This weekend one of my friends was nice enough to let me use his 40D to take pictures during several Halloween parties. Saturday and Sunday mornings, I decided to get a few macro pictures in, as the current estimates say I won’t have the 5D Mark II until the end of the month.
I took this shot of a very patient fly, though I was a bit heartbroken that it took off just after this and I might have been able to get the shot off. Still, I don’t think this one is so bad.
Recently, the rain stopped for long enough that I had enough time to get out and take some shots. Even though the weather was less than ideal, I have taken shots in my backyard long enough that I have a good idea where to find interesting things. On the wall of my shed, I was pleased to find a solitary leafhopper. It was a bit high up so it was tricky getting shots of it but I managed to get a few frames before it flew away.
I’ve always rather liked leafhoppers. Many of the insects here are rather drab, but leafhoppers are remarkably beautiful – particularly when photographed from the side. However, I have had a tremendously difficult time trying to get a good shot of one from the side. Given that this one was on the shed rather than on a leaf (which I could accidentally bump), I tried getting side shots.
When I uploaded the pictures onto my machine, however, I was rather bummed that I didn’t get the angles I was hoping for. I was ready to delete the shots when I noticed something peculiar. Can you see it?
Yup, on the back of it we have a little army guy! There’s a light green face in the center with a straight mouth and two eyes and above the face is a rounded army helmet! Perhaps this is nature’s attempt at mimicry. The next time some human goes to squash this bug – he’ll mistake it for an army soldier and not squash it! Actually, I’m sure this is a natural defense, though I doubt that humans are the intended target. Perhaps the intent is to make the insect look larger, though I suspect the goal is to make a potential predator think it is looking back at it. In this case a further away shot would probably contain the clue – but I did not take one from further away (the MP-E 65 is a close-up lens).
Here’s another shot of it with a bit of the side view.
Here it looks like the army soldier is wrapped up in a sleeping bag (the wings are the bag). One final shot of this peculiar phenomenon.
You have to hand it to nature when it has such a sense of humor.