Featuring the enigmatic,dorso-ventrally flattened, Platycampus luridiventris...

I have said this before and will probably do so again, but you just don't ever know what you are going to find next. Even at this time of year there are surprises in store. Sometimes, and I like this even more, there are discoveries to be made that bamboozle. 
C'mon, everyone likes a bamboozle or two from time to time, don't they?

Hmmm...maybe not quite the right expression after all...perhaps...befuddle would be better? Whatever! It just boils down to not having a feckin' clue if I am honest.

And so I thought rather than tease you later, I would be 'up-front' with the finds in question; finds I like to refer to as mystery objects. I have several, which leads me to think I should probably stop waffling and just post the pictures...

It's a cocoon I think, but what made it? Look at the way it is tethered to the little slice of wood it is resting on. It looks like a mini barrage balloon. I found it under a fallen branch in heathland habitat.

By the way, I am no longer uploading high-res images to my blog. On the plus side, being smaller pictures the blog should load faster.

What about the next one...

My guess would be that it is a hoverfly larva/pupa; it is only a guess though...


Now here's something you don't see every day. The thing about this one is that I should know what they are. I should, because I found the same kind once before. It was a long time ago though and I just can't remember now...

I think, and notice how many times I say think because I just can't be sure, but we could be looking at another hoverfly larva here. Although...erm...it may be something entirely different because I have tried to find a matching hoverfly larva and failed. If it helps, it was found under a cow pat! Along with what I assume are beetle larva?

The other larvae looked like this...

Just one more mystery before I bore you silly?

Okay, not exactly a full-blown, all singing and dancing mystery because I am fairly sure this one is another hoverfly cocoon. It could be the cocoon of Episyrphus balteatus. Or as I once saw it described 'Episyrphus balteatus puparium'.

So now that at least one of us (me) feels better having at last dragged all those mystery objects from the folder that has been sitting on my desktop for a while, shall we move on? (Why did I add an interrogation point there?) That was intended to be rhetorical.
I was a little surprised to find this next creature a few days ago...

A Hazel Leaf-roller Weevil

The books seem to indicate May through July for these beetles, but as I am always saying, invertebrates can't read and so how are they expected to know. I do know there are 2 generations per year, but thought the second over-wintered as larvae.

Teeny, tiny, titchy is where we are going next with this Ragwort Flea Beetle. I should say that once again, I think that is what it is likely to be. (2mm)

Ragwort Flea Beetle-Longitarsus jacobaeae

I think I may have mentioned before, or perhaps it was on Flickr....hmmm...anyway, I was saying somewhere, that I have been finding lots of sawfly larvae this year and here's yet another one. This one is kinda funky don't you think?

Platycampus luridiventris

 This enigmatic (not over the top as a description is it?) larva is, in techno-speak, 'Dorso-ventrally flattened', added to the fact that they feed on the underside of leaves, which makes them hard to spot. They can spend up to 3 months in the larval stage and can be found until the autumn (providing they have read the books that is.)

The next one is, well frankly, not so pretty...

Caliroa cerasi

This is Caliroa cerasi, the Pear Slug Sawfly, or sometimes called the Pear Slugworm. Confusingly, I have also seen it referred to as the Cherry Slug Sawfly. These larvae cover themselves in a greenish slime (not sure where they acquire it, Tescos maybe? "I'll have a pack of Oykos yogurt 'cos I love them, and, oh! A large bottle of your best green slime please") making themselves unpalatable to predators (would you want to try one?) When fully grown, they drop off the tree and pupate underground. Next year, the adult emerges to mate and lays eggs on the host plant, completing the cycle.

And another...

This one stumped me for a while, until I started looking for larvae that used Figwort as a food plant. Guess what? This turned out to be a Figwort Sawfly larva: Tenthredo scrophularia. I've seen these larvae described as; dusty greyish white, with black spots and a generally creased appearance. Or was that somebody's description of me? Can't remember now!

Moving on,
I have seen Flatbugs before, I have seen Flatbug nymphs before...

But never have I seen Flatbugs, nymphs and eggs...

I guess if you don't like spiders, then now would be a good time to cut and run because that's what's coming next. Well, maybe I can just share this short video I took on my phone of some dragonflies egg laying whilst you make your escape...

The usual reminder about vids not showing in the e.mailed version. You might need to view the blog direct and online. 

When I found this tiny jumping spider on a sunny fence-post recently, I thought it might be Evarcha species, but was puzzled by the length of the abdomen which didn't seem to fit. I tried my best to ID it when I got home but drew a blank. I decided to try a specialist spider identification site on the internet and added it there, hoping somebody with more knowledge than me (or should that be than I?) might know.

Unfortunately, to date at least, the answer seems to be that people know what it isn't but not what it is. It was proposed that it could be a very young Marpissa mucosa spiderling. I think that may actually be a good shout. There are similarities and the habitat would certainly fit.

