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Insects - who cares?


Dog
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Since I discovered the macro setting on my camera and as I am usually supine I have taken to photographing the insects that cross my path.

So far I have found a Mole Cricket an amazing beast well worth googling (Courtiliéres in French) a large House Centipede and so many beetles there are lots of different ones especially red/black and yellow/black, I found a lovely hairy red/black Trichodes Alvearius.

My favourites at the moment are Hetroptera micro moths only 10mm long but the males have 45mm long antennae the lady ones are not so handlebar moustache orientated and have 25mm long ones.

The other moth that fascinates me is the Plume Moth you hardly give it a glance at only 25mm across and yet with its feathered wings that fold over eack other and its long barbed legs it is very strange on a 24 inch monitor.

Also found Buff Tip moths that look like a twig, White Ermine, Yellow Belle, a Goat Moth, a Blotched Emerald plus Emperor Moths.

Found a beautiful small orange moth Olethrutes arcuella which the English do not have a common name for but the Germans do ... and it escapes my memory.

I am by no means an expert and blunder about trying to identify these small creatures - but it's fun.

Is anyone else bug photographing?
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Blimey Dog, you will be busy for the rest of your life, there's a lot of bugs in France and just as well!! I don't have much more than a passing interest in insects, but I see that you saw a goat moth. Have you ever been fortunate enough to see the Caterpillar for this, it's really quite stunning, but as it only lives inside wood for anything from 2 to 5 years, it is often only seen when making its way to pupate. Big yellow job with red "blisters" on its back.

Good luck and don't forget to stand up from time to time, Chris

 

 

 

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Yes it does seem a bit intimidating.. I asked my pet Insect Prof why I could not find a good book to identify insects as 75% of the bugs I find are not in my book.

He said it would be impossible as there are no comprehensive books on insects - impossible task in a single volume with an estimated 30 million or more different species worldwide, over 100,000 species recorded in Europe and over 20,000 in the UK alone. In many groups it is only possible to separate and identify the species by microscopic examination and the use of very specialised keys.

I haven't seen that caterpillar but neighbour gave me an enormous maggot grub thing that live for 3 years before becoming a beetle - he is now living in my compost bin,

I have lots of pics of caterpillars but have trouble identifing all of them. It's easier finding a chrysallis then can keep an eye on what emerges.

Do have pics of a moth caterpillar then its chrysallis and then the moth newly arrived.

I am going to live forever or die in the attempt - only way to see every bug!

Life is more fun supine.

PS Found an unidentifiable elegant bug yesterday it may be a Damsel Bug.
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I'm fascinated by insects too but don't photograph them. My favourite

here is a flying bug which looks like a humming bird. Someone showed a

picture of it on here last year, can't remember the name. We do have

lots of damsel flies - very delicate. Pat.

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The bug I found is wingless - though I have got a pic of a Damsel fly.

I too am fascinated by the hovering moth - strangely I had them where I lived in UK. In the Loire once I found in the grounds of a chateau about 200 of them all together what a sight.

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Hi Dog, I`m also a keen photographer and wildlife enthusiast, was the grub you saw anything like this one? This I found living in an old apple tree root and is I believe the beginings of a stagbeetle..... I could be wrong though.

[IMG]http://i33.photobucket.com/albums/d65/interval10/Stagbeetlegrub.jpg[/IMG]

A Fire Salamander . Quite common around these parts (Normandy), still on the search for an orange one which is much rarer.

[IMG]http://i33.photobucket.com/albums/d65/interval10/Firesalamander.jpg[/IMG]

Norman

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[quote user="Pixietoadstool"]

That would be the humming bird hawk moth.  I have only seen this once in the UK but many times in France (Normandy).

Valerie

[/quote]

I saw our first sighting this year of a humming bird hawk moth yesterday on our only rose bush here in the Aude. Last year we had lots of them on the dozens of lavender bushes and I managed to get about 10 minutes or so of video. I also tried sitll photos, but they were so quick I didn't get any. They are quite plain when not flying, but in flight they are wonderful and the only thing that touches the flowers is the probiscous. I don't think they can do very much polination, not on lavender anyway. Also yesterday I had to move a small stick insect off of our garage door and onto a nearby tree. Strange machine?

The other insect we have seen is a bee fly, not a bee that flies. It has a long probiscous, furry body, is about blow fly size and feeds the same way as the humming bird hawk moth. It was hovering above our terracotta terrace and eating something from the surface.... We couldn't see what it was, but it spent a long time doing it....[8-)]

That fire salamander is really spectaculal!!! Lovely photo...

John.

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Anybody know what is the insect that looks like a giant (REALLY GIANT) black bumblebee?  About an inch long, fat and shiny blue-black.  Good flier, not aggressive.

Hummingbird hawk moths are now quite common in southeast England.  We used to get them every year in Bromley.  Not as many as here though.  Apparently they were quite rare round here until the past 10-15 years.  Global W and all that.

Phil

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Great pics - isn't it amazing how variable fire salamander markings are.

My grub looks a bit different, has the leg/claw things but got about like a caterpillar on his opposite side.

Trying to attach a pic.. Grrr how do you attach a pic using a Mac?
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I think I've found my big bee - it's a blue carpenter bee 'xylocopa violacea'.

[img]http://wc.pima.edu/~bfiero/tucsonecology/animals/Images/arw_cabe_01.jpg[/img]

Apparently, these bees usually

attack fairly solid wood (e.g. dead unrotted trees and tree-stumps, felled

timber, fence posts, etc.). They sometimes tunnel into the timbers and

beams of houses, barns and other buildings, and may cause considerable

structural damage if left unchecked.

OO-er!!!

Phil

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Hello After just being woken up by my cat who has just come in my window to tell me he has been beaten up and i better get up now and sort out his bloody nose, duley washed packet of whiskers in his belly and now asleep, I have just come across this thread as i love watching insects in my garden especially in and around the pond, last year i spent a whole day watching small wiggley things in the water float to the surface, split in half and out flew a midgey thing it was fasinating, I dont know the names of much i come across after years of looking in books and never finding what i have in my hand!!!! most books seem to cover the whole world which is usless, I would love to find a local upto date book But they arnt out there. We have a lot of (dragon/damsel flies) the bright blue, green, and red one and the big yellow and black ones that i have always called helicopters.

At christmas I got a great new camera from hubby and havnt even used the macro lens yet, but you have inspired me to get it out and have a go. 

Do other people think that insect life evoles (havnt spelt that right but it is 4am and i cant think) very quickely , as a child I can remenber insects, that now seem to of changed, grown much larger , changed colour ect.... Is it global warming ? interbreeding of different insects? or just me going bonkers?

Why dont one of you photographers put together a local book you would be surprised at how many people are interested, If it was simple and easy to look at with the name and a photo, where they like to live, what they like to eat, and weather they are dangerous or not. I dont know about others, but I get bored of trolling through all the bumf , I dont care what it is called in latin and all the other stuff, just give me the basics please!!!

please keep posting your photos I loved them .......Oooooh I have just had a good idea make a web site not a book even easier to look at with better pictures? In a few years you could sell it for millions............

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Hi Pads,  I don't think that there have been any physical changes in species in Europe over a time span of the last 100 years, but far be it from me to suggest that you are just going bonkers! It's a strange thing, but a large number of people who come to France think that things are bigger, especially birds, you would think with all the open space that things would seem smaller.

There are already a vast number of books which to some extent or another limit their content to local or regional species to be found, heaps on France. Another way to find out about local species is to get involved with French associations, either your departmental bird asso. or nature asso. you don't need to be an "expert" , we have lots of outings and educational slide shows etc. for the general public in Poitou-Charentes, everything you could think of, birds, bats, dragonflies, amphibians, snakes, mammals......

On the subject of Latin, it's incredibly useful because everyone uses the same term, so where ever you are you can communicate without having to know the name in the local language, very simply if a French person says Natrix natrix you know it's a grass snake, you can then find out what it's called in French.

A good book for dragonflies is Le Kama-Sutra des demoiselles.

Chris

 

 

 

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I can design, edit, and layout books, I can print them too.

But the internet is a mystery to me. Here is another attempt to add some pics....

http://www.wynkindeworde.zoomshare.com/album/Stuff/images/10f0229292788edcbf46731e116d88c5_11497643700/thumb.jpg

http://www.wynkindeworde.zoomshare.com/album/Stuff/images/56cf78ede93379b0e39b3727b3fc186b_11497645410/thumb.jpg
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Nil desperandum.  But you can't post those pics - they seem to be password protected on the site where they are located.  But in principle, stick [/img] after the URL and the same before it but without the slash.

Phil

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