Insect diversity

[Stephen_De_Lisle]

A collage of some of the insect diversity found on a single goldenrod plant in my yard, including beetles (Platycis minutus, Psyllobora vigintiduopunctata) flies (Sphaerophoria scripta, melanostoma scalare, Calliphoridae, Hybos, Milichiidae) and some unidentified true bugs. Magnifications 3-9x on a full frame sensor

Here are few favorites of the individual frames.
A hoverfly, Sphaerophoria scripta

a Milichiid fly,

and a ladybird beetle, Psyllobora vigintiduopunctata,

the ladybird beetle has some annoying reflectance from the ring light. I should probably rig up some polarizers for that, but for most subjects it's actually not a problem.

Credit to Viktor Nilsson for help with the identification

Technical details:
Olympus SZX 16 with Olympus SDFPLAPO .8x .12 objective
Schott visiLED slim ring light
Nikon D850, Lmscope adapter
focus stacks in zerene

each specimen was placed on a microscope slide, over the aperture of a ThorLabs xyr1 stage, which resulted in the clean black background.

[AlP]

Clever idea to photograph the insect variety of a plant, something I've never thought about. Good job.

[Sym P. le]

Are those scales that I see on the ladybird beetle? If so where did they come from?

[Scarodactyl]

What a beautiful menagerie! Nice again to see such nice photos taken on a stereo.

[Stephen_De_Lisle]

Are those scales that I see on the ladybird beetle? If so where did they come from?

Oh, good catch, don't know how I missed that but yes they do look like scales. No idea where they came from!

What a beautiful menagerie! Nice again to see such nice photos taken on a stereo.

Clever idea to photograph the insect variety of a plant, something I've never thought about. Good job.

Thanks!

[MarkSturtevant]

A fine idea! Well done.