious god. Muwahaha
Great pictures, including the Polyphemous moth caterpillar. Thank you!