Holy Grails

Dragon. Flying.

In flight. Not from the rear. (In focus goes without saying). That is my Holy Grail of insect photography.

The flying dragon is Rhionaeschna multicolor -- a Blue-eyed Darner.

I never thought I would capture a dragonfly in flight. They've always been too skittish when I approached them. Damselflies seemed the less high-strung cousin, so I concentrated on them. Plus their wings fold back, which makes for better perching photos.

Recently, however, I encountered this dragonfly flying lazy loops, patrolling its patch of the San Diego Safari Park. It was very predictable, and the light was good. So I stopped my camera down as much as I could without sacrificing shutter speed, and did a combination zoom, pan, and shoot until my camera's meager buffer was full.

The above photo was the best of the bunch. The eye is not in super-sharp focus, but I am happy with the result.

Check out where the Darner holds its forelegs while in flight: behind its eyes, tucked up against its neck! Its other four legs are tucked neatly beneath it. I wonder if that's a Darner thing, or if all dragonflies do this?

Did you know dragonflies actuate their wings differently than most insects? Smarter Every Day covered this:

Mosquito

Fun fact: Mosquitos are flies.

Yep. Mosquitos are family Culicidae under order Diptera (flies).

If you look at them closely, you can see the familial similarities. The two antennae-like protuberances from between the very large eyes. Only one set of fully-formed wings.

You can't tell from this photo, but the proboscis has a rectangular cross section! I wonder why that is?

Edit: Maybe it's because there are six needles in that proboscis!

Drone Fly

While out in the backyard, exercising some long atrophied macro photography muscles, I came across this drone fly (at least I think it's a drone fly) who was kind enough to stay still long enough for me to take some fairly average pictures of it.

Taken on its own, this picture is nothing to write home about, but I love it anyway. Not for the drone fly, but for the other arthropod in the photo. It's very hard to see, so I will circle it for you.

Still can't see it? Let me zoom in.

Imagine the world at the scale of this little guy. Where a 15mm long drone fly towers over you like Godzilla. And a speck of pollen is the size of a baseball.

Speaking of pollen, that drone fly has a nice dusting of the stuff. Yep. Flies are pollinators, too.