Aphids on Goose Grass (Cleavers)

[Beatsy]

These critters drove me potty last night. I was planning to do some stacks of the Cleavers but noticed it was covered in aphids and decided to do those instead. I set them up on the rail, turned on the lights and then just watched for ten minutes. They didn't move a muscle. As soon as I started stacking, they practically danced! Randomly moving legs and antennae, or turning around on the spot mid-stack. I had three goes, gave up in disgust and went to bed.

Had another go this morning, same result. So I tried catching them with 4k video stacking and manual winding of the micrometer instead. Gottem! Yay Not as good a result as can be achieved with RAW stills, but good enough.

600 image stack, 10x Mitty on Raynox DCR-250 (6x on sensor). Stacked with Zerene pmax and bugslabber.

[jnh]

Lovely shot - as usual - Beatsy.

I attempted to stack a caterpillar a while ago that wouldn't hold still, and eventually I had to give up. After that, I got a little CO2 cartridge for temporarily knocking out wiggling critters, but I didn't have a chance to put that into practice yet (and do they go limp, if anesthetized?). I wonder, what the best practice is here?

[Beatsy]

I confess I was daydreaming about getting the poison that parasitic wasps use to paralyze their victims permanently, but leave them otherwise fresh and alive (while the wasp pupae eat them from the inside out). CO2 sounds infinitely more practical (if it works). I'd never heard of that. I'll hit Google and have a look - thanks for mentioning it.

[Peter M. Macdonald]

You can get second hand Corkmasters from ebay. They use a Sparklets carbon dioxide bulb. They were designed to be pushed through a wine bottle cork and then to inject enough gas to ease out the cork. Alright with a good quality bottle, but a disaster waiting to happen with cheap wine.

I have one, and it can be good to open a tube a little and give a puff of gas to he inhabitants. They are not at there best for photography whilst unconscious - who is - but it can be very useful for getting a good look for identification.

Just a word of warning, some police forces consider them to be offensive weapons if carried in a public place. However, most policemen are too young to remember the days when these things were carried to be used to stab someone in the leg and then to inject gas. Air embolism can be very dangerous indeed. I think that this was the main reason why they were withdrawn from the market. Never did get the chance to prosecute someone for such a stab wound when I prosecuted for a couple of years before I was called to the bar 30 years ago.

Peter

[ChrisR]

There are some mentions on this forum about them.