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Ladybugs appear as half-spheres, tiny, spotted, round or oval-shaped domes. They have short legs and antennae.
Their distinctive spots and attractive colors are meant to make them unappealing to predators. Ladybugs can secrete a fluid from joints in their legs which gives them a foul taste. Their coloring is likely a reminder to any animals that have tried to eat their kind before: "I taste awful." A threatened ladybug may both play dead and secrete the unappetizing substance to protect itself. animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/bugs/ladybug/
Spotted this lady on our cucumber vine...
Thank you for your views, comments and critiques!
September 5, 2015
Hoverfly melanostoma scalare female - very recognisable because of the green haltere. Focus stacked using zerene stacker
Hiding in the mountain alpine environments of the Rocky Mountains lives a flightless grasshopper (Melanoplus dodgei). It lives no where else in the world. It is not pretty or of any identified economic value. It goes unnoticed by nearly all humans that visit the mountain peaks and cared about by even fewer. Many of the current climate models show that Earth’s climate is warming at an alarming rate. If these models prove correct then those animals and plants that have no dispersal corridor for movement are likely to disappear in the next few decades. Two environments that offer no escape corridors (and thus most at risk) are the polar environments and mountain alpine environments. When these are subjected to a warming climate there is just no where for their specialized plants and animals to go. I do not know how bad global warming will get – but I doubt that humans will ever allow the Polar Bear to go extinct even if their habitat disappears. Even two-hundred years from now they will continue to be a draw at zoos. But what about Melanoplus dodgei and the countless other insignificant (from a human perspective) plants and animals that occur in alpine and polar environments? Female Melanoplus dodgei at 12,000 ft, Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado.
Coleoptera ( /koʊliːˈɒptərə/) is an order of insects commonly called beetles. The word "coleoptera" is from the Greek κολεός, koleos, meaning "sheath"; and πτερόν, pteron, meaning "wing", thus "sheathed wing". The reason for the name is that most beetles have two pairs of wings, the front pair, the "elytra", being hardened and thickened into a sheath-like, or shell-like, protection for the rear pair, and for the rear part of the beetle's body. The superficial consistency of most beetles' morphology, in particular their possession of elytra, has long suggested that the Coleoptera are monophyletic, but there is growing evidence that this is unjustified, there being arguments for example, in favour of allocating the current suborder Adephaga their own order, or very likely even more than one.
taken at kodiang, kedah
The next several shots are the studies of bees collecting pollen from our front yard flowers. It turned out that several thousand bees nested in the walls of the house that we lived in. After some amateur attempts to get rid of these bees a part of the bee hive (about 800-1000 bees) migrated into our living room where over 7-10 days it succumbed to poison that the bees have ingested. This experience was second to none...
One would never imagine anything like that looking at this peaceful shot of a worker bee...
Definitely check out Large
Well, of course, it's a BIG hairy fly, but the markings on it's back had me doing a double take! Hee hee, I'm getting a lego man (do you love his fuzzy hair do!!?) - what about you?
If there are any Dipterists out there who can identify this large fly I'd be interested - I've never thought a fly attractive until now!!
This is called a Green Bee and yet it is really a wasp. Note the three eyes on top of head and wing shape. Does anyone know if the eyes on top of head are actually vision capeable?
I just finished looking these questions up and here are the answers: This is not a Green Bee - I couldn't find this one - probably a sweet bee? Bees also have the three simple eyes on top of heads which are called ocilli and the large compound eyes on sides of head. Yes the eyes on top of head can see. I guess this is where the old saying came from that you have eyes in back of your head? Bees, wasps and flying ants all have similar body parts. Flies have very different parts.
One of the backyard dragonflies. They're really friendly little fellows who will come and sit on an extended finger.