Nature Closeups

What appears to be a flower here is actually a group of caterpillars working their way down a sapling trunk. They look like they could do a decent job sharpening a pencil, about the same width as...

https://www.naturecloseups.com/posts/tree-sharpening-caterpillars

This reveal for Sign Challenge #1 is long overdue. Here’s the challenge photo again: Commenter Daniel Heald correct guessed it was a spider egg sac. Here’s another angle: When I took the phot...

https://www.naturecloseups.com/posts/sign-challenge-1-reveal-spinybacked-spider-egg-sac

It wasn’t until I reviewed this shot on my camera and saw the prey, that I realized long-legged flies (family Dolichopodidae) are predatory.

https://www.naturecloseups.com/posts/long-legged-fly-with-prey

In Fall, bald-faced hornets enter the autumn of their lives. Surviving adults, no longer responsible for providing masticated prey for the colony’s growing young, enter into a retirement of sor...

https://www.naturecloseups.com/posts/abandoned-hornet-nest-over-the-chattahoochee-river-in-fall

I wasn’t properly excited when I photographed this tiger beetle. I now know this species, Cicindela highlandensis, is a somewhat rare endemic species. There were no shortage of them at this ...

https://www.naturecloseups.com/posts/highlands-tiger-beetle

A female Amanda’s Pennant, Celithemis amanda, perches along a sandy trail in a relatively unvisited state park.

https://www.naturecloseups.com/posts/female-amandas-pennant

These mating treehoppers (Acutalis brunnea) picked a good place to get together, at least from a photographer’s perspective. I like the composition of this full frame image, but there’s so ma...

https://www.naturecloseups.com/posts/mating-treehoppers

I enjoyed BugShot 2012, but didn’t take as much advantage of the setting as I’d hoped. By the time I got to Archbold Biological Station, I was coming down with what turned out to be an upp...

https://www.naturecloseups.com/posts/bugshot-2012-wolf-spiders

While on my way to BugShot 2012, I spent several days exploring parks along the way. My favorite spot was the Nature Conservancy’s Tiger Creek Preserve for the variety of habitats its trails...

https://www.naturecloseups.com/posts/red-widow-with-egg-sac

This’ll be the first in a new series of challenges focused on sign. What is “sign”, you might be asking? Generally, it’s something whose presence indicates the presence of something else....

https://www.naturecloseups.com/posts/sign-challenge-1