Category: insects and other arthropods

Readers’ wildlife photos

March 15, 2026 • 8:30 am

Mark Sturtevant has returned with some excellent arthropod photos. Mark’s caption and IDs are indented, and you can enlarge his photos by clicking on them. Note that his stacking method is time-consuming; the third picture, he says, took “weeks,” and he’s still not finished.

Here is another set of local insect pictures, all manual focus stacks from either a staged setting from where I live in eastern Michigan, or at a local park.

The first was a visitor at the porch light. This beetle is a female stag beetle (Dorcus parallelus), and I was surprised about the ID because it was barely an inch long. Males of this species have mandibles only slightly larger than those in females:

The next picture is a Longhorn Beetle, Astyleiopus variegatus:

Next is a scene of symbiotic interactions between aphids and ants, where the aphids bribe the ants into protecting them by producing sugary secretions. The ants appear to be New York Carpenter Ants (Camponotus novaeboracensis), and I don’t know why they are called that since the species has a very wide range in the U.S. They are here tending aphids of an unknown species on a thistle plant. This picture is in a way impossible since an extreme macro picture like this cannot have much depth of focus, and it is also impossible to extend focus by conventional focus stacking since ants never sit still. So I’ve been spending weeks extending the depth of this picture from bits and pieces of several pictures. I am still not done doing this, but Mark needs a break so out it goes, into the public:

Dragonflies are next. These too are quick manual focus stacks but with a telephoto lens. Probably my favorite field for photographing dragons is a two hour drive away, but it is worth it because there is a field that is swarming with many species, including species that I don’t see elsewhere.

The first of these is a Common Green Darner Anax junius, which is a common species but what was exciting for me was that this is a male. Females land. Females are so easy to photograph that I usually don’t even bother. But males? No. Males fly pretty much all day, and I seldom get a chance with them:

But the best reason to visit the “dragonfly field” are its Clubtail dragonflies (Family Gomphidae). The main flight season for Clubtails is June, so that is when I make a point to visit the dragonfly field where there are ten documented species from this family. I have photographed all but two from there. Clubtail dragonflies tend to be marked in yellow and black, and they have a thickened end on their abdomen. But not all species have this color scheme, and some are more ‘club-tailed’ than others. A couple things to like about them as a group are the many species, and their reliability for perching on or near the ground. This is in stark contrast to certain other dragonflies (i.e., male Green Darners!)

The first of these are some of the ‘big-club’ Clubtails, and we start with a Midland Clubtail (Gomphurus fraternus):

The next is the impressively clubbed Cobra Clubtail (Gomphurus vastus):

And here is another one, the Skillet Clubtail (Gomphurus ventricosus), which is perched on Poison Ivy. Just to make things interesting, much of the ground cover in the dragonfly field is Poison Ivy. You should not even touch this stuff:

Do you see the differences in the above three species? Me neither! But upon close comparison, there are small differences in their markings that can be discerned. Most of the time when I am out there, I don’t know what big club species I am photographing.

Not all Gomphids are like the above. Here is a Lancet Clubtail (Phanogomphus exilis), which is probably the most common Gomphid in this park:

And here is an example of a very different dragonfly in the clubtail family, the Rusty Snaketail (Ophiogomphus rupinsulensis). There is another species of snaketail in the field, but it is rare and I have yet to see it. Just another reason to make the drive every June:

Now all of the above species of dragonflies are under 2” in length, so considerably shorter than your little finger. But dragonfly field hosts the largest Clubtail in the U.S. called the Dragonhunter (Hagenius brevistylus), which is about 3.5” long — the length of your index finger.

Does that still seem small? I promise if you see one you will stop and stare. Everyone does, because in the field they look big. The Dragonhunter is not even the largest of our dragonflies but they are probably the heaviest. Dragonhunters get their common name from their habit of eating other dragonflies. Admittedly, most dragonflies do that, but Dragonhunters seem to have a reputation for it. Even though I have seen many dozens by now, they always get my undivided attention when one goes cruising by:

Readers’ wildlife photos

March 10, 2026 • 8:15 am

We have no more batches in the tank, so if you have photos, send them along. Thanks.

