Little green aphid (pic)

[ECooper]

Last weekend I was out collecting green aphids to feed to some baby mantids. I discovered that every time I walked through a patch of
Scotch broom I ended-up with numerous of the little bugs aphids scattered around on my shirt. So I would just crash through the plants, pick off the aphids, and repeat. It was really rather fun...

Anyhow, in addition to feeding my mantids, I kept a few aphids to photograph. I placed the aphids on a nasturtium leaf both as a suitable background, but also because I know from experience how (unfortunately) popular nasturtiums are with aphids. Sure enough, a couple of the insects settled down to feed by piercing the leaf with their proboscises.

I posted a few photos on my blog, but this one was easily my favourite.

Cheers,
EC
www.macrocritters.wordpress.com

Olympus OM-D E-M5; Nikkor 50mm F2.8 enlarger lens; manual exposure (F8 @ 1/200 sec); Olympus FL-36 flash (TTL); ISO: 200



P7200112 b green aphid copyright ernie cooper 2013 by ernie.cooper, on Flickr

 

[mylesG]

huh, those ones are quite differently shaped than the ones i typically find in my yard. im more accustumed to tear dropped shape and very round and puffy. could it be that they were just well fed?

i love that photo though! very well done

 

[maxima]

This is so amazing! A fine line between cute and menacing. Seeing them so up close almost adds a personality to it (but then again we humans love attaching meaning to things)

 

[divaskid]

Amazing photo!