I’m sorry about the lull in posts lately. I’m taking a lot of hard classes this year, and I haven’t much time to post, let alone do anything blog-worthy. However, despite my limited time, I did manage to get out in the garden and take a few photos last week, and this was one of my favorites. It depicts an ant tending a colony of yellow aphids. Also visible beneath the ant’s feet is some kind of larva, perhaps Lepidoptera, but I don’t really know. I took this picture with my nikon d-40, using the 18-55 kit lens reversed. I really love the lighting, but it was a bit of a fluke. I used the on camera flash undiffused, but I think that the fact that I was so close caused most of the direct light to miss the subject, and instead hit a leaf and reflect back.
Ant Aphid symbiosis
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Dad said,
September 7, 2011 @ 9:41 am
Nice picture – does this mean we have aphids in the garden?
Tucker Lancaster said,
September 8, 2011 @ 7:12 am
These guys were on some vine growing along the fence. I do get aphids in the garden, but almost always the green ones, not the yellow.
mom said,
September 7, 2011 @ 3:43 pm
Great picture Tucker. Glad to get a blog post.
Johanna said,
September 27, 2011 @ 8:57 am
those yelllow dudes are cool!