Date: 22 Sept 2005
Location: @ home, Kottayam, Kerala, India
Camera: Olympus C770UZ + MCON-40 Macro Lens

The potter wasps get their name due to the pot-like nests they build using mud. Family: Vespidae, Subfamily: Eumeninae.

Date: 20 Jul 2007
Location: @ home, Kottayam, Kerala, India
Camera: Nikon D80 + Tamron SP AF90mm f/2.8 Di Macro Lens

Bumble bee on a dandelion.

Aosta Valley at the Alps, Italy. Jun 2009.

I was photographing this lonely lady bug (ya thought of giving some company) …

.. and it flew on to my white jacket and started climbing up so close to the camera that I could get only one shot of it

So I could get two contrasting buggy shots of the same subject in different environments

Photographed from Hokkaido University Botanical Gardens
Olympus C770 + MCON-40 macro lens

So is it? I think so.

Is there any better theme to talk about? The very existence of life thrives on mating. Though human beings assign a lot of terms like love, passion, blah blah (me don’t mean itz all blah blah, me mean etc etc, ok?) to sex we can’t deny the role of hormones, those animal part in us which determines (though not solely ²) this love and passion to a great extent. Ok, letz not stray away. Just thought of sharing some warm pixels emphasizing the theme, mating and here we go:

Bugmates. My aunty asked me “eda, athu thala-kuthane aano?!!” (have you put it upside-down?). Nah, itz as you see it.. defying gravity. This was taken from the Hokkaido University Botanical Gardens, while the sun was shining at Sapporo. Yet to identify these bugs.

Dragonflies mating. These are male (red) and female (orange) from the same species Orthetrum chrysis (Family: Libellulidae). So what are these guys doing? The acrobatic mating formation ³, sometimes assumed in mid-flight, is commonly known as the wheel formation. The position of the male’s rear end is how the male caught the female at the tandem position. Then the female arches her abdomen around to transfer the sperm in a pouch in the male’s 2nd abdominal segment into a special pouch of her own, completing the wheel formation. By the pond at my home in Kerala.

Houseflies mating! Though this one isn’t as colorful as those above, I feel an affinity towards it as may be because it was one of my first shots on mating or may be because it is just small and simple. Foothills of Usu mountains, 4-5 kms drive from Sapporo.

Damselflies mating at a pond at Noboribetsu, on the way to Usu.

^{1 names and other details provided in this website are not fictitious and they can be traced back to living characters.
2 social/political/cultural influences apply (see how neutral i can be!!)
3 the author, in no ways will be responsible for any casualties resulting from taking these posts into practice. the characters performing in these photographs are specially trained}

ഈയിടെ എടുത്ത മറ്റ് പ്രകൃതി ചിത്രങ്ങള്‍.

Here I’ve assembled some nature photography & insect photomacrography.
Camera used: Olympus C770.
Macro lens: MCON-40
Tele lens: TCON-17