Puffball beetle

[gpmatthews]

No this is not its real name, just where it came from: I collected a sample of common puffball, intending to do some microscopy on this fungus, but a couple of weeks passed and it stayed in the plastic bag. When I came to look closer, there were a number of small beetles to be seen, all of the same sort. This is one of them:



Taken with my Wild M8 stereo zoom microscope and Canon Powershot S50 camera. 18 image stack processed with Helicon Focus. This proved to be a troublesome stack and I had to remove the top least focused image and also one part way through the stack in order to prevent multiple image "ghosting".

Any assistance in identifying the beetle greatly appreciated!

[Ken Ramos]

Nice shot there Graham, I wonder if it might be a cousin to the Cryptic Slime Mould beetle?

[Bruce Williams]

Interesting image of a very small beetle. Nicely lit and good 3D angle giving excellent overall feel for anatomy and structure. Could you tell us about the set up of your lighting and how you mounted the beetle?

Bruce

[gpmatthews]

The beetle was mounted and photographed in the same way as the Weevil I posted recently (http://www.photomacrography.net/forum/v ... php?t=1708) i.e. superglued to a pin-tip and the pin Blue-Tacked to the microscope stage. The same plastic ointment-jar bottom was used to give diffused lighting from the Wild 30W lamp. The pin was cloned out of the final image.

[Bruce Williams]

Thanks for the info Graham (and link to your earlier post).

Bruce

[beetleman]

Beautiful photo Graham. I did a little searching for puffball beetles and there are some called that. They do look a little like yours but these have different antennae, yours looks like it has clubbed-elbowed antennae and this one has a very unique looking set. http://bugguide.net/node/view/31228