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Hand held, uncropped shot of a pair of treehoppers found in my yard. This is a bit over 2x life size. Minor dust cleanup on processed shot (you really notice that dust over 1x)
Dark-hued Hemipteran (insect)
Eastshore State Park
Albany, California
Hemipterans are an order of insects often called "true bugs." There has been quite a shake-up among experts over how to classify this group of related bugs. Apparently there's an ongoing argument about what to call them.
The main thing which they all have in common is a long sucking-mouthpart called a proboscis -- which is encased within a beak or hardened tube. This enables them to pierce tissues -- especially plants -- and suck out sap.
Hempiterans include stink bugs, cicadas, leafhoppers, water-striders, aphids, scale insects, and assassin bugs. Assassin bugs use their beaks (also called rostrums) to pierce other insects (and sometimes spiders!) and suck out their insides.
My thanks to natalija2006 for alerting me to my error in originally calling this a beetle. Another friend of mine had suggested it might be a roach. Roaches and beetles are in separate orders, the Blattaria and Coleoptera, respectively.
If you have seen a luna moth, consider yourself lucky because it only lives as a moth for about a week; the rest of its life is spent as a caterpillar or pupating!
I always love to see dragonflies. Their size and brilliant colours seem to bring a whiff of the tropics to the mild rivers and horse ponds of late summer England. I always find them utterly unidentifiable (over to you Tarboat) but this looks like the insect shown in my book as a Common Aeshna.
Dragonflies have the best eyesight of any insect and are usually difficult to approach. This one not only let me get close enough to take a photograph but actually allowed me to break off the sprig of leaves to which it was clinging and examine it at close quarters. For a short while it buzzed its wings, setting up a humming vibration in my hand; then with a flick, it darted away and was lost to view among the branches. The photograph was taken beside the River Frome, near Bristol, Thursday 25th July 1974.