Amazon Pics Part 34

[Moebius]

Now this guy is another strange one. This 'cotton puff' is ~5mm long and moves. If you pick it up and look underneath, I see six legs. From best I could tell, it looked like a homopteran of some sort. The head of the insect is at the point of the 'V'.





A very colorful fly, size typical of a normal housefly...just a little longer



I appreciate any exposure comments you may have.

Ken Nelson
Canon 30D
Sigma 150mm

[MacroLuv]

What a #@*% is this?
It looks like a kind of sintetic fibre.
Are those long thread an antennae? Where are the eyes???

[Moebius]

I have no idea. I saw more than one of these, and they looked very much the same, so I don't think it was a case of glueing some material they found to their back. Each one had that rolled v-shaped look to them. No idea what this is. If you think this one is strange, wait until one I will show next week.

The eyes you can't see (I so wish I had taken an upside down shot...), but they would be under the point of the 'V' in teh first picture. So in the first pic, the insect would be looking to the left

K

[cactuspic]

Great images, Ken. I'm even more amazed at the observation.

Irwin

[rjlittlefield]

What a #@*% is this?
It looks like a kind of sintetic fibre.

I think you mean "synthetic", and that's a very good description.

The white stuff is probably extruded wax, so structure above the molecular level is very much like synthetic fibers.

Many homopterans use this trick. See my wooly aphids for another version of it.

I think the long threads are just strips of wax that happened to miss getting caught up in the roll.

Ken, the exposures look fine at both of my monitor calibrations.

--Rik

[MacroLuv]

Thanks Rik!
I really ment synthetic but missed the spelling.
I agree about exposures. I bet you've made some histogram adjustments, Ken.

[Bruce Williams]

The creatures in pics 1 and 2 are amazing Ken and were it not for all your previous postings I would be OO'ing and R'ing over your fly too.

Exposure is fine on my monitor. Indeed I think you should be complemented on retaining so much detail in the little pipe cleaners. It's just too easy to blow out detail in a subject that is all but pure white - pic2 in particular is quite excellent, with really quite a surprising amout of detail - if we only knew what it was we were looking at .

Bruce

[Moebius]

Thanks for the comments everyone.

Rik, for the critters that do extrude this wax, is this a camoflauge mechanism or does it help the insect in another way? I suppose it would be invisible in a Q-tip factory, but don't know what else it would mimic/look like.

K

[rjlittlefield]

Rik, for the critters that do extrude this wax, is this a camoflauge mechanism or does it help the insect in another way?

Beats me. I don't know, and I don't know how to find out quickly.

For my eyes, at least, it's lousy camouflage. The wooly aphids that I saw were very obvious and looked like nothing else around them. Maybe it's distasteful. Maybe it affects water loss, or maybe it serves to reflect sunlight that would otherwise be too hot.

My first thought was that the wax must be pretty valuable, because (I thought) it must be expensive in a metabolic sense. But then it occurred to me that the wax might come more or less directly from what the bugs eat. That would cut the cost. If it does come from the food, and the bugs can't digest the stuff, then I guess we'd even think of it as a waste product.

But I still don't know -- all of the above is just listing possibilities.

--Rik

[Ken Ramos]

You know Lacewings do that too. Great images Ken!

[beetleman]

Another beautiful trio Ken. Isn`t nature beautiful in it designs. The fly is very cool looking. Great photo

[Carl_Constantine]

Very cool pics Ken. Those first two images though...I've never seen anything like it. I agree with Nicola when I first saw it..Like what on earth is it. Weird looking thing to be sure but you captured it so nicely as always.