Monday, June 9, 2014

Exploring the undergrowth


I spent a couple of hours last week, on a warm, humid afternoon, exploring the undergrowth at Deepdale Nature Reserve in Barnard Castle. The boggy ground on either side of the footpath was overgrown with butterburr leaves, meadowsweet, vetches, red campion and docks and was seething with insects and spiders.  These are a few that I managed to capture on camera. 



































Earwig  - for more about earwigs click here



































Female scorpionfly


Male scorpionfly - for more about scorpionflies click here


















The beautifully iridescent green dock leaf beetle  - for more about this species click here
















A sawfly that I haven't managed to ID for sure yet - for more sawflies click here 



A spider, Tetragnatha extensa, with a golden abdomen. For more spiders click here.



































A very bug-eyed mayfly - possibly Ephemera danica. For more on mayflies click here.



































A common green capsid bug Lygocoris pabulinus - for more on capsid bugs click here
















A staphylinid beetle stretching its wings....


















..... curling up its tail in characteristic defensive mode ....
















..... and with its wings packed away, showing the extremely short wing cases. For more staphylinid beetles click here



5 comments:

  1. Replies
    1. Thanks Adrian, you should have seen the ones that got away....

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  2. Great set of photos, looking forward to seeing some more Mayflys, not seen Staphylinid beetle.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks Amanda, there are lots of different staphylinid beetles species - IDing them is a real specialist job.

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  3. Wonderfull macros fotos, best regard from Belgium

    ReplyDelete

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