True bug

First of all, thankyou for all the well wishes, hugs and advice, all gratefully received. This really is a very special community to be a part of and really not what I was expecting when I joined. Usually photography circles are more critical environments, which is good for learning, but I find that encouragement and confidence are powerful teachers too, as they drive you to do better.

I see that yesterday's non-shot made spotlight. This achievement had very little to do with photographic excellence and highlights a big problem with the spotlight feature. Surely spotlight should be about quality images and nothing else, but how to achieve this, well, I do have ideas.

I am feeling much better this morning and was well up for a session at the common. The biggest problem I had was a serious build up of gas. As my friend Geoff once told me when I first came to Indonesia, "It takes a brave man to fart in this country". Another problem I had was occasionally light headed when standing up after a shoot, but this is not new. I must force myself to breathe after each click, something I often forget. After posting this blip, I will hunt down some bananas and boiled rice as I am well hungry now. I bet there are loads of food blips to tease me today.

Quite a good session today, I took 90 shots of ten subjects for 19 finalists. I picked up more psyche shots, ironic after not being able to capture this butterfly in the past. A great sulfur butterfly shot, a pansy male and a sailor butterflies too. I also got a shot of four sulfurs dancing in front of me, but at 1/50s you can imagine the blurry mess. A couple of bug and hopper shots and a ladybird. Now I have to choose.

It was between a cropped shot of a large hopper's head and this bug. The mimosa bush is crawling with these bugs and several other species too, as you can see in the background. I chose this shot as it graphically demonstrates a few discussion points that I wanted to make.

Firstly, the word bug is generally applied to anything with six legs that does not fit into an obvious slot, like ladybird, beetle, cricket etc. In fact bug is the general name for a group of sap sucking insects. They all have a permanently extended proboscis which is injected into the plant and used like a straw. When not in use, the proboscis folds under the body, as shown in the blip. The proboscis cannot be retracted and is a permanent external feature.

The feeding bug causes a significant amount of damage to the plant, as it's shoots are sucked dry, two such areas of damage can also be seen in the above image. This particular bug is a male, indicated by the club foot rear pair of legs, however, I have not been able to accurately identify this true bug as yet, despite it being very common, large and distinctive.

This bug is a very reasonable flier and in flight it reveals a pink body color, hidden at rest. In flight it is easily mistaken as an exotic looking bee. When hungry for a decent blip, it can be very disappointing when it lands and turns back into a boring bug. I will have to blip a top view now in order to complete the picture. I would like an in-flight shot, but it all happens too fast for my camera.

Dave