Readers’ wildlife photos

June 6, 2025 • 8:15 am
Today’s photos of insects were sent by Marcel van Oijen from Edinburgh, who notes that “these 13 pictures of insects we (my wife Netty and I) saw in Greece last April, one of which I hope you or your other readers can identify! All the photos were taken by Marcel, his captions and IDs are identified, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them. 

Insects in northern Greece

Marcel van Oijen & Netty van Dijk

We visited Greece in April 2025, mainly to look for orchids. But beautiful insects kept showing up. All pictures were taken with a Fujifilm X-T5.

The first four pictures are from Delphi. To the east of town are the famous ruins, but just north are mountain meadows with orchids and insects. This is a Clouded Yellow (Colias croceus).

Wall Brown (Lasiommata megera):

I do not know what this spectacular insect is, maybe some wingless cricket species?:

Common Blue (Polyommatus icarus):

The next two pictures are from the busy town of Nafpaktos. If you walk up to the old castle, you find peace and butterflies. This is a Scarce Swallowtail (Iphiclides podalirius):

Old World Swallowtail (Papilio machaon):

The small island in Lake Pamvotida can be visited hourly by boat from Ioannina, the largest city in NW Greece. This is a Long-horned Bee (Eucera longicornis) on a bee orchid (Ophrys sp.):

The next three pictures were taken along the wonderful path through the Aoös gorge from Konitsa to the Stomio monastery. This is a Speckled Bush-cricket nymph (Leptophyes punctatissima) on a bee orchid (Ophrys sp.):

This little guy (Morimus asper funereus) was sitting quietly on the path and allowed me to lie down for a tête-à-tête:

A pair of mating European Firebugs (Pyrrhocoris apterus). They can stay coupled like this for many hours, making it easy to take pictures:

Copper Chafer (Protaetia cuprea) near the famous waterfalls of Edessa:

Male Beautiful Demoiselle damselfly (Calopteryx virgo) among the Roman-era ruins of Dion in Thessaly. The next picture was taken at the same spot:

Female Beautiful Demoiselle damselfly (C. virgo):

17 thoughts on “Readers’ wildlife photos”

  1. Wonderful

    The photo of the old world swallowtail is exquisite, the black line flow – starting at the wings, then body, antennae, and the proboscis (?) converge to a singular pattern that follows through and out the legs which are sort of landing precisely, continuing through the plant buds …

    mesmerizing… like I can feel it in my hand somehow, the fitting of swallowtail to plant by those lines…

  2. Beautiful Pictures! I really enjoyed these. The unknown looks to be one of the Shield-backed Katydids (subfamily Tettigoniinae ), but I don’t have a more specific ID than that.

  4. Somehow these wonderful pictures and the text were so peaceful and relaxing. I agree the Scarce Swallowtail is especially beautiful.

    And now I have another great example for why proper species names need to be capitalized.

  7. Thank you so much for these wonderful, peaceful photos. I hope you’ll contribute another set–one of orchids or more insects!

  8. These are great photos! Thanks, Marcel. Old World Swallowtail is my favorite.

  12. Thank you all for your kind comments, and Mark and Erika for your suggestions regarding insect number 3! A Shield-backed Katydid is maybe more likely than Mole Cricket because of the shape of the forelegs and antennae.

  13. I loved the pattern on the wings of the female damselfly. I also enjoyed the conversational position of the Morimus beetle.

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