Cicindela in spring mode

Troels · Post by **Troels** » Thu Apr 25, 2019 2:00 pm

Last year I posted pictures of the brown Cicindela hybrida.
To day I was lucky to observe the beautiful green Cicindela campestris depositing eggs in the sandy soil on the track i use so often.

Suddenly an other Cicindela arrived, attacked the first one and grabbed her in the neck with his big jaws. After a second he shifted the grip and started mating.

I thought it might be the right curcumstances to get a chance to get close enough with my 60 mm macro lens. And sure enough.

(Full size at Flickr )

Handheld, natural light.

DesolateMirror · Post by **DesolateMirror** » Fri Apr 26, 2019 7:35 am

Great capture.

Harald · Post by **Harald** » Fri Apr 26, 2019 12:39 pm

Hi Troels,
Those Cicindela are a really great subject.
Do they normally live in sand area?

Would love to do some images of them myself.

Great shot and thanks for sharing

MarkSturtevant · Post by **MarkSturtevant** » Fri Apr 26, 2019 12:59 pm

Beautifully photographed!
A female laying eggs would already be mated, but I guess they will allow mixed husbandry of their offspring.

Troels · Post by **Troels** » Sat Apr 27, 2019 1:26 am

Thanks for responding!

Harald,
The Cicindela (aka Tiger Beetle and in Danish: Sandspringer) prefer sandy soil, heather land and sunny weather.
The adults hunt by running around on the sandy surface while the larva hunt by lurking in a hole in sandy soil, often along track and paths.
If you missed it I described the life of the larvae here.

I can see here that they are found in Norway up to Tromsoe but most abundant in the southern part of Norway. Good luck with the hunt!

Mark,
as far as I understand, in many insects the eggs are not fertilized during the mating. Instead the siemen is stored in a receptacle untill the moment the eggs are layed. Perhaps the female just filled op the storage before a new turn of egg laying.

The father could the same or a different one. Difficult to say.

Susan Smitha · Post by **Susan Smitha** » Sat Apr 27, 2019 3:43 am

Fabulous shot!

zzffnn · Post by **zzffnn** » Sun Apr 28, 2019 6:18 am

Very nice image, thank you for sharing, Troels. Cicindela beetles are my favorite common ones.

I am surprised f/13 on micro four thirds can produce such deep DoF at that magnification. Did you crop the image?

I have not been able to produce nice macro images under natural light, so would be nice to learn from you. Thank you again.

Troels · Post by **Troels** » Sun Apr 28, 2019 9:20 am

Thanks for commenting!

zzffnn,
Yes, I have cropped the original image to almost 50% width resulting in a ca. 4 MP image (before resizing to the desired 1024 px at pm.net). Not high resolution for big prints, but enough for impressive images on the web.

Ideally I should have used a longer focal length, but my new 40-150 mm has not arrived yet! Using only 60 mm i was reluctant to get very close to the sharp eyed animal. I is very alert and got scared after my first 8 pictures.

It is always a challenge to get good macro images of live animals under natural light conditions. Especially since direct sunlight often makes ugly shadows. I always produce tons of shaken or out-of-focus Pictures.

In this case I turned up the ISO to 800 realizing I needed both high f-number and fast shutter. And I lay flat on my stomach with albows resting on the ground ("body tripod"). Most of my "wildlife" macro shots are cropped more or less to fill the frame.