I wasn’t really happy with my recent photos of the Jagged Ambush Bugs. They weren’t bad considering how small they are, the camera I was using, and that I was hand holding in the field. But a couple of days later I spotted them again, on the same thistles, and I decided I’d take a few home and see if I could do better. I used a ziplock bag from my lunch and hoped the three bugs wouldn’t kill and eat each other before I got home.
They made it home intact and I transferred them to plastic food containers, separate ones, just in case. I didn’t have any idea how/what to feed them but I hoped they’d survive overnight. (Bugs are pretty tough.)
Saturday morning I put the macro lens on the EM1 and got out my Peak Designs tripod. I started with them in a white Corel bowl. Most bugs can’t climb the slippery sides but these guys had no problems. Luckily they didn’t move too fast and I could catch them and move them back into position. (Shelley had given me strict instructions not to let them loose in the house.)
I tried focus stacking first, but they kept moving on me and there wasn’t enough light to use a fast shutter speed. Despite that, this shot came out fairly well. It's nice to get a clear look at those front claws.
I switched to using the tiny flash that came with the EM1. That gave enough light to use a small aperture to get a decent depth of field. And one of the benefits of electronic flash is that it’s so fast it helps freeze any movement.
As much as it was convenient to shoot indoors, it wasn’t a very natural setting so I decided to try outdoors. We don’t have any thistles like I found them on, so I made do with a random flower, although I have no idea if an Ambush bug would choose this kind of flower. When I put it on the flower it got dusted with pollen (sticky stuff). I had a hard time getting a decent angle since the bug was busy crawling around, but I got a few decent shots.
Showing Shelley some of the photos she mentioned how hard it was to judge size from the photos. The bugs look huge in the closeups but they're about the size of a ladybug (but flatter). So I figured I’d get a photo of it with a dime for scale. Except it refused to sit still. So I put it in the fridge for a while hoping to slow it down. (Most bugs are more lethargic when cold.) Shelley shook her head when she found a bug in the fridge, but luckily she’s a good sport about my eccentric hobbies. It didn’t help much. Either it wasn’t bothered by the cold, or it warmed up too quickly. Eventually I managed a few shots with queen Elizabeth.
I decided I had enough hundreds of photos of Ambush bugs and let them go in the garden. When I went to wash out the food containers I noticed some specks in the bottom of one. My first thought was that it was bug droppings, but they were stuck to the bottom and didn’t look quite like that. (Based on my not very extensive experience of bug droppings.) I still had the camera set up on the tripod so I took a few shots and zoomed in on the computer. Interestingly, they were clearly eggs rather than droppings. One of my bugs obviously must have been a female. I have the eggs on my dresser. I wonder how long they'll take to hatch. Given the size of the eggs, the babies are going to be very tiny!
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