One of those happy coincidences happened whilst I was researching the possibilities of this being a baby fence-post jumping spider. Although I failed to find any photographic evidence of what the juveniles look like, I did see some pictures that could well explain the next images. I had thought that these (below) were examples of the most beautifully marked Marpissa mucosa that I have yet found, which they are, but it transpires that the reason could be that this is a young individual and the young adults are marked differently to mature ones. I love that, when you learn something knew by accident...

Marpissa mucosa (subadult?)

The next spider is associated with water, where it hunts along the banks of ponds and streams and can also walk on the water surface thanks to water repellent hairs. I've read that courting males have to signal their intentions semaphore style to avoid being attacked by the female. Perhaps I should employ that tactic John McCririck style. 

What a great name for a spider though? A Pirate Wolf Spider! 

Pirate Wolf Spider - Pirata piraticus. 

Okay, enough with the spiders. I will leave you with a little video of the beautiful, metallic weevil I found a while back...

Until the next time...

NB: I apologise if some of the text spacing is incorrect and some ranged, some centered. I have checked and re-checked the html code and it reads as correct and so can only assume it's Blogger messing around again. 

Additional photo (See comments)

A Dung Beetle

A sluggish slug that isn't even a slug...

When I go out looking for extreme macro photo opportunities, I tend to take the whole shooting match in terms of kit. I'll usually have the DSLR with hand-grip and off camera flash unit, with a fairly large home-made diffuser attached. I'll probably have my second camera in the bag as well with a separate macro lens for slightly larger subjects.

All this can deliver great quality images but is cumbersome and can also be restricting in some ways too. That's why I recently decided to ditch it all and take just one camera and lens for the day. The 100mm macro can be challenging to use with just natural light at 1:1 mag as there is not much light working that close and of course depth of field is limited too, there's no IS on my old version of this lens and so I need to keep the speed up at 100+ to be sure of sharp(ish) images.

Anyhow, excuses over...time to share some results of my day....

These carabid beetles were the first thing I encountered and as they seemed....distracted, I was able to spend a little time photographing them. I am not sure of species here but it was unusual for me to see them up on the seed head like this, they were quite large too.


Next up was this female Common Snout-Hoverfly, or 'Heineken' fly as I have heard it called.  

Rhingia rostrata

Rhingia rostrata

These are quite easily recognised amongst the hoverflies by the orange abdomen and long snout. As I can't see any back margin to the abdomen on this one, I think it is the less common Rhingia rostrata. R.campestris being the other possibility. The plant it's feeding on is scabious.

A Speckled Bush Cricket

This bush cricket seemed to have a deformed back leg. I have seen many crickets and grasshoppers with injuries to their legs and even missing limbs. They seem to survive okay, although it will slow them down of course and that can mean less food.

A Meadow Grasshopper

The grasshopper pictured above was sitting right on the edge of a spider's web. As you can see we had a shower of rain around the time of this photo. I think the ID is right with that broad brown stripe but I am always willing to be corrected.
It does serve as a good example of the differences between crickets and grasshoppers though, with the much shorter antennae on the grasshopper.

It also links in nicely with this next image...

Another meadow grasshopper but this time, I got a bit adventurous and so this is comprised of 17 separate images stacked together. The idea being to give more detail and have a better depth of field. 

Here's a crop from the same image...

I was quite pleased with how the stacking software dealt with these images as they were not at all well aligned being hand-held. Here's a little sequence showing the movement between shots...

You might also have noticed that this individual actually does have a missing limb. Well, if you're going to be stupid enough to attempt these stacked images, at least choose a subject that is less lightly to hop off immediately.

I'll tempt you with this next photo of a pretty bug before I introduce 'the slug' then?

Corizus hyoscyami

Corizus hyoscyami is a rhopalid bug that I usually find in the garden each year, although this one was in local woodland. About 9mm in length.

              Are you ready for the slug then? If it helps any, it isn't a real slug...

A Pear Slug Sawfly larva (Caliroa cerasi)

This is actually the larva of a sawfly and they cover themselves in this dark green slime to become unpalatable to predators. When the larva are fully grown, they drop off the plant they have been feeding on and pupate in the soil.

Elasmostethus interstinctus

This little birch shieldbug instar dropped onto my hand when I was turning over birch leaves to see what I could find. There's another shieldbug nymph in this next photo if you look hard enough...

 Close-by I came across this dock bug that had freshly moulted and was still very red looking...

Coreus marginatus nymph

Coreus marginatus nymph

The final challenge I set myself on this particular day was to try and photograph some brimstone butterflies in flight. I failed miserably with the macro lens but enjoyed trying. I think next time I'll try again with a different lens, maybe a longer one to give me a better chance of keeping the butterfly in frame long enough to get a picture...

I'll leave you with a shot of the great early morning light from the same day...

Until the next time...