Lepidoptera ← ChrisR

Morphos

Jan

2012

As a quick follow-up to the “More butterfly wings…” post I thought you might like to see full-sized images of the butterflies used in the tests – starting with the most glamorous ones – the Morpho butterflies. The intense, metallic blue colours on a Morpho are not caused by pigments but instead are iridescence caused ...

More butterfly wings… 1

Jan

2012

I got an unexpected “gift” the other day of a Melles Griot 16x/0.32 160/0.17 microscope objective lens. I had ordered the 10x version (which is probably all I need in terms of magnification) but the eBay seller sent me the wrong one – but, being a nice chap, he said he’d refund me and I ...

Butterfly wings 1

Dec

2011

One of the standard ways to test a macro photography set-up is to photograph a butterfly’s wing and then show the image as a crop at the maximum digital zoom. Here are a few photos taken with my EL-Nikkor 50mm f2.8 lens reversed on bellows to give 3:1 magnification on the sensor: These photographs have ...

Tachinid Recording News

Tachinids that look like Eriothrix rufomaculata August 18, 2019
Eriothrix rufomaculata is an incredibly common fly in mid-summer, especially on any flowery meadows. The species is very easy to identify from the red abdominal side-patches, silvery face with projecting mouth edge, long costal spine, slightly shaded wings with a small petiole on the median vein. The only problem is that several other, rarer, […]
A quick guide to the new UK phasiines August 17, 2019
This year we have been lucky enough to receive records for 2 new species to the UK – Ectophasia crassipennis & Phasia aurigera. These both bear a resemblance to Phasia hemiptera and have been confused with them in the past so I thought I’d put together a few pointers on how to spot them. […]
How to split Tachina fera type tachinids in photos August 17, 2019
One of the most difficult problems is how to confirm/verify the identification of photos of flies that look quite like Tachina fera. I’d include in that group any of the following species: Tachina fera, Tachina magnicornis, Nowickia ferox, Linnaemya vulpina, Peleteria rubescens, Peleteria iavana & male Nemoraea pellucida. They’re all fairly large, bristly flies […]
Dexiosoma caninum vs Dexia vacua August 6, 2019
I always find that one of the hardest identifications to make from photos is the split between Dexiosoma caninum and the much rarer Dexia vacua. Dexia vacua is so rare that many experts thought that it was extinct in Western Europe so getting good, reliable records from photos is very important because it seems […]
Thelyconychia solivaga January 23, 2015
Recently I have been working on adding a new species to the British list to our key. Thelyconychia solivaga is a small tachinid that seems to live on fairly stony/rocky coastal sites and is very rare in the UK – in fact only 3 specimens have been found so far (by Laurence Clemons in Kent […]