Challenge #58:"Fairy Wings of Insects"-Winner Announced

[sury]

This is from the Butterfly enclosure in a Coffee plantation in Costa Rica.

I do not know the species and for want of a better term, let call it
Polyped.

[sury]

Thanks to the challenge I started looking these photos I took in Costa Rica with a different eye (no pun intended).
The left wing reminded of a snake.

Are you looking at me? (With due apologies to Al Pacino fans of Taxi Driver, the movie)

[aster]

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"Attraction, deterrence, mimicry and deception, self-defense, cost-benefit...etc." are just some of the reasons why butterflies and many other insects have patterns that are so unique and crucial in their survival feat. In flora, Orchids have a similar tendency to mimic small animals, insects and bees. They want to attract the exact insect that can cross-pollinate their flowers so they have shapes and colours that mimic the female insect to attract the male insects ....

Wild natural growth is a school in its own right. The shapes and colours are so neatly mimicked that the whole nature of things happening can be called a miracle. I always found it fascinating that human beings never looked much beyond the colour, fragrance and the incredibly exquisite shapes.

I can see the head of the snake there, Sury. It's almost 3-dimensional with the shading and the pigmentation...Miraculous.

Thanks for sharing,

Yildiz

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[aster]

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Hi everyone;

A little reminder:

We have 13 days left to submit photos for this challenge. If you have some interesting photos of bugs with neat wings, it may be time to show them off.

Yildiz

[Birma]

Good reminder Yildiz!

A good selection of pictures already in the thread. Some spectacular specimens from Sury, great selection of different insects from Ossie, and your own amazingly detailed dragonfly.

I would like to see if I can go out looking for late dragonflies here, but in the mean time here is a set of fairy wings that I saw while out photographing the flowers back in July. It is a Meadow Brown, and is feeding on Common Knapweed. It was a lovely summer morning and the meadow was alive with these butterflies enjoying the knapweed which was prolific this year. The sun was up and so the Meadow Browns were already fuelled and warmed, making them fleet of wing and so quite tricky to track down. Chasing butterflies is a good way to fill a memory card .

2015 Eades July - Meadow Brown on Common Knapweed S.jpg

(210.91 KiB) Downloaded 3616 times

A99 with SAL 70-400G mk 1.

[aster]

.

Indeed, chasing butterflies is a good way to fill a memory card.

Nicely taken and a good specimen indeed, Birma.

Would love to see other ventures on such lovely wings and if you can find, those of dragonflies.

Thanks for sharing,

Yildiz

[sury]

Great shot, Andy.

Sury

[Marcell Nikolausz]

I hope it's not too late to join. First some wide angle macro:






Cheers

Marcell (fiberstrobe)

[Marcell Nikolausz]

..and some traditional macro (with sony a100 and minolta 100mm macro lens):






Marcell (fiberstrobe)

[Marcell Nikolausz]

This is an old one but technically it was very challenging (captured this hoverfly in the air from the front. notice the motion blur at the wings. The short flashlight was not enough to freeze it), therefore one of my favorites :

[aster]

.

Thank you, Marcell, for taking the time.

These are very impressive.


Thanks for sharing,

Yildiz

[sury]

Fantastic seven Marcell. Fourth one is my favorite.

Sury

[Birma]

Fabulous set Marcell - number 5 for me

(A tale for the "ones that got away" from me - we want searching for dragon-flies today and we saw few, but no pictures this time.)

[aster]

Fabulous set Marcell - number 5 for me

(A tale for the "ones that got away" from me - we want searching for dragon-flies today and we saw few, but no pictures this time.)

So sorry to hear that, Birma.

I'll leave the submission date open for a little while longer for those who feel that they have some interesting 'fairy wings' hidden away somewhere. ( I need to prepare for the evaluations anyway, so, submitting during that period will be fine by me. Please feel free to do so. )

Thanks everyone for the interest to take part so far. New submissions are very welcome in the mean time.

Yildiz

[david antony]

Some amazing images guy’s.

I had given up hope, then thid flew into the garden today.