Today’s final tranche comes from reader Ephraim Heller, which will be in two parts. Ephraim’s captions and IDs are indented, and you can enlarge his photos by clicking on them:

Q: Why do chickens (Gallus gallus domesticus) in Trinidad & Tobago cross the roads?

A: To eat the tarantulas.

During my recent visit to Trinidad and Tobago, a local birding guide explained that one of the reasons people commonly keep free-range chickens in their yards is to eat the tarantulas. This gave me a new respect for these domestic fowl, as I witnessed venomous tarantulas larger than my XXL-size hands, such as this female Trinidad chevron tarantula (Psalmopoeus cambridgei):

Trinidad harbors a diversity of arachnids that rivals anywhere in the Neotropics. On my night walks with my new macro lens I observed spiders (order Araneae) and harvestmen, also known as daddy long legs (order Opiliones). Both arachnids are eight-legged members of the class Arachnida, but they belong to entirely separate orders and are not closely related within that class.

Returning to the Trinidad Chevron tarantula: it constructs silken tube retreats in tree crevices, behind bark, and among epiphytic plants. It also readily adapts to human structures (e.g., tin roofs, metal pipes, and abandoned buildings) making it something of a synanthrope:

Females are large and fast-growing, reaching 18 cm (7 inches) in leg span, with striking chevron-shaped dark markings on the abdomen and green-brown coloration accented by red or orange flashes on the legs. Males are smaller, with a more uniform grey-brown appearance, and can mature in as little as one year. The species is notable for its broad diet: bats, frogs, lizards, grasshoppers, mice, and other insects have all been documented as prey.

Pharmacologically, the Trinidad chevron tarantula is of medical interest. Its venom is the source of psalmotoxin and vanillotoxin – inhibitor cystine knot (ICK) peptides that may have therapeutic applications in stroke treatment.

The pinktoe tarantula (Avicularia avicularia), is the most commonly encountered tarantula in Trinidad and Tobago. This arboreal species is named for the distinctive pink coloration on the tips of its legs in adults:

Adults reach about six inches in leg span. They are ambush predators that construct silken retreats and trip lines in tree canopies, using webbing as both trap and sensor. Unlike most tarantulas, pinktoes can jump short distances (3-4 cm), and their defensive repertoire includes propelling feces at threats, a behavior that, while unglamorous, is effective. Their venom is mild, even by New World tarantula standards. Here’s a closeup from the previous photo focused on the body:

The Giant Fishing Spider (Ancylometes bogotensis) is a semi-aquatic giant. Females reach roughly 26 mm in body length with an impressive leg span, while males are somewhat smaller at about 21 mm. These spiders walk on water using air-trapping hydrophobic hairs on their leg tips, much like water striders. When disturbed, they can dive below the surface and remain submerged for over 20 minutes by breathing air trapped in the hairs surrounding their book lungs. Their diet ranges from aquatic insects to small fish, frogs, lizards, and geckos:

Ancylometes bogotensis is sometimes confused with the infamous Brazilian wandering spider (genus Phoneutria, photo below): both are large, ground-active, nocturnal hunters with similar body plans. The name Phoneutria translates from Greek as “murderer,” and the genus has appeared in the Guinness World Records as containing the world’s most venomous spider. There are eight described species, found primarily in tropical South America with one extending into Central America.

Phoneutria species are best known for their potent neurotoxic venom, their characteristic threat display (raising the first two pairs of legs high to reveal banded leg patterns) and their wandering, non-web-building habits. They famously hide in banana bunches, boots, clothing, and dark shelters, which brings them into frequent contact with humans. Their venom contains a cocktail of neurotoxins, but fatalities are rare with modern medical treatment.

Though Ancylometes and Phoneutria were both historically placed in the family Ctenidae, Ancylometes was transferred to its own family (Ancylometidae) in 2025, reflecting the growing understanding that these semi-aquatic fishing spiders represent a distinct evolutionary lineage:

We now turn to a species of orb-weaver. The golden silk spider (Trichonephila clavipes) is one of the most conspicuous spiders in the Caribbean and Neotropical forests. Sexual dimorphism in this species is extreme: males are tiny (5-9 mm body length) and weigh roughly one-thousandth what a female does. Here is a female:

The silk itself is remarkable. It has a golden hue visible to the naked eye and is the strongest natural fiber known. Researchers have fully annotated the T. clavipes genome, identifying 28 unique silk protein genes. These spiders produce and utilize seven different types of silk. Their large, asymmetric orb webs can exceed a meter in diameter, and in the South Pacific, relatives of Trichonephila spin webs strong enough to be used as fishing nets by indigenous communities:

Readers’ wildlife photographs

December 21, 2025 • 8:15 am

I have one more batch to go, as Mark Sturtevant kindly sent in a batch of arthropod photos. Mark’s captions are indented, and you can enlarge his photos by clicking on them.  And send in your photos, please!

