Finally today, a nice little (& I mean little) discovery with very pretty wing & body markings.

I believe that this is a lesser golden knapweed fly (Chaetorellia jaceae). In German it's the ... take a deep breath ... Kleine Wiesenflockenblumen-Bohrfliege.

Lacking the long ovipositor of the female, it's a male.

#Heidelberg 🏰
#Photography 📷️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️
#BugOfTheDay 🐞
#MacroPhotography 🔬
#InsectsOfMastodon 🪰
#BackGardenEntomology 🪲

Another grasshopper, this time on some rosemary.

This one's harder to ID – genus Chorthippus, Eurasian field grasshoppers, but it's very hard to distinguish between C. brunneus, C. biguttulus, & C. mollis without a clear view of the wings ... or decoding their chirps 🦗🎶

Neither was possible in this situation 🤷‍♂️

#Heidelberg 🏰
#Photography 📷️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️
#BugOfTheDay 🐞
#MacroPhotography 🔬
#InsectsOfMastodon 🪰
#BackGardenEntomology 🪲

Also out there today, many grasshoppers well camouflaged & jumping around in the parched landscape.

Here's one that found some greenery though – it's a rufous grasshopper (Gomphocerippus rufus; 🇩🇪 Rote Keulenschrecke), easily identified from the flattened club-like tips to the antennae.

#Heidelberg 🏰
#Photography 📷️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️
#BugOfTheDay 🐞
#MacroPhotography 🔬
#InsectsOfMastodon 🪰
#BackGardenEntomology 🪲

Sometimes I think my garden arthropods are taking the piss 🙄

I chased this big tachnid fly around for ages, trying to get a clear shot. Then it landed on my calf & started drinking the sweat – not easy to photograph 😬

It's a male black & orange parasite fly (Nowickia ferox; 🇩🇪 Große Borsten-Raupenfliege).

#Heidelberg 🏰
#Photography 📷️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️
#BugOfTheDay 🐞
#MacroPhotography 🔬
#InsectsOfMastodon 🪰
#BackGardenEntomology 🪲

While ID'ing that damselfly was tricky, as the teneral stage doesn't much resemble the blue & black adult colour scheme with red eyes, this one is more straightforward.

It's a blue-tailed damselfly (Ischnura elegans; Große Pechlibelle), also at the Fischkinderstube.

#Heidelberg 🏰
#Photography 📷️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️
#BugOfTheDay 🐞
#MacroPhotography 🔬
#InsectsOfMastodon 🪰
#BackGardenEntomology 🪲

As seen at the Fischkinderstube pond during yesterday's ride.

I believe it's a small red-eyed damselfly (Erythromma viridulum; 🇩🇪 Kleines Granatauge) in the teneral stage, meaning just emerged from being a nymph. The characteristic strong colours come later.

It was surprisingly reluctant to fly off my fingers 🤷‍♂️

#Heidelberg 🏰
#Photography 📷️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️
#BugOfTheDay 🐞
#MacroPhotography 🔬
#InsectsOfMastodon 🪰
#BackGardenEntomology 🪲

An interesting point about these reflected sunlight illuminations is that most of the sloping windows involved are quite far away.

In this case, the house in question is 615 metres to the south. Assuming the window is 1 metre wide, that means it subtends an angle of less than 0.1°.

That’s much smaller than the 0.5° than the Sun itself subtends, so the shadows are sharper & you can easily see atmospheric turbulence in the light parts.

I took a video – will post.

A new solar lighthenge discovery 🌞🙂

Walked into my bedroom at just the right moment this afternoon to find this beautiful patch of illumination on the wall.

It’s sunlight reflected from a dormer window on a house down the valley to the south, sneaking through a narrow gap into my balcony door. The leaf shadows are vines on the neighbour’s wall.

Lasted just a minute & I may never see it again given the angle, time of day & year, & brevity.

Now there’s a metaphor …

#Photography 📷

Of course, you could also argue that the underlying problem starts much closer to the mean, say beyond plus or minus three sigma.

That’d be one in every three hundred and seventy, the kind of people who think they’re already special enough that the rules don’t really apply to them.

That they should be allowed to trample on others to get and do what they want.

We can also probably all come up with people we personally know who fit that bill.

The statistical rot starts there, perhaps.

Saturday musing on six sigma sociopaths.

In a normal distribution, two in every billion lie beyond six sigma from the mean.

That’s sixteen in a population of eight billion.

Strikes me that if you could lock up just sixteen of the most egregious human beings, our world might become a better place.

I’m sure we can all come up with names to fill that list.

Problem is, there are plenty of five point nine sigma types desperate to take their places.

Maybe we do it annually.

