Predaceous Diving Beetle

[Steve Maxson]

Last summer I posted some images of large, fearsome looking larvae of Predaceous Diving Beetles - this is what they turn into after crawling out of the pond, burying themselves in the leaf litter, and pupating for about 3 weeks. This one (Dytiscus sp.) is 40 mm long and was photographed in my 2 gallon aquarium setup. The perch is a waterlogged, algae-covered stick. I'd been hoping to catch one of these in my aquatic net for the last 2 summers - so my daughter finds this one crawling across the road. :t3 5D II, 100 mm macro, 1/100, f/16, ISO 100, MT24-EX macro twin flash (diffused), tripod. As usual, I cleaned up numerous bits of floating debris in the water that were illuminated by the flash. All comments are welcome and appreciated.

[Julie Kenward]

Awesome post, Steve. It never fails - if you try to do something and can't nature will suddenly show up to help you out. Call it Karma or whatever...but it almost always happens!

The only thing I can think to make a comment on would be that the back leg gets a little lost in the moss - don't know if there's any way to reduce the darks there so you could get more detail in that one spot or whether it would even be worth trying - but that's how nit picky I have to be in order to come up with something to say besides "man, this rocks!"

:w3

[Madhav Jois]

Hi Steve, this is picture perfect. You have the whole bug perfectly in focus, colors look brilliant, great perch... No nits for me. Thanks for sharing.

[Jonathan Ashton]

Steve, you're getting there:bg3: absolutely superb, I know you guys don't agree with me but I think the water is a little too clean. Just a personal thing I think you guys in USA like the perfect coffee table top type image whereas her in UK we are a little more tolerant of the inevitable debris that is is found.

[Steve Maxson]

Thanks for the comments Jules, Madhav, and Jonathan!