These are pictures from two summers ago. The first pictures wrap up a trip that I had begun earlier, where I visited Illinois to witness the rare dual emergence of 13- and 17-year periodical cicadas. What remains from that batch are dragonflies.

The first of these are female and male Midland Clubtails, Gomphurus fraternus:

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Next is a terrible picture that totally made my day! This is the Swamp Darner, Epiaeschna heros, and I’ve been chasing this species for years as it is one of the largest dragonflies in the US, but it ranges just south of where I live. The link provides a picture that gives a better idea about their size:

It took off immediately after, but I was very glad to even get this. I had recently learned that this is the only living species in its genus, and the rest are known only from fossils.

The last dragonfly is a Twelve-spotted Skimmer, Libellula pulchella. This is an exceedingly common species so I usually don’t bother with them, but the air was very calm so I was able to get a quick manual focus stack with a long lens:

Next, we return back to my normal hunting grounds in Michigan. On one outing to an area park I had found this strongly melanistic lady beetle. Color variations are not unusual in this group, but I’ve never seen one like this. I think it is a Fifteen-spotted Lady Beetle (Anatis labiculata), based on various hints about its morphology. They are also spotted beetles, but I could not find one of those pose alongside it so I used the very familiar Asian Lady Beetle instead (Harmonia axyridis):

Spiders are always welcome, right? A species that is common near water is the Long-jawed Orbweaver (Tetragnatha sp.). These are exceptionally delicate and shy spiders, and their elongated chelicerae and fangs are not there to be alarming. Rather, they are specialized tools for picking mosquitos out of their web, and for clasping one another during mating. The link shows a video of the latter activity.

This is a portrait of a male, and he would flee at the slightest disturbance during the focus stacking session at the dining room table. It took hours to get this picture, and it was exhausting! :

This scene from a little shop of horrors is from inside the lair of a Candy-striped spider (Enoplognatha ovata). The common name refers to a color variation with red stripes, as shown at the link, but others are a more plain variety like this one. Candy-striped spiders build sparse webs under leaves and under flowers, and to me the webs seem next to worthless for entangling prey, so perhaps their role is to provide a system of trip lines that merely delay arthropods while they are passing through while also alerting the spider so that it can run out and attack. The species has some notoriety because of its habit of leaving its base at night to patrol the surrounding area searching for daytime-active insects that have bedded themselves down on plants to sleep. Once discovered, this prey does not wake up again.  The picture is a quick manual focus stack of a typical encounter from my yard, followed by a cropped version:

Finally, how do crab spiders do it? I’ve never seen one move fast, and yet they commonly take down very alert prey that one would think would know better. Here for example is a Ground Crab Spider (Xysticus sp.) making a meal out of a jumping spider (Phidippus clarus). Note the fang puncture marks. I routinely find crab spiders with very alert and fast kinds of prey like this, including flies, bees, and wasps, and yet crab spiders seem lethargic in their movements. So how do they do it?

I recently posted that picture online and expressed my bafflement about this mystery. A friend did some investigating and found this video with a different species of crab spider. All I can say is mystery solved, and 😳!

Readers’ wildlife photos

November 7, 2025 • 8:15 am

I’m running pretty low folks, so if you have good wildlife photos, perhaps you’d like to collect them, write a bit of text, and shoot them my way. Thanks.

Today we have another photo-and-text journey from Athayde Tonhasca Júnior. This is part II, and you can find part I here, which explains the region.  Athayde’s captions are indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them.

Chapada Diamantina – II

We continue our journey inside Lapa Doce.

