The Colours of Oz

The little creatures are everywhere, when you take the time to just look and see. Neon Cuckoo Wasp captured by a black Assassin Bug on the power pole in the car park. Mosquito resting on a yellow flower. A Green Leaf Beetle wandering about the fallen leaves. The Droptail Lizard lying in the sun on the stairway. A Fly blowing bubbles on a leaf in the garden. Some of our tiny relatives, since we all live on the same Earth.

I have only come across this fly twice and both times are included here. No other angles made sense. http://www.diptera.info/photogallery.php?photo_id=2185  and 2nd here:  http://www.diptera.info/photogallery.php?photo_id=5132

It never ceases to amaze me the endless variety of form and colour of the small nature at our feet. It’s everywhere to be seen at different times and yet so few see it.

This creature was introduced to Aus by industry in ’37 to combat the sugar cane beetles but since it doesn’t fly it didn’t do a very good job. It has done a very good job eating or killing everything else though. It has its own integrity.

This is a rare instance when the wasp actually stops long enough for a few shots. The relative cold probably had something to do with it. Then a car backfired in  the distance and she was gone.

Another of nature’s beauties, she was sheltering from the wind and rain on a leaf near the ground and stayed long enough for me to get a few shots, turning this way and that so I could get a few different angles. Thank you fly.

Making little Green Leaf beetles.

This Shield Bug was on the bushes in the garden where the the Longhorn and other Beetles live. It must have been hungry since it attacked the Longhorn Beetle you see and followed it off into the shadows.

All found around the house.

Weevil froze on meeting the ants.

Longhorn Beetle.

… to the outside light last night. On a wall so angles are mostly restricted. It has rained for a while here now and I haven’t been able to get out to my usual places anyway so I am making do with what comes to me.

Two are taken with the usual +8 dioptre. The rest using the +20 dioptre. Some minor cropping on some of them for comp.

This one was just a dot to my eye aided by a +2.5 reading glass, smaller than a pin-head. I only noticed as it crossed the frame as I was shooting the wasp. An active little thing, endlessly running to and fro with an occasional pause. No idea what it is.

A few tiny unmoving moths, about 4-6mm.

A wasp I think, about 4mm long. This one didn’t move for ages except to turn and shake its head now and then.

And last, the smallest hopper I have seen, about 4mm long.