Over the previous summer, I made it a regular habit to scour the front porch in the morning to look for insects that were drawn in by our porch light overnight. Among the more common squatters were these small mayflies. Although they look very different from each other, I believe they are different sexes of one species: Callibaetus ferrugineus.
Here is the female.
Minnow mayfly by Mark Sturtevant, on Flickr
Males are tiny, but they have extraordinary compound eyes. The upward turret-shaped eyes are thought to be used to watch for females.
Minnow mayfly by Mark Sturtevant, on Flickr
Minnow mayfly by Mark Sturtevant, on Flickr
The pictures were taken as manual focus stacks. The lens was the Venus/Laowa 2.5x-5x. Merging the stacks was done in Zerene Stacker, and then further processed in Gimp.
Thanks for looking!
A weird little mayfly
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- MarkSturtevant
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A weird little mayfly
Mark Sturtevant
Dept. of Still Waters
Dept. of Still Waters
Re: A weird little mayfly
Hi Mark
Very nice pictures in a super resolution, everything clear and recognizable.
The turban eyes are the absolute hit
Kurt
Very nice pictures in a super resolution, everything clear and recognizable.
The turban eyes are the absolute hit
Kurt
Re: A weird little mayfly
"I only have eyes for you, dear"
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Re: A weird little mayfly
These are real nice images