There’re lots of water stored in pools, nooks and crevices in all these cave networks. This water was vital to local populations before wells and distribution systems arrived. The doce of Lapa Doce is an allusion to água doce (sweet water), the Portuguese term for ‘fresh water’. These waterbodies are home for all sorts of creatures, including the endemic, blind and albino catfish Rhamdiopsis krugi:

Many skeletons of extinct creatures such as saber-tooth tigers, prehistoric armadillos, horses, and giant sloths have been found on the ancient riverbed. Here, a Eremotherium laurillardi giant sloth is flanked by a 1,80 m human:

The Scream II:

Everywhere: the relentless destructive/constructive action of water:

In some thousand years, this stalactite and stalagmite will come into contact and fuse into a column. You can’t see it from pictures taken by phones under torchlight, but mineral water is dripping ever so slowly from the tip of the stalactite:

The end of the trail, through another collapsed doline. Back to a world of blinding light and sizzling temperatures:

Some of the hundreds of cave paintings found on the walls of collapsed dolines in the region. They have not been dated, we know nothing about the artists, which didn’t stop wackos infesting the internet with extraterrestrial theories:

These cavities under the cave projection look like the result of water drips, but looks are deceiving. Each hole is a trap. A careless insect falling in will try to climb out, dislodging soil particles that send sensory signals to a predator buried on the bottom of the pit– an antlion larva, a lacewing-related insect (family Neuroptera) that will seize the prey, inject it with venom and suck up its innards:

Danger, danger everywhere. An apparently benign bank along the trail…:

… is an ideal ambushing spot for a trapdoor spider (infraorder Mygalomorphae). The door is a hinged segment of a silk cocoon that hides a patient spider:

Here’s the locust!

October 16, 2025 • 11:12 am

Did you spot the locust in this morning’s post?  I thought it was a hard one. Below is the reveal as well as an enlargement. Gary, who sent the photo, says this:

Best guess, Trimerotropis pallidipennis, the pallid-winged grasshopper. It looks like the critter. They are a very common grasshopper in the SW and have a huge range, from B.C. to Argentina.

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Readers’ wildlife photos

October 2, 2025 • 8:30 am

I have two batches now and some singletons, but of course that won’t last a while, so please send in your wildlife photos. Thanks.

Today we’re featuring the insect and spider photos of reader Mark Sturtevant. Mark’s narrative and captions are indented and you can enlarge his photos by clicking on them.

After a longer than usual absence, I am back with more pictures of arthropods from my area in eastern Michigan. These are pictures from May of not this season, but the previous one. I am far behind in processing pictures as I have so many!

The pictures here will be mostly about moths, starting with a couple of caterpillars. Here is the larva of the Copper Underwing (Amphipyra pyramidoides). Underwing moths are cryptic, but they usually have flashy hind wings as shown in the linked picture to this species. This is a form of deception, since when an underwing moth is flying, a predator would see the bright colors. But after an erratic and hard-to-follow flight, they duck around and land on a vertical surface {usually a tree trunk), fold their wings, and they no longer look like they did.

The next caterpillar is an Eastern Tent Caterpillar (Malacosoma americana). The larvae are very gregarious and together they form a densely webbed bivouac where they shelter for their entire larval stage. They periodically arrive at a quorum for feeding en masse, and when that decision is made, they migrate out together to feed by following pheromone trails to the leaves and then back again to the bivouac. A mature caterpillar will wander on its own to make a cocoon, as I suppose this one was doing. This all seems very interesting to me now, so next summer I am resolved to pay more attention to the habits of these common caterpillars.

I have lately been keeping the porch lights on in order to attract insects I might photograph, and the numbers that are pulled in have been kicked up by a lot with a couple cheap black lights, as the UV from these attracts moderate swarms of insects. So here is a very early and small installment of pictures from the porch.

First is a Bilobed Looper moth, Megalographa biloba, a widely distributed species throughout the Americas. There are several related species that also come to the porchlights and you will see those later.

Next is what is either a Grape Leafroller Moth, Desmia funeralis OR a Grape Leaffolder Moth D. maculalis. Identifying the difference requires a ventral view. The modified antennae identify this one as a male.

The moth in the next picture is the Common Spring Moth, Heliomata cycladata, followed by a lovely little moth called the Pale Beauty, Campaea perlata.

