It’s pouring down rain in Chicago: a real Midwestern thunderstorm complete with loud thunder and lightning. I hope my ducks are okay except, hey, it’s water, Jake. In the meantime, here’s a “spot the” feature by Mark Sturtevant, and this one I’d rate as “pretty hard.” Mark’s words are indented:

Last summer I ‘discovered’ the nymphs of one of our local species of grasshoppers known as the Northern marbled grasshopper (Spharagemon marmoratum marmoratum). These are common in a place I call the Magic Field, although as you will see, they are hard to spot! Patches of lichens and mosses cover large areas of the ground in this strange place, and the nymphs of this grasshopper are beautifully camouflaged to match it.

So somewhere in this picture are three nymphs of these grasshoppers. They are in plain view. Can you spot the grasshoppers?

The rule: have fun, but please do not reveal the locations. Let others have a try!

Click the photo to enlarge, and remember; don’t give away the locations in the comments, though you can say how many you’ve spotted.

Reveal will be at 3 p.m. Chicago time.

Bonus quiz: Explain how this one picture shows all four of the “traditional” kingdoms of Eukaryotes.

Did you spot the dragonfly in Robert Seidel’s photo this morning? Here’s the reveal and then a closeup.

Here’s a photo from Robert Seidel, asking us to spot the dragonfly. Click to enlarge the photo; reveal at 11 a.m. Chicago time today. Robert’s note:

I believe this is a female emperor dragonfly (Anax imperator), rightly described as “bulky” by the website I used to check – this one was as large as my palm. It also says they don’t perch often, and I wonder if she knew what she was doing by choosing those plants that have a similar pattern to her thorax.

Can you see it? I’d judge this as “medium difficult.”

Did you spot the hidden moth in Tony Eales’s photo earlier today? From the comments it looks as if people thought they were supposed to spot the obvious moth on the left, but that wasn’t the hidden one.

Here’s the reveal (click photo to enlarge).

That wasn’t so easy, was it?

Tony Eales, a researcher in Queensland and regular contributor to “readers’ wildlife photos”, sent a “spot the” picture. I’ll let him tell you what you’re supposed to spot, and there will be a reveal later:

I took a wide shot of this moth with a “spot the” in mind but found that on the computer the moth actually stood out very well. However there was another moth in the same photo that did not stand out at all.

NOTE: THERE ARE TWO MOTHS IN THE PHOTO. ONE IS QUITE OBVIOUS, BUT YOU’RE NOT LOOKING FOR THAT ONE. 

The hidden moth is an unidentified species of Scioglyptis, but the species of the obvious one is unknown. Your job is to spot the cryptic moth.  I’d call this one “pretty hard.” There will be a reveal at 11 a.m. Chicago time: