During mid-June, I embarked on one of many field trips to a site in central PA to find and track some reptile species. On this particular day though, I found a lot of interesting small things. With …
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river talk
Small things can tell big stories
RR photos by Scott Rando
At first glance, these two beetles appeared to be Japanese beetles. However, these lookalikes are actually dogbane beetles. They are so named because they feed exclusively on dogbane plants. Like milkweed, the dogbane plant contains cardiac glycosides. The beetles, like monarch butterfly larvae, accumulate glycosides in their bodies, making them an unsavory meal for any would-be predator.
RR photos by Scott Rando
This is a flower beetle, a member of the scarab beetle family. They are generally not considered pests in this region. Adults usually feed on nectar and sometimes the plant itself. I didn’t notice this when I took the photo, but the wing cases (called elytra) have a dent running laterally across the back; also, the right rear leg is missing. Perhaps this beetle had a run-in with a hungry bird and somehow escaped.
RR photos by Scott Rando
I spotted an odd shape flying; it appeared to be half a butterfly that was not really flying, but was being carried by something I couldn’t see. Whatever it was, it was having trouble staying in the air, and I spotted the area where it landed. What I saw was the eyes of a robber fly and the eyes, and half a wing, of a cabbage white butterfly. The robber fly predated the butterfly and might have removed some of the wings in an effort to make it easier to carry while flying.
RR photos by Scott Rando
Early on this day’s seven-mile walk, a wolf spider was seen on the ground. It was still pretty cool during the morning, and the spider was slow to move, presenting a decent photo opportunity. It wasn’t until later, when I checked the image, that I saw the tiny young wolf spider on the left side of the thorax of this female adult spider. Many spider species carry young until they grow a bit; this youngster appears to be the last to leave.
Posted
By SCOTT RANDO
During mid-June, I embarked on one of many field trips to a site in central PA to find and track some reptile species. On this particular day though, I found a lot of interesting small things. With interesting plants and animals, I have taken to pulling my phone out of my pocket instead of stopping to take my camera out of my backpack, which can be a chore when there are a lot of other tasks to complete.
Most of the phone cameras out there have a pretty decent depth of field as well as good macro performance, which makes them good for close-ups of plants or animals. Given that some of the subjects were very small, I sometimes found little surprises when looking at the images afterward.
Keywords
small things,
big stories,
river talk,
macro,
photography,
insects,
animals
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