Jesse Moore sends in this astonishing photo of a flying… um… lobster.
Yeah, see when they get tired of trawling for carrion on the ocean floor, they go looking for flowers.
What do you mean where are its claws? Well it’s flapping them, isn’t it? That’s why you can’t see them. It’s flapping them very fast.
What about scales? Oh look, it’s past your bedtime.
(But before you go, take this wallpaper.)
Guys, meet Jerry Armstrong. Jerry, meet the rest of the InsectPOD readership. All of you, meet one big freakin’ moth.
Jerry reveals the secret of this amazing photo:
Rich Jakiel and I were taking images of insects that were clinging to my patio glass door. A very large Imperial moth flew up and settled onto the glass. From inside, I was able to take this ultra close-up with a macro lens attached to a Nikon D40. The trick was using a manual setting to get the best depth of field. The photo was taken from Winston, GA on July 27, 2008.
Wow, Jerry. Just… I mean… wow.
I don’t know what kind of moth this is; I figured I’d post it and let you guys have a gander. These critters love to hang out in my lawn, of all places. They hold very still until you get too close, then flit away ten or fifteen feet. It’s amazing how they just vanish when they hit the grass. They look just like a dead stem or piece of straw.
The other thing I find so fascinating about this moth is that it has no trouble perching head-down. I don’t know if that was how it chanced to land this time, or if it does that every time, using body geometry for camouflage.
This moth photo comes courtesy of Steve Allen, who has done this sort of thing before.
Unfortunately for me, moths are some of the most varied and hard-to-identify species out there. I’m gonna open this up to you guys for a stab; this moth was photographed in Seattle, WA in July. Any takers?
Thanks (again), Steve!
It’s a moth. Here’s the BugGuide. Ready? Go.
Steve Allen sends in this nice pic. There are a number of moth species that are white or mostly white, some of them even have seriously bad attitudes.
Sometimes the scenery in a picture catches my eye; I made a widescreen wallpaper of this image, because Steve’s deck railing has a nifty texture to it:
It’s a moth! This one came in while I was emptying the dog.
I like the wing fringe (you may need the larger version to see it). Is that a stealth mechanism to silence wingbeats, or is it just there because the lady moths all think it’s sexy?
I have taken to carrying a white LED flashlight on my keychain for pictures like this. On the camera, it makes things look a little blue. The moth is actually faintly brownish tan; the bluish light makes it look almost white.
Andrew Lin sent in this picture of a moth, this time not on his oregano, but on his thyme.
What is the deal with those jaw thingies on the front of its head? Those aren’t antennae! I assume they’re extra fiddly bits that insects seem to have stuck on, but I keep looking at it and thinking that this is when we first knew the moths were starting to become carnivorous….
On the plus side, however, it is clearly drinking nectar from the flower with its proboscis. We can only assume that it is going fweeeet while doing so.
Extra thanks to Andrew for supplying me with extra pictures for the backfill.
Here’s another one of those pictures where I don’t know the bug, and it’s not really a remarkable specimen, but some aspect of the photo was really neat.
Check out the larger version. Why on earth does this moth have gr’opperlike spines on its leg? The way the foot is turned forward to hold onto the ceiling is also interesting to me; I would have expected it to be turned backwards like wasp feet. Finally, it’s a bit blurry, but check out that schnoz. It’s like a party favor all coiled up and ready for New Year’s.
Wouldn’t it be awesome if moths made a fweeeet! sound every time they unfurled their proboscis?
Here’s a mystery moth for your identification pleasure.
I was intrigued by the fringes on its wings, and when I got the pictures out of the camera I was surprised to see such long antennae.
That’s a moth. No really. Look again, I’m serious.
In other news, when Julia Faelt says “I found a weird bug” she is not kidding around.
Julia thinks this might be Sesia apiformis, but Finland has about 14 species in genus Sesia so she’s not sure. The prefix api means bee or wasp, so apiformis here translates to “looks like a hornet”. All of the moths in Family Sesiidae tend to look more like bees or wasps, and Julia says that some of them even share the behaviors of bees and wasps. From this I conclude that Sesia must be latin for “holy freaking crap nobody is gonna believe this”.
