Wasp thingie

gpmatthews · Post by **gpmatthews** » Sat Jul 15, 2006 11:50 am

Zeiss Standard GFL Microscope
Stack of 36 images, combined with Helicon Focus
Objective: Zeiss Plan 1.6/0.03 - 5/0.1
Ocular: Watson x8 Compensating
"Krebs" light diffuser (actually a bottle top, used as described by Charlie, along with coloured light background using a substage filter)
Camera: Canon Powershot S50
ISO 100, 1/13 sec, F4.9

A flat-bed scan of the specimen below. The specimen was approx 1.7 cm long. A proper ident would be much appreciated. It was a "present" from the cat.

bernhardinho · Post by **bernhardinho** » Sat Jul 15, 2006 2:54 pm

Hi Graham,

this upper shot is terrific!! Thank you very much!!

Bernhard

Charles Krebs · Post by **Charles Krebs** » Sun Jul 16, 2006 12:02 am

You really nailed this one Graham. Looks like he could crawl out of the monitor onto my desk! Really nice.

rjlittlefield · Post by **rjlittlefield** » Mon Jul 17, 2006 2:18 pm

Very nicely done! I bet this would look great as a big print to show off the detail.

"A proper ident would be much appreciated."

On first impression, this strikes me as a digger wasp, family Sphecidae, possibly genus Sphex. See for example http://bugguide.net/node/view/11085/bgimage. Unfortunately bugguide.net mostly covers North American species, not European. I can't do any better right now -- don't have my key-type references handy, and as I recall they rely on wing venation that I can't make out in the flatbed scan.

--Rik

piotr · Post by **piotr** » Tue Jul 25, 2006 5:16 pm

Beautiful pictures, Graham. Nice composition, colors and details.