The beauty of bugs

A curious -- and welcome -- side effect of the digital revolution in photography -- ever more people are discovering the insect world. Cause? Effect? Who knows. All I can say is that arthropods and their kin are wonderful subjects, often beautiful subjects. And, oh, such variety as you can see in the pictures that follow.

This is an elusive swallow tail butterfly that patrolled the road in front of my house almost all summer; I never, never spotted him/her near one of my flowers or, for that matter, landing anywhere that I might catch a picture. My neighbor was considerably luckier, as you can see above. Thank you, Andy, for letting me use this image.

The cool weather has almost stopped their high-pitched summer song and, presumably, we won't be seeing spent cicadas on the sidewalk the rest of this year. The sign above and the critter samples were at the registration desk at the Sharlot Hall Museum, likely there to answer the many questions posed by local people and visitors.

No, those are not shadows of this critter's legs, they are reflections; he's perched on my bathroom mirror. I discovered him late one night when I had to leave my nice warm bed. The worst part of the encounter was pulling myself together sufficiently to locate the camera; perhaps I should keep it on my bedside table, just in case.

Now this fellow is one of many similar true bugs that I see wandering about my potted garden. Looks pretty businesslike in that black outfit. I know nothing of his life style or what he eats....

...as opposed to this ant colony, which I photographed because I had previously never seen a seven-hole hill. Otherwise nothing remarkable about this particular domicile.

Imagine my surprise when, on my walk yesterday, I discovered this big, fat tomato horn worm crawling over a nearly denuded and drying datura plant. I wondered just where he had come from, inasmuch as I regularly check out that particular plant and had never seen him before. Also, the cold will soon be upon us; he should thinking about his future! Of course I asked myself, why a datura? Shortly the answer occurred to me, both the tomato and the datura, as well as potatoes and deadly nightshades and buffalo burr, are all of the same family, solanaceae. If he survives, this critter will shortly shed his green skin to become a pupa, overwintering and emerging next spring as a five-spotted hawk moth. No, not the handsome pink-spotted hawk moth that hovers like a humming bird at dusk, but instead, a drabber cousin.

Today, I rescued this beauty from a mini spider web. Above is the moth's not-too-shabby underside and, below, his gorgeous upper body. I was lucky; he didn't recover from his ordeal with the spider until long after I had taken downloaded these pictures.