January arthropods

[davholla]

1) Mite Keston Common. The real size is 1.24 mm, magnifcation is 3.7
MiteIMG_2004 by davholla2002, on Flickr

2) Centipede from my garden. The real size is 13.42 mm, magnifcation is 1.2

Centipede IMG_1947. by davholla2002, on Flickr

3) Woodlice Keston Common. For the larger one the real size is 3.3 mm, for the smaller one the real size is 2.95 mm, magnifcation is 3.0


WoodliceIMG_2012 by davholla2002, on Flickr

4) Spider Keston Common, the real size is 3.58 mm, magnifcation is 1.8
SpiderIMG_2033 by davholla2002, on Flickr

5) At last an insect, Galerucella nymphaeae Beetle Keston Common, the real size is 6.67 mm, magnifcation is 1.4
Sadly not a great shot but an interesting subject as I managed to get it identified and submitted to Irecord

BeetleIMG_2019 by davholla2002, on Flickr

 

[Actinia]

Nice to see more non-insect arthropods again. How did you illuminate these animals? What exposure did you give( iso)?

I do find the background distracting. I used to (50 years ago) photograph these animals on damp plaster of Paris.

 

[davholla]

Nice to see more non-insect arthropods again. How did you illuminate these animals? What exposure did you give( iso)?

I do find the background distracting. I used to (50 years ago) photograph these animals on damp plaster of Paris.

I used to illuminate them with a ring flash but now I have a dual flash with a home made diffuser on a flash standard. The ISO was auto and was 320.

The background is newspaper because some were on old newspaper and others I found in leaf litter which I sorted out on newspaper.
I have no problems with choosing other back grounds, what do you think about this?


EF7A9780Springtail by davholla2002, on Flickr


How would plaster of Paris work for sorting out the leaf litter. Do you have any example shots? How would make such containers?

 

[Actinia]

How would plaster of Paris work for sorting out the leaf litter. Do you have any example shots? How would make such containers?

In the mid-sixties I was a research student and my supervisor was a soil biologist, specialising in earthworms. He had another research student looking at soil invertebrates and it was he who came up with the plaster of paris trick. He incorporated activated carbon into the mix as well. I believe it helped preserve a moist environment to keep them alive. In more recent years I had an MSc student doing a project on litter invertebrates, though we never got round to photographing them. In all cases, I think that we sorted the litter on a tray and caught them with a pooter before transferring them to a small petri dish cith the plaster.
I will see if I can look out some of my soil invertebrate pics. They were film, of course, and I have scanned them. The illumination was with a Braun twin -head flash.

 

[Actinia]

I have been having a search and I cannot find my pics of these soil invertebrates. Neither can I find the original slides. They were taken about 50 years ago!
I did however find this picture of a Pseudoscorpion. I was taking some pics of the creatures and fungi in one of my compost heaps. I took a picture of a slug in situ, and when I looked closely at the developed image, I found this Pseudoscorpion (about 2-3mm long) nestling at its side. This was taken in April 2015.