In this species special we look at the social wasps. We discuss all 9 resident species (and the Asian Hornet), their habits, feeding, nest building, predators and parasites, along with their sting and what exactly is the point of wasps?
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In this species special we look at the Wasp Spider Argiope bruennichi, discussing their feeding behaviour, the males struggling to not be cannibalised while trying to mate with females, the possible function of both their striped body markings and the zig-zag of silk in their web, which is known as a ‘stabilimentum’. We also look at…
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I’ve been playing with white backgrounds with my pond creature photography and I’m getting some OK results so far. Here is a Wasp (great) Diving Beetle.
A little while ago I spotted a number of wasps chewing wood so I filmed them at 1/4th of normal speed using my Pentax WG-2. I filmed a number of clips and put the best bits together for this video In this video the first clip is at 1/4th normal speed, as is the second.…
A wide angle of a wasp spider from a couple of days ago.
Back at the start of September I was walking around KWT Oare Marshes Nature Reserve in North Kent with a couple of friends when one spotted this creature running across the path. I recognised it imediately as one of the velvet ants, the female of a type of solitary wingless wasp. I had always wanted…
On a trip to a reservoir in kefalonia we saw some interesting stuff. There were scarce chaser dragonflies flying around. There were greek marsh frogs. This mammoth wasp was on a flower. A blue tailed damselfly perched nicely. As did this beautiful demoiselle.
I’ve been catching up with some editing including some pond creatures and I came across probably my best diving beetle images. I photographed 2 species that day, the black belly diving beetle Dytiscus semisulcatus. And the wasp diving beetle Dytiscus curcumflexus, named after the striped underside.
Back in May a wasp beetle was found and I got a few photos. It is a type of longhorn beetle that mimics a wasp to fool predators into thinking its dangerous. Also found was this common crab spider.
My final post from Rainham. The ‘other stuff.’ We saw 2 grass snakes, one of which I photographed. There were also a few wasp spiders, including one in a photographable position I got some nice photos of marsh frogs too And a nice one of a common lizard on the boardwalk.