Not-so-black beginning to my post-Thanksgiving Friday.
Tag Archive for 'photography'
![Underwater shot of two groovy brain corals [240x240, 40K]](http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3146/2783165180_a151bb9600_m.jpg "Belize Brain Corals (Diploria sp. and Colpophyllia sp.)")
Belize Brain Corals (Diploria sp. and Colpophyllia sp.) taken circa January 2006.
The Life Photo Meme theme this week is Smart.
This is a photo of some brain coral that I took on a dive in Belize, circa January 2006. There are two genra here. In the front is a groove-brained coral (Diploria sp.) and in the back is a boulder brain coral (Colpophyllia sp.). I never could get these two straight during my QUantitative Ecological Survey Techniques course.
They may not be especially intelligent, but I think they look pretty sharp.
![Pharaoh ants feeding in a circle around a yellow drop of Terro® liquid insecticide [240x240, 20K]](http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3004/2764612504_69412623b4_m.jpg "Pharaoh Ants Take the Bait")
The Life Photo Meme theme this week is Free.
My subject are these nuisance little crazy ants that infest many homes (and hospitals) around the world. We’ve had them wandering freely around our house for a season now, despite our best efforts at non-chemical control. We’ve resorted to using a commercial insecticide called Terro®. The ants seem to like it. My identification of these insects is tentative, based on macrographic observations and behavior.
- Life Photo Meme
- Wikipedia:
Pharaoh ant (Monomorium pharaonis)Ghost Ants (Tapinoma melanocephalum)
![Small green leafhopper clinging to the propagule of a red mangrove [240x240, 20K]](http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3157/2743232254_e27179205a_m.jpg "Leafhopper (Family Cicadellidae)")
Leafhopper (Family Cicadellidae)
The Life Photo Meme theme this week is Honor an Invertebrate.
So continuing with my mangrove journey from last week, the next creature I came upon was a leafhopper. It was clinging to a mangrove propagule and obligingly held still while I used my little iPhone hack to take a close-up snap.
- Life Photo Meme
- Leafhoppers: Cicadellidae
![Close up of a small, brown tree snail [180x240, 24K]](http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3237/2720725699_c9f7b5ddc4_m.jpg "Mangrove periwinkle (Littoraria angulifera)")
Mangrove periwinkle (Littoraria angulifera)
I try to take a walk during lunch whenever possible. Sometimes it is just too dang hot, but today it was pleasant enough to make it down to the boardwalk. I came through at high tide and could not help but notice all the snails bunched up around the prop roots of the red mangroves. These were the coffee bean snails (Melampus sp.), and just as you might expect from the name, they are small, brown gastropods about the size of a bean. I watched what looked like a stone crab scuttle up one of the roots and dislodge a number of the snails. Then he dropped back down, presumably to be feast on the jetsam.
Higher up on one of the branches, almost at eye-level, was a mangrove periwinkle (Littoraria angulifera). I brought my iPhone with me and managed to get this marginal picture of it. I have a technique for getting macro shots with the crummy 2 megapixel camera which I will share with you in the near future.
I also learned today about the Life Photo meme via the Other 95% blog. Every Thursday the folks at Life Photo ask that one “post a photo of something that either lives, or is a product of life.” Eric Heupel contributed a post on the hard little crustaceans called ostracods (seed shrimp). I thought I would try this meme too and share my periwinkle picture from this afternoon.
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