Mostlymacrobugs

It’s that time of year again. The most feared, yet strikingly handsome flies are out in force. Here’s a striped or greenhead horsefly just a tad late for if that’s still a thing. 😅💚

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🧬Tabanus lineola
📸 Single frame
🔬 60mm macro
⛅️
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{Head First}
Happy everyone! Lots of crickets in our yard means lots of wolf spiders to eat them. 😉
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🧬Hogna aspersa
📸 Stacked images
🔬 60mm macro
⛅️
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{Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing}
I noticed a little bit of lichen moving on our tree while looking for critters. It wasn’t until I took a macro photo that I could tell what it was; a green lacewing larva! I had no idea they were so small. You can see that this one is carrying more than lichen on its back.
As it turns out, the debris they carry may be lichens and other bits of plant debris, but it often consists of the bodies of past prey, such as aphids, that have been sucked dry of their contents. Obviously this provides excellent camouflage to protect the larvae from large vertebrate predators such as birds, but some studies have shown that carrying the bodies of dead aphids on their back helps these larvae evade detection by ants that are tending and protecting the colonies of aphids they prey on. So cool!

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🧬Leucochrysa pavida
📸 Single frame
🔬 60mm macro
⛅️
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So pleased to see more native ladybugs this season like this polished lady beetle. As Asian ladybugs are hearty and their larvae poisonous to most all who attempt to eat them, I figured that’s most of what I’d see from now on.
I’ll keep planting native plants and flowers and hopefully we’ll get more local action around here. 🌸🌻🤞
🧬Cycloneda munda

Speaking of the Asian ladybugs..Did you know that Asian ladybugs have such dynamic immune systems they are being studied to hopefully help create medicine for us humans? 💪🏻🐞