It's a buggy time of year

I take a camera to bed with me. Because tiny critters like my night light and bask there, just beside my headboard. So I take their photos. Of course.

Here are some of the ones that have turned up recently.

One of the Gall and Forest midges. The arrow points to one of the halteres.

The Diptera (two-winged), are flying insects; most of our flies, crane flies, hover flies, mosquitos, etc. Most other winged insects have 4 wings, but in the Diptera, the second pair of wings has evolved to become tiny, vibrating clubs, the halteres; they work as flight stabilizers and may help with steering.

A tiny yellow fly with multi-coloured eyes. Chyromya sp.

A female Bee Moth, Aphomia sociella

On the lampshade; a small crane fly, infraorder Tipulomorpha. A male; females have a pointed tip to the abdomen.

A weevil, one of the Snout and Bark beetles.

And a couple of visitors from other spots:

A woodlouse spider on my carpet. Dysdera crocata.

And outside, on my garden wall; a Brown-lipped snail, Cepaea nemoralis.

More beasties to come; it's a buggy time of year.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Llevo la cámara conmigo a la cama. Porque a muchos insectos les atrae la luz de mi lámpara de noche; se "asolean" allí, en la pared al lado de mi cama. Y, claro, les tengo que sacar fotos.

Estos son unos de los que me han visitado recientemente.

1. Un mosquito pequeño (jején). La flecha indica uno de los halterios. El orden Diptera (que significa dos alas) incluye los insectos voladores con 2 alas, como por ejemplo, los Tipula, las moscas comunes, los mosquitos, los sírfidos. Otros insectos voladores tienen 4 alas; en el orden de los Diptera, el segundo par de alas se ha convertido en estos halterios, que les sirven para estabilizar el vuelo y pueden ayudar a dirigir la dirección del vuelo.
2. Una mosca dorada con ojos de muchos colores. Chyromya sp.
3. Una mariposa nocturna, "Mariposa abeja", hembra, Aphomia sociella
4. Una Tipula chica. Este es un macho; el abdomen de las hembras tiene el extremo puntiagudo.
5. Un gorgojo.
6. Y en otro sitio; una araña Dysdera crocata.
7. Y en mi jardín, un caracol "Margen marrón", Cepaea nemoralis.

Para mañana, tengo otros insectos; estamos en una temporada del año llena de criaturitas.

So that's how they do it!

A  crane fly has waited on my window several mornings in a row, begging to have his photo taken. I finally obliged, and he went away. He hasn't been back to see the proofs yet.

Outside view, with flash and quadruple reflections.

From the inside, no flash.

Since this spring, I have been working my way through a college textbook on invertebrates. (Living Invertebrates, Pearse/Buchsbaum) It's a fascinating read. A few weeks ago, I came across this fact: see those two little knobs sticking out from the sides of the crane fly? They are all that remain of the second pair of wings many other insects (bees, beetles, dragonflies, butterfies, etc.) have. The flies belong to the order Diptera, meaning "two-wings"; they only have one pair of wings and these useless-looking knobs.

That I knew; what astounded me was that, if you cut off these tiny halteres, the insect can't fly.

The halteres serve as balancing rods and part of the fly's guidance system. Both of them flap up and down when the wings do, but out of phase with the wings, each one vibrating, as well, in a different plane. As the fly's body turns in flight, sensory organs at the base of each haltere register the resistance of the knob to this change; this information enables the flies to control their flight, and incidentally, to thumb their noses at me and my fly swatter.*

This kind of work revealed why, while fleeing a rolled-up newspaper, for example, a fly can carry out a right angle turn in as little as 30 thousandths of a second. The secret seems to rest in their halteres, a pair of club-shaped organs that beat out of phase with the wings. Prof Dickinson found they act as critical way-stations for information from the insect's brain, taking visual cues from the eye and then relaying them to wing-steering muscles, in addition to making counter motions to help to end a turn. (From The Telegraph, 2005)

*Used mainly for mosquitoes. Which escape to bite another day, as often as not.