Before And After Pupation ^^

A model

Fata Morgana

a superior mirage caused by warm air resting on patches of colder air in an atmospheric duct that acts like a refracting lens. Objects on the horizon could appear to be mirrored, distorted, or float. This form of mirage could be the reason for the Flying Dutchman Legend.

a very fashionable little friend

i used to work at a used bookstore and there was an insect anatomy book for sale that was over $8000 im not even kidding. and i just found it at my school library. its mine for the month.

Image ID: a photograph of a path through a foggy forest. All of the trees are covered in moss and the only places there isn’t greenery is the trail and the sky. The underbrush seems to consist of grass and other leafy plants, but it’s hard to tell. The trees have these beautiful, winding branches that cover up the top half of the photo. It’s very shaded and slightly blue-hued in the foreground, but further down the trail it’s yellow-hued, indicating the sun is shining through the fog there. /End ID

All rights reserved  by Michael Carl

Cloud shadows shot by @tspfeffer July 2021 🌞 via @odeandiefreude

here, have wings.

Good Resources:

Puget Sound Wing and Tail Collection (where all the wing images I used came from)

Origin of Flight in Birds

Animating Bird Flight (great resource for ALL artists)

Faces

Eyed Elaters (Alaus)

eyed elater click beetles, like this Alaus oculatus from Florida, are the biggest click beetles (Elateridae) found in temperate North America.

Click beetles are best known for their eponymous clicking ability- a sort of elastic locking mechanism on their thorax can snap open with a loud clicking sound, which helps them startle or escape the grasp of predators and allows them to launch themselves into the air when overturned (you can see that in slow motion at the end of the video)

(more elating click beetle trivia below!)

They live around decaying trees and logs, the adults feeding on sap flows and other sugary liquids while the predatory grubs use their powerful jaws to tunnel in search of other wood-dwelling insect larvae to devour (by contrast many smaller click beetle larvae, often called wireworms, feed on rotting wood itself or other plant matter). To rear these beetles in captivity it’s necessary to keep the larvae in containers made of a hard material like glass, as they’ll chew through plastic and escape (I learned this the hard way the first time I found and attempted to raise a grub).

There are 6 Alaus species in the US, the largest of which can be over 5 cm long. Two are found in forests along the east coast- A. oculatus, the eastern eyed elater (below, left) and its smaller relative A. myops, the blind elater (right).

Even though the larvae don't feed directly on decaying wood, different Alaus species prefer different trees- oculatus breeds in dead oaks and other hardwoods, while myops found in the same habitats only use well-rotted pines.

Aenasius sp Nugget. 🥹🥹 Encyrtid wasps are about as close to nuggets of pure serotonin as one can find in the wild. One of her species eluded me a week or so ago and I was overjoyed to find another today. She's like a Very Compact Pink Cuckoo Wasp, with that sorta golf-ball texture. 💜

3/14/23. N. Florida