The final moth here is the Baltimore Snout, Hypena baltimoralis.

Other common visitors to the porch lights are large Fishflies. As this was in the Spring, this will be the Spring Fishfly, Chauliodes sp. For scale, it wis about as long as your index finger.

Out in area parks now. Here is a mating pair of Crane Flies, Tipula sp.

One of the American Rose Chafers, Macrodactylus sp. Despite the name, the larvae and adults are fairly broad in their herbivory.

Let’s close with some spiders. A common sight in the woods are these numerous but tiny spiders that use webbing to partially enclose themselves in curled leaves. This is one of the Mesh Web Weavers (Dictynidae). I don’t know how they hunt since I don’t see them with much of a web, but perhaps they go after whatever trips over their weblines in their leaf shelter. There is generally prey in there with them.

It’s always a good idea to inspect leaves, and a curled-up leaf, sewn tightly shut with webbing, is like an Amazon package for Mark. Here, I had opened a tightly enclosed leaf and found this very annoyed crab spider glaring at me inside. What I see here suggests it is a Bark Crab Spider in the genus Xysticus (given the placement of eyes, bristles on the first tibia, and so on). From the looks of her, she will be using this enclosure to protect her egg sac. So after some pictures, I put her and her leaf in a well sheltered area.

The final picture is a favorite species of ground spider, the Parson Spider, Herpyllus ecclesiasticus. These zippy critters commonly turn up in the house. The common name refers to the silvery markings on the abdomen that looks like an old timey minister cravat.

Readers’ wildlife photos

May 24, 2025 • 8:15 am

Today we have a diverse set of photos from Amy Perry of Indiana. Amy’s captions and IDs are indented, and you can enlarge her photos by clicking on them. After this we have only one batch of photos left.

All photos were taken at Ritchey Woods, a state-designated nature preserve owned by the city of Fishers, a suburb of Indianapolis. The preserve is surrounded by commercial and residential development and an airport and is a treasured haven for families, dog walkers, runners, and birders and other nature lovers. The majority were taken with my iPhone 11 in the past year; a few plant photos were taken by the park naturalist, probably with her iPhone around 2019.

Common box turtle (Terrapene carolina) sitting just as royally as you please on a bridge:

Insects mating. Haven’t been able to identify the species [Readers?]:

Milkweed tussock or milkweed tiger moth caterpillar (Euchaetes egle) on, unsurprisingly, milkweed, probably Asclepias syriaca:

Trout lily (Erythronium americanum). Spring ephemeral. Also called yellow adder’s tongue and yellow dogtooth violet. One of the few yellow spring ephemerals, in my experience. Most are white. Spring ephemerals bloom before the tree canopy leafs out, as they take advantage of the sunlight that the trees block after the leaves appear:

Dutchmen’s Breeches (Dicentra cucullaria). Spring ephemeral:

Shagbark hickory (Carya ovata). I like species that have an obvious identifying characteristic, such as the shaggy bark here. It’s a bonus if the common name and/or Latin name also reflects the identifying characteristic:

Spring beauty (Claytonia virginica). These beauties carpet the forest floor during April. The pale pink stripes are said to guide insects to the nectar or pollen. The blooms close if the temperature goes below 45 degrees F. Spring ephemeral. I just learned that another common name is Fairy spud, which seems apt:

More spring beauty, to show the attractiveness of their natural massed growth. They are at the foot of a sign marking a border of the nature preserve:

Skunk cabbage (Symplocarpus foetidus). This is the spathe. Grows in January and February in moist soil. Sometimes the energy radiated by the growth actually melts the surrounding snow or ice. True to its name, it has a strong, unattractive odor:

Virginia bluebells (Mertensia virginica). Often the blossoms are pink when they first bloom and then turn a lovely blue. Spring ephemeral:

Callery pear (Pyrus calleryana). Ending on a depressing note. These trees have a lovely oval shape but are invasive. Also called Bradford pear.  This species is not on the state’s official invasive list, but plans are in the works to have it added soon. The official invasive list prohibits the sale, purchase, transport, or giving of invasive species within the state. When several species were added a few years ago to the list, this one was discussed, but so many nurseries had it “in the pipeline,” that conservationists decided to take a small victory and wait to add it later: