Unknown insect (fly?) stacked

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lauriek
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Unknown insect (fly?) stacked

Post by lauriek »

Hmm, I thought this was a fly when I caught it, but I'm not so sure now I've looked up close!!

Image

Stack of 42 images aligned in czm, stacked in tufuse...

I /think/ this was shot with the om50/1.8 reversed and at maximum bellows extension, but I'll double check the size of this thing, I've shot a lot of stacks in the last few days!!

LSRasmussen
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Post by LSRasmussen »

Laurie,

Boy oh boy, you're certainly setting a high standard here. I'm afraid I cannot help with the ID but the image is phantastic. It seems Tufuse handles the hairs better than CZM. What's your lighting solution here, Flash and your "tube" diffusor ?

//Lars

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Post by rjlittlefield »

Laurie,

Regarding bee vs fly, I suggest counting the wings and looking for the halteres. The very close-up vantage point shown here is so much different from what I'm used to looking at, I simply can't tell!

But this shot does show one feature that I find fascinating. Check out the eye. It's split into upper and lower halves with very different shape and spacing of the ommatidia.

--Rik

Harold Gough
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Post by Harold Gough »

The eyes also appear to be holoptic (joined dorsally), suggesting it is a male.

Harold
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acerola
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Post by acerola »

Great job. I think it is some kind of Bibio. Males has much bigger eyes than females.
Péter

lauriek
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Post by lauriek »

I think you are right there, it's some sort of 'bibio' - never heard of these before! There were a lot of them about, wikipedia mentions mass emergence/swarming...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bibionidae

The image on this wikipedia page looks a lot like it in shape, very thin body, very long rear legs, on my specimen one of the legs is hanging down and I first thought it might be some sort of ovipositor (but it's definitely a leg!)

Thanks for the pointer!!

It does appear to have two completely different eyes underneath as well as the large top ones.

beetleman
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Post by beetleman »

A beautiful job on the stacking and a fantastic looking creature.
Take Nothing but Pictures--Leave Nothing but Footprints.
Doug Breda

lauriek
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Post by lauriek »

Thanks Doug! :)

Lars, yes sorry I missed that, Tufuse definitely does a better job of hairy edges than CZM... this was with flash and my diffuser 'arch' described in the same thread as the 'tube' in the 'equipment' forum... I'm still on the lookout for a reasonably priced Fibre optic lighting rig!

I noticed something else weird with this when I went to check the specimen yesterday, I thought this before but a second check confirmed it - the golden hairs on the beast are not obvious until you magnify it considerably - it appears a small black fly to the naked eye!

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Post by rjlittlefield »

Are the hairs really golden, or are they just made to appear that way because of backlighting?

--Rik

lauriek
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Post by lauriek »

Well there was no proper backlighting as such on this shot, although I appreciate my diffuser will bounce some light in from the rear-top/sides. I don't know! I will try to re-examine this specimen under some sort of magnifier by eye and see what I can see!

My backdrop is around 1ft behind my subject at the moment so I don't think much light will be reflecting off that, also this brown backdrop is actually sandpaper which I would expect (hope) to diffuse the reflected light!

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