Ya Gotta Love These Critters!

As you know we have always been fascinated by nature's critters. My special interests are in the area of herpitology (reptiles and amphibians) and entomology (insects and their cousins). Nature photographer Thomas Shahan specializes in amazing portraits of tiny insects and spiders.

Here are a few of his photos.

The female jumping spider above and the white faced fly below show how wonderful once can see beauty when the image is up close and personal.

I think damselflies are really glistening jewels specially when the light strikes their exoskeleton. Blue is not the pigment color embedded in their chitin armor, but the light is reflected back to our eyes in the blue wavelength. Bluebirds are not truly blue, but use the same technique when you see the blue hue.

Deb and Bruce stopped by the other day with a sampling of sheep feed that had a population of insects living in the grain. I examined the critters and they were weevils as shown below.

The horsefly is one of my least favorite because of the large painful bite that it can administer to my body! One still has to love the prismatic compound eyes.

An adult male jumping spider looks like an alien from outer space.

To give equal time to the ladies, here is the female jumpimg spider! She is from the same planet as the one above!



I shall leave you all with a close up of the robber fly.