This year we’ve witnessed a massive reduction in the number of insects nationally – to such an extent that even the national media have been…
One of the most fundamental things we do is to work out what things are – it’s a very human interest. We like putting a…
There’s always a lot of debate in the wildlife world about common names vs scientific names so I thought I’d try to sum up some…
Recently I’ve been looking at the possibility of using fountain pens to write my specimen data labels. These are small labels pinned under a specimen…
Are duplicates a problem? This is one of the commonest falacies that I come across very regularly and it’s actually not a problem at all…
I made this photo a little while ago, from my own specimens of the British Sarcophaga carnaria group (carnaria, variegata & subvicina). I posted it…
A little while ago I posted about a strange fly that had been shown to me at the Natural History Museum. It looked clearly like…
This autumn my friend Alexandru Pintilioaie in Romania sent me a batch of flies, including one metallic rhinophorid. We both agreed that it looked very…
I received a really interesting parcel today from a friend who holidayed in La Palma earlier this year. He had spotted some Tachina that looked…
Just had time to look at a box of Venezuelan tachinids sent to me by my good friend Jose Manuel Ayala. There are plenty of…
Today I will be working on a nice little batch of tachinids sent to me my Ruud van der Weele and collected by him in…
Here are the last of Alexandru’s batch of Romanian tachinids, caught in 2010. They spent a long time in alcohol so they are not in…
Last weekend, on a quick (and rather cold) trip to Hartslock, I discovered a 7-spot ladybird that had been attacked by Dinocampus coccinellae, a parasitic wasp.…
This week has been a good one for deliveries – today I received a parcel from my friend Yves. This is part of a batch…
This week I have been working on a batch of Venezuelan tachinids, kindly sent to me by Manuel Ayala (see right). They are a lovely…
Received a nice little Russian microscope objective today from Haworthiaworld on eBay – a Lomo 8x 0.20 finite (I assume 160/-). I wasn’t expecting much…
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…
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…
Here are a few stacks of various fly genitalia – taken at 4x magnification using the Schneider Componon 35mm f4 lens.