Took advantage of a slight break in the weather – only 27°C today, but north of 30°C over the weekend again – and went for an evening ride.

Somewhat breezy, but nice conditions otherwise over 53km to Heddesheim & back.

Nice late dusk clouds too once home, with bonus Venus.

#CyclingLife 🚴‍♂️
#Heidelberg 🏰
#Photography 📷

And close by, this small grass veneer moth (tribe Crambini) was fluttering around.

It's likely a pearl veneer (Agriphila straminella; 🇩🇪 Unscheinbarer Graszünsler), & the combination of blue-grey eyes & fluffy snout is quite something.

This one is native to Europe & the Palearctic.

#Heidelberg 🏰
#Photography 📷️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️
#BugOfTheDay 🐞
#MacroPhotography 🔬
#InsectsOfMastodon 🪰
#BackGardenEntomology 🪲

Cooler today, but still not much activity apart from the honeybees.

I did see one of my favourites however – a buffalo treehopper (Stictocephala bisonia; 🇩🇪 Büffelzikade), & will try to get a head-on shot showing where the name comes from.

That said, it's an invasive species from North America, now widespread in Europe.

#Heidelberg 🏰
#Photography 📷️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️
#BugOfTheDay 🐞
#MacroPhotography 🔬
#InsectsOfMastodon 🪰
#BackGardenEntomology 🪲

I keep forgetting just how early the Sun sets over the west wide of the valley now that it's August 😲

Nevertheless, at least this (very!) large carpenter bee was still out feeding in the dusk 🙂👍

Subgenus Xylocopa, but it's hard to distinguish X. valga from X. violacea, so I'll leave it at that.

#Heidelberg 🏰
#Photography 📷️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️
#BugOfTheDay 🐞
#MacroPhotography 🔬
#InsectsOfMastodon 🪰
#BackGardenEntomology 🪲

I keep forgetting just how early the Sun sets over the west wide of the valley now that it's August 😲

Nevertheless, at least this (very!) large carpenter bee was still out feeding in the dusk 🙂👍

Subgenus Xylocopa, but it's hard to distinguish X. valga from X. violacea, so I'll leave it at that.

#Heidelberg 🏰
#Photography 📷️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️
#BugOfTheDay 🐞
#MacroPhotography 🔬
#InsectsOfMastodon 🪰
#BackGardenEntomology 🪲

To underline that, here's a much smaller juvenile that I saw earlier today, actually hanging off my camera indoors.

Despite their scary adult size, they don't bite humans unless seriously provoked. They do roam at night though in search of prey.

They've spread northwards from the Mediterranean since the start of the millennium in direct reaction to climate change & rising temperatures.

They actively seek out homes in houses for the winter this far north though.

Dracula 🧛‍♂️ hanging around outside my office tonight 😬✝️

Well actually just one of the increasing numbers of Mediterranean spiny false wolf spiders (Zoropsis spinimana), aka the Nosferatu-spinne in 🇩🇪, we have here both outdoors & in.

Happy to sit still enough for a five second exposure with my new camera.

#Heidelberg 🏰
#Photography 📷️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️
#BugOfTheDay 🐞
#MacroPhotography 🔬
#ArachnidsOfMastodon 🕷️
#BackGardenEntomology 🪲

Colour me impressed 👍

Beautiful new visible-light images from the DKIST solar telescope in Hawai'i, showing structures on the Sun down to 19km (26 milliarcsec) in size.

These scalloped plasma structures are small-scale magnetised Kelvin-Helmholtz instabilities – these have long been theorised & could explain the transport of heat, mass, & magnetic fields from the Sun's surface into the extremely hot corona.

Credit: NSF/NSO/AURA/MPS
Scientific paper:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-026-10871-3

#spacescience

Another rather depressing hour in the garden looking for arthropods – it has been hot & sunny for so long now, everything's parched & many plants have died.

But at least there are western honey bees (Apis mellifera; 🇩🇪 Westliche Honigbiene) out there being industrious.

Exactly which sub-species though, I dunno 🤷‍♂️

#Heidelberg 🏰
#Photography 📷️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️
#BugOfTheDay 🐞
#MacroPhotography 🔬
#InsectsOfMastodon 🪰
#BackGardenEntomology 🪲

I'm often in two minds when photographing flies – while some are readily identified at the species level, others remain enigmatic unless you dissect their genitals, & that's just for males 😳

Case in point – this is likely a female Carnaria-group flesh fly in subgenus Sarcophaga, but being more definitive is tough 😬✌️

#Heidelberg 🏰
#Photography 📷️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️️
#BugOfTheDay 🐞
#MacroPhotography 🔬
#InsectsOfMastodon 🪰
#BackGardenEntomology 🪲