Blood sucking cat flea

Cat fleas are not the prettiest of insect, but they are a nice red colour when full of blood!

I caught this flea from my cat Alfie, I then allowed it to suck my blood for 5 minutes before killing it and taking 120 photos which were then stacked to produce the image as seen below. The flea had just about doubled in size by the time it had finished its blood meal.

This image is a stack of 100 frames, taken using a Nikon M plan 10/0.25 objective on bellows.

More hamuli

This is a crop of the image in the previous post showing a little more detail of the hamuli.

More hamuli

This is the forewing of a common wasp, Vespula vulgaris. The hamuli can be seen at the bottom right of the image; see the previous post for a description of the function of these tiny hooks.

Hamuli

Hamuli are tiny hooks found on the hindwing of hymenoptera (wasps, bees, ants and sawflies), these hooks attach onto a ridge on the forewing, firmly connecting the two wings. Joining the hind and forewing together improves aerodynamic efficiency during flight.
This wing is from a mining bee, Andrena.

Syrphus vitripennis... probably

There are two Syrphus species which I find are very common in parks and gardens of North London, S. vitripennis and S. ribesii. These two species are very similar; the females are easily separated by the colour of the hind femur with ribesii females having yellow hind femora whereas in vitripennis females they are black.
Males of the species vitripennis and ribesii are best separated by looking at the tiny hairs on the wings, the microtrichia.

There is another species, Syrphus rectus which has males which are indistinguishable from vitripennis males. Little is known about this species with only a few records of its existence in Britain.

Cheilosia pagana

Cheilosia is the largest UK hoverfly genus with around 37 different species. Most of this genus are rather nondescript, small black flies and it can be difficult to identify species.

Female C.Pagana are quite distinctive, they have very large, orange third antennal segment. Males, as seen in the photo also have an orange third antennal segment although it is smaller than in females. Characters used for identification include the bare arista, lack of hairs on the eyes, glossy black face, black hairs on the scutellum and hairs of uniform length on the lateral margin of the fourth abdominal segment.

Melangyna umbellatarum

The spots on the abdomen of Melangyna umbellatarum are very pale compared to most other hoverflies in the tribe Syrphini, this character is shared with a few other Melangyna species.

I found this hoverfly in the back garden along with dozens of Episyrphus balteatus, there are a lot of those around at the moment.

Rhododendron leafhopper

This exotic looking species was accidentally introduced from the USA in the 1930's; its vivid colouration makes it easy to spot on rhododendrons from the middle of Summer and into Autumn.

The Rhododendron leafhopper acts as a vector for the fungus Pycnostysanus azaleae which causes the disease rhododendron bud blast. The adult leafhoppers lay their eggs in the buds of the plant allowing fungal spores entry.

Image shot with a reversed 50mm f/2.8 EL-Nikkor on bellows.

Graphocephala fennahi

Marmalade hoverfly

This is the Mammalade hoverfly, Episyrphus balteatus, one of the most common UK hoverflies. It is easily recognised by the distinctive pattern on the abdomen.

Episyrphus balteatus