See through insect.

lovely shot.......... gorgeous composition...freaky larva thingy

Excellent composition! I love it!

Can anyone ID the insect? It's less than 1/4 inch long.

Great shot!

Almost certainly a sawfly larvae. They're quite caterpillar-like, and often somewhat transparent, as you noticed. They often drape their backsides below the edge of the leaf. You can tell them apart from caterpillars by counting the prolegs, those stumpy little legs on abdominal sections behind the true legs. Caterpillars have five pairs of prolegs, sawfly larvae have at least six (with some exceptions--one rare family has legless larvae).

Sawflies are Hymenoptera--the same Order as wasps, ants and bees. But they're the more primitive members. Almost all of the larvae eat plants in one way or another. The 'saw' part of the name comes from the ovipositor, which is sawlike to make a slit in the plant (frequently in a stem or large leaf vein) to lay the eggs in. Most adults look vaguely like wasps with no waist between the thorax and abdomen. There are about 1000 species in North America.

Thank you very much for that info Salticid.

Leorooster wrote:
Excellent composition! I love it!

Ditto! I agree!!