Macro

A pair of cottonwood leaf beetles, on a cottonwood leaf. Cottonwood is a kind of tree which is usually found around fresh water.  It grows fast and the trees themselves can become very large.  They only live a short time (for a tree) though, around 80 years, and leave their remains as fodder for all kinds of creatures.  The trees are important because of the stabilizing properties they have for banks and beaches.  While alive, the trees are a favourite food of beavers (the bark) and the leaves are consumed by numerous mammal and insect species.  One of those is the cottonwood beetle. Cottonwood beetles reproduce rapidly and can spawn several generations in a season.  Although cottonwood is their primary food source, they will also take poplar, willow, and aspen.  In large numbers, these insects can defoliate a tree and are serious pests in management areas.  As summer ends adults will find their way under bark or leaf litter on the ground....

Ant milking an aphid for honeydew liquid. The above photo represents one of the best images I captured this summer.  While camping near  Salmon Arm this summer I would spend part of my day wandering about with my macro gear.  I came across a busy ant colony and discovered that they were "milking" a herd of aphids.  Ants stroke their antennae across the back of an aphid and it responds by secreting a drop of sugary liquid from its abdomen.  The ant consumes the liquid and brings it back to the colony for dissemination.  This relationship between the aphid and the ant is a form of symbiosis called mutualism.  Both species benefit; the ant gets the sweet liquid and the aphid is protected.  Ants guard their aphids not so differently from the way a farmer guards a herd of cattle.  They protect them from predators such as ladybugs which will voraciously consume the little sugar factories if left unguarded.  One ant by itself may not be m...

Two-striped grasshopper on common tansy. Have you ever found an insect and wondered what it was?  This is a query I am frequently burdened with.  I like to know the name of what it is I am looking at and to understand something of its life habits.  To facilitate this search for information I often refer to my insect guides. The problem with insects is that there is an unbelievable variety of them.  They are grouped into a total of 31 orders; each order is made of insects of a similar nature.  Butterflies and moths belong to the Lepidoptera.  Grasshoppers and crickets belong to the Orthoptera.  If you want to look at a complete list of insect orders, click here . The first chore is to figure out the order an insect belongs to.  This is important because it streamlines the search for the investigation.  There is no sense in looking for a beetle (Coleoptera) in a true bug (Hemiptera) category; it just won't be found.  Fortunately, i...

The yellow jacket wasp. Yesterday I was busily working on some yard work when I looked up and saw a most uncomfortable sight.  Wasps had moved in.  A small nook in my deck cover was now the home to a yellow jacket wasp colony.  If I have learned anything about wasps during my time on Mother Earth, it is that wasp nests only get bigger over time.  It is better to deal with them now rather than later.  It is one of those problems you simply cannot ignore and hope it goes away.  If you have ever played one of those computer games where you obtain resources and build an empire, the development of a wasp nest is something like that.  A single wasp, a queen, slowly constructs a tiny enclave in some hopefully safe spot.  Foraging for food, she builds a nest, lays her eggs, and tends the young until they mature.  These underlings then go on to forage, build, and tend in a slowly exponential manner.  Soon, small becomes big, then big beco...

A carrion beetle - Nicrophorus You have to admire beetles.  There are over a million species; they are so successful because of their design.  The larvae, called grubs, generally live burrowed into some substrate or remain hidden beneath overburden.  Some are surface dwellers and feed on vegetation.  The adults are really impressive though.  Their first pair of wings has been adapted into a hard chitinous pair of wing covers called elytra.  The whole body is well protected in the same material making them very durable given their size. Beetles inhabit a tremendous range of niches and display some of the most peculiar behaviours anywhere in the animal kingdom.  Many of them are also quite beautiful, although I fully admit that beauty truly lies in the eye of the beholder.  One of the prettiest beetles I have ever come across is the carrion beetle. Carrion beetles, both larvae and adults, feed on the flesh of decomposing organisms.  The...