Spotlight

Well, what can I say! My personal records show that with yesterday's blip failing to make spotlight, my run of 91 consecutive spotlights is brought to an end. How do I feel about that - RELIEVED! Yes, it would have been nice to make the century, but to be honest, it was becoming a bit of an obsession and I am glad it is over.

Some of you will be scratching your heads, wondering what on earth have you got to do to get on this spotlight thing, I know I was, not so very long ago. You may even find the above statement irritating or even annoying, if so, I can only apologize. It has been a great honor to have hit spotlight so many times and I thank you all sincerely for the gift :)

Now that I have got the spotlight thing out of my system, I think I will be able to relax more and enjoy my blipping, but my blip choices will no longer be driven by what I perceive as the popular vote. Those of you who genuinely enjoy my journal will probably find this change refreshing as I too feel that my contributions were becoming a bit 'same old'.

On to today's blip:

Often when photographing such small creatures, you don't really understand what you are working with until you get back to the lab, like the time I photographed a spider, pulling a grub out of a chrysalis. I thought it very strange at the time, but once I spread the pixels out on my screen, I discovered two spiders mating. That was a photo op' missed, as I took the shots all wrong.

Today's blip is a similar experience as I thought I was photographing a small wasp. It was searching the surface of the leaf with its two long, white tipped antennae, occasionally stopping to feed on something. It all seemed a bit strange, as usually wasps, with their excellent eyesight, won't let you in this close before departing.

The pixels revealed that I was actually photographing a fly as can be seen from the top right exploded view showing the fly type antennae with the little hair growing out of the side.

Wasps have four wings whereas this insect has only two. On true flies, the second pair of wings have evolved into counter balance drum sticks, as seen in the lower exploded view.

What I thought were long antennae were actually the flies front legs which were being used like antennae, very strange behavior.

There seemed to be a lump or growth on the bottom of the abdomen that was not normal. When I zoomed in, I discovered a group of six tics attached plus one more on the top of the abdomen, under the wing roots. The belly tics shown in the top left view. The belly tics indicate that the fly was very sick and reluctant to fly. It was probably searching for moisture, having been drained by the tics.

An interesting find I think.

Dave