Repeats from the 100 species project now that I know how to manually focus my camera

I found another (the same one again?) firefly, but this time I knew how to use the manual focus on my camera. Much nicer image. The subject was obligingly still, which helped.


This fingertip pose demonstrates how small the aphid killer actually is, as well as the limitations of the manual focus on this point and shoot camera.


I've said before that if I had my life to live over again, a good path might be to study Dolichopodidae, the long-legged flies*. I think they are beautiful and fascinating; tiny predators of tinier prey.

*In the post linked herein, I spell long-legged fly as one word, two words, and as a hyphenated compound word. Yeesh.

100 More species #82: Eastern tailed blue

Eastern tailed blue Cupido comyntas

We tend to think of butterflies as fairly large insects, with creatures like monarchs and tiger swallowtails big enough to fill an open palm. The blues are a group of relatively tiny butterflies, each wing only spanning a half an inch or so. Their low flight and small size might make you mistake them for a moth, but the pale metallic blue of the upper wing surface is unmistakeable. Like little fairies of the suburbs they flit along the top surfaces of the yards looking for low growing legumes like white clover. Their caterpillars feed only on legumes including weeds like vetch and black medick. White clover has the added advantage of providing the adults with small shallow flowers that accomodate their short probosces.

I didn't think I had a prayer of identifying this one to species, but I took two photos--one good and one useful. The one not shown here revealed the important field marking: a little projection off back of the wing that gives the species its name. This also happens to be the most common blue in the Northeast, and can be seen in backyards and other habitats from Canada to Costa Rica.

EDITED TO ADD: You know what? I can see the tails in this picture.

3:00 snapshot #1290, #1291, 1292, 1293

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