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Thanks! And congrats on the Platycryptus! I can only imagine how small the babies are! Will they take springtails maybe? EC

I found this Phidippus jumping spider wandering around on my living room ceiling. Before releasing it outside I thought Id take a few photos, and considering that its abdomen looked a little small, I gave it a two-week old cricket to eat. These photos were also a test of a new flash bracket and...

This video shows a tiny juvenile Central American harvestmen (Acromares vittatum) very rapidly devouring a chironomid midge (like a mosquito that doesnt bite). I shot this video last weekend on my kitchen table using 3 tabletop LCD lamps. Unfortunately I didn't get the colour balance quite...

Last weekend I was enjoying the beautiful weather by preparing a nice BBQ dinner for the family. We had just sat down at the table (out on the deck) when my youngest son pointed out a “spider carrying another spider” (as he put it) on one of the deck posts. It turned out to be a juvenile...

Thanks amamantodea! My main concern about this proposed set-up is getting food to the mantids. Crickets aren't much for climbing branches and I understand that ghost mantids tend to sit and wait for prey to come to them. I have an established group of millipedes but haven't kept these mantids...

Some millipedes release noxious secretions if they are stressed. The mantids would mostly stay on the branches and there should be no conflict between them and the 'pedes. I doubt they would even come in contact with each other.

Hi all, I have a large all glass vivarium: 3 ft tall x 3 ft tall x 1.5 ft deep with sliding glass doors. It can hold substrate or water to a depth of about 10 inches and is well ventilated via 2 perforated aluminum panels. Lighting consists of 4 daylight compact florescent bulbs and two 75w...

VERY cool!

I gather he is Canadian and keeps ghost mantids? thanks all! I'll PM him for sure! EC

I hear you...and if I knew a source in Canada that's exactly what I'd do! Thanks for all the comments everyone... EC

Hi all, I just found a source for some ghost mantids here in Vancouver. He has 8 nymphs available--I don't know what stage, I assume L2. He wants $25 each (which I know is a lot, but this is the first time I've found them available locally). I'll probably buy at least 4 to raise and hopefully...

Me too actually...I get more identifications wrong than I do right! I recommend the book "Flies; The Natural History and Diversity of Diptera" by Stephen A. Marshall. I also recommend the diptera.info forum (http://www.diptera.info/forum/index.php). You can post photos and get help with...

LOL! Actually, I always write about how I got my photos when I post them on my blog...and I post a lot of fly photos. These sort of flies are pretty easy to photograph if you bait them. A couple of times a year I put out a piece of nice red salmon to attract blow flies and flesh flies to...

Well, maybe not as pretty as a greenbottle or a flesh fly, but these flies have awfully pretty eyes! Cheers, EC

Photos of a "filth fly", genus Muscina . These flies are found worldwide, commonly hanging around livestock facilities, restrooms, outhouses, cadavers; hence the rather unfortunate common name of filth fly... Photographed with an Olympus OM-D EM-5, 60mm macro lens, and flash. Cheers, EC...

I haven't posted here for ages! For that matter I haven't done much photography for ages. I didn't lose interest, life just got a bit too busy. But spring is here and its time to break out the camera gear and start shooting some bugs. In the meantime I've been going through my files and came...

The other day I discovered a pair of half-black bumble bees (Bombus vagans) busily mating on my back deck. Naturally I took photos. But I also shot a video and uploaded it to YouTube. It’s a bit silly, and the staff of National Geographic has no reason to be worried (yet). But it was fun to...

Out on the back deck of my house I have two large saucers that hold a number of small pots of carnivorous plants, including a couple of cape sundews (Drosera capensis). Well a couple of weeks ago I went out and I don’t know if there had been a midge convention on my deck or something, but the...

I took these pictures of a boreal jumping spider (Phidippus borealis) feeding on a western tent caterpillar (Malacosoma californicum) last June. I spotted the spider just after it had caught the caterpillar and was dragging it across the leaf of one of the banana plants in my garden. It’s always...

Very cool!