Mosquito larvae taking a breather

Images taken in a controlled environment or with a posed subject. All subject types.

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leonardturner
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Mosquito larvae taking a breather

Post by leonardturner »

Image
Quite a few of these around this time of the year--

Saul
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Post by Saul »

Very interesting, nice composition.
Saul
μ-stuff

ChrisR
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Post by ChrisR »

That's very crisp. Are you using some sort of macro aquarium?
Chris R

leonardturner
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Post by leonardturner »

My thanks to you both.

Saul, the composition was determined by the larvae; they seemed rather convivial, and lined up this way on their own.

Chris, my little aquarium is the only survivor of a number of prototypes built on a microscope slide using cover slips fixed by hot glue to form a small rectangle. They are quite fragile, and all of the others leaked. I'm trying again with cyanoacrylate; we'll see. Lens used was 50 mm El Nikkor reversed on a bellows.

BugEZ
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Post by BugEZ »

Lovely image!

Can you post a photo of the aquarium?

I have been photographing mud dwelling fly larvae (time lapse) and hope to make a micro aquarium to allow a side view of one crawling/burrowing . The top views of the mud bulge progressing along (the critter remains a mm or two below the surface) are interesting, but a side view that included the critter might be more so.

Keith

leonardturner
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Post by leonardturner »

Keith,

Here is an image of the only aquarium that actually held water. As you can see, it is a really crude device consisting of a slide and four cover slips (actually five here, but that was an accident because two stuck together). This one was done with hot glue, very viscous and a bit hard to work with. Some intruded into the aquarium, and the larvae loved to hide behind it making photography more difficult. A later trial using a cyanate glue was a total failure: it consistently clouded the water. I didn't try the classic acetone based "model airplane glue" but I think it might work, although it could be toxic to the critters.

Leonard


Image
Image

BugEZ
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Post by BugEZ »

Many thanks for the photo of the aquarium and for nice lessons learned summary. I will order some rectangular cover slips and have a go at this.

For many years I used super glue to fix dead specimens to toothpicks for mounting. I had issues with clouding of shiny surfaces from the fumes. I have shifted to black nail polish and the outgassing issues went away. The viscosity and rate of drying are less than perfect however.

Also thanks for the lovely bonus larvae photo!

Keith

Charles Krebs
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Post by Charles Krebs »

Very nice images!

I've made up many similar "mini-tanks" over the years, and have settled on a construction method that seems to work very well, at least for me.

Craft supply stores (I use Michaels) sell a flexible sheet foam material for about $0.99/sheet. It seems to be a closed cell foam, and is very easy to cut with a razor or scissors. It is easy to cut a bunch of identically sized "U" shaped pieces. These can then be glued between two pieces of glass to make a mini-tank. You can easily "stack" the pieces to get whatever thickness you want. (I find a double layer about right for subject like you have pictured here. A single layer also works and confines the subject closer to the cover, but may be too narrow for some subjects.)

I use 2x3" slides and extra long cover slips. The images below show a two-tank "aquarium", made from one slide and one cover-slip. For adhesive I use "J-B Weld KwikWeld" epoxy... great stuff. (BTW BugEZ, for me this has proven to be the best adhesive to glue toothpicks to specimens for photography.) Sometimes I will glue a 1/4-20 nut to the bottom of the slide to made it easy to mount on a photography set-up.

An aside... in these pictures you see another material I find indispensable for myriad uses in my set-ups. It is the grey "tack" material seen holding the slide to my desktop. It is "Saunders UHU Tac PROPower". It is very dark grey. The more commonly found white and bright blue tack materials often cause flare and color reflection issues in photography.

(Excuse the image quality... a couple quick snaps on my desktop by window light.)

Image

Image

BugEZ
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Post by BugEZ »

Many thanks Charles. I have ordered some long cover slips and slides and will make something similar. I have in mind a narrow trough of mud for my larva to crawl through. I wish to show the means of locomotion that they use crawling though the wet sandy soil. A narrow trough will guarantee something close to the glass so there may be something to see. The surface activity is interesting, sort of... but only like watching sand worms in "DUNE".

Keith

leonardturner
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Post by leonardturner »

Thank you, Charles, for the multiple tips. I've a Michaels nearby, and a J-B Weld supply, but it never occurred to me to try the J-B--or the Saunders product instead of the Michaels modeling clay. Your tank looks much better than my gloppy effort, and with less mating surfaces to leak!

Keith, will you be working on a miniaturized "thumper" to bring your sand worm surrogates to the surface more expeditiously?

Leonard

BugEZ
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Post by BugEZ »

Leonardturner asked if I would be working on a miniature "thumper" to draw fly larvae to the surface. (Frank Herbert's si-fi novel series Dune from the '70s eventually adapted in a movie and TV series had enormous "sand worms" that ate people but could be summoned by thumpers...) Happily the fly larvae must breath so they surface periodically for air. I have been working with Tachytrechus vorax and they inhabit the sandy shore of a local lake. They are of the long legged fly family. They stick up a siphon to breath, otherwise staying slightly below the sand's surface. I have several larvae slowly developing in my basement in covered containers... My wife is a saint.

Time lapse here shows one ("Alpha") making a lap or two while a snail crawls on the surface. 180 x speed...

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8Uu4y3_lVfg

Unrelated crane fly species siphon sticking up through the mud... also 180 x speed.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vj9XlW2fakI

Alpha's siphon is similar in shape and function, though completely white to blend in with the sand.

"Alpha" is a predator and eats other fly larvae. It would love to encounter the subjects of your post. I have started to feed it fruit fly larvae and they disappear but I have not seen how it catches them.

Keith
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Olympusman
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Mosquito larvae and macroaquariums

Post by Olympusman »

Nice images and the discussion about microaquariums was very educational. I would think an epoxy would be very effective in constructing such tanks.

Mike
Michael Reese Much FRMS EMS Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, USA

johan
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Post by johan »

As a test, I just made something that looks very similar to Charles' mini tank using something called sugru - stuff I love for DIY tasks. It's a clay-like material that hardens when exposed to air, similar in appearance to milliput, but it doesn't need to be mixed before use. I'm pretty sure it'll be watertight when set, I'll post an update when it's done.

Link: https://sugru.com/
My extreme-macro.co.uk site, a learning site. Your comments and input there would be gratefully appreciated.

johan
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Post by johan »

This works very well. Sugru gives a watertight seal against glass so it's a bit like clay, all you have to do is shape it in a u shape to hold water.
My extreme-macro.co.uk site, a learning site. Your comments and input there would be gratefully appreciated.

leonardturner
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Post by leonardturner »

My thanks to all. One remaining question would be whether any of these various adhesive preparations would be toxic to the tank inhabitants, which might be important if ongoing imaging of the same organism was planned.

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