Some bum springtail shots

[LordV]

Frans asked me if I could try to get some shots of a female glubular springtail gonopore. The supplied info suggested this was near the rear of the springtail but no hints on how to tell males from females :)
Anyway resulting shots with some crops which just about show the gonopore on a female (luckily as it turned out)- the gonopore is the slightly visible slit in the ellipsoid shape just adjacent to the 3 bumped bum bit at the rear. You can also see the furca latch at the bottom right in last rather extreme crop.

Brian V.

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2178/2211629185_4ebe2bf480_o.jpg

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2230/2211629189_4278e5db03_o.jpg

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2195/2211629203_dbc68633f3_o.jpg

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2072/2211629207_413831a90f_o.jpg

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2401/2214261432_861533f325_o.jpg

[mtonsbeek]

Interesting shots Brian. #3 and #4 mostly so.
Maarten

[shadowkipper]

Brian. You are like the king of macro shots with insects. In my opinion.

[Photogirl2007]

Hey no porno here please!! LOL!! Excellent capture Brian.

[racketman]

he'll be pleased with those, great angle on #2

[LordV]

Thanks for the comments :)

Shadowkipper- lots of excellent macro- shooters here- I'm just lucky on having more time to play than most.

Joan - Porn ? Have a hard time with these - the male and female don't necessarily even see or touch each other during mating. The males seem to just lay spermatophores (sperms on sticks) and the female just walks over them and engulfs them in gonopore :)

Thanks Toby - I was actually a bit annoyed at the upside-down shots- found after I'd lovingly done them via hand focus stacking I'd accidently used high level noise reduction on them :)

brian V.

[Photogirl2007]

the male and female don't necessarily even see or touch each other during mating. The males seem to just lay spermatophores (sperms on sticks) and the female just walks over them and engulfs them in gonopore

Now that is no fun at all!!:D I think most of us reading this are thinking we are glad we are not springtails!!:D

[spidermanrbryce2006]

great shots! interesting how bugs mate etc!

[GaryT]

Very nice shots. Are the bottom shots taken through glass or did you just turn it over?

[troypiggo]

Nice ass. She's hot! :D

[LordV]

Thanks again for the comments :)

Troy- whatever turns you on :)

Gary- The springtail initially was on the edge of a glass microscope slide I have near where I find these things often- luckily it walked onto the main face so I gently turned it upright facing away from me for the underneath shots. Think springtail turning would be a bit difficult :)
Brian v.

[sadowsk2]

Cool, COOL shots!!!!

[macro junkie]

amazing pics.

[Bald Eagle]

Excellent work. I noticed it had a slightly different feel to it than your normal (excellent quality) shots. High level noise reduction gives it a different look.

[LordV]

Thanks for the comments :)
Rick - yes the noise reduction was an accident from a previous use, but some of the effect in the last two shots anyway is just cropping from a 5:1 image. I suspect If I knew beforehand I was going to need to crop I should have tried shooting at F2.8 or F4 at 5:1. I truly didn't know how small this gonopore was :)
Brian V.