NC State University Insect Museum

The winner of the Unusual/Extreme/Close-up of Insect, Arthropod, or other Invertebrate category also won the coveted Best in Show. Congratulations to John Meyer for capturing this beautiful and bewildering shot!

photographer: John Meyer
title: Wheel of Fortune

photographer: Daniel Kronauer
title: I wish I was somebody else. San Carlos de Rio Negro, Venezuela.

Daniel Kronauer's (Cambridge, MA) photo won for best image of an immature insect or arthropod. The photographer's statement about this photograph: Ants are ecologically dominant in tropical ecosystems and generally well defended. Many other arthropods therefore commonly mimic ants. For example, it is not uncommon to find one or more ant-mimicking jumping spiders for each of the most common ant species at any Amazonian site. This picture was taken while I was photographing Camponotus carpenter ants that were foraging on the same plant. It certainly took a second look to notice that this bug was not part of the ant family.

Thanks for sharing your images with us, and congratulations on placing first in this category!

photographer: Dominique DuBois
title: Buck Tooth Fly

Dominique DuBois of Dixon, MO snapped this great shot of what appears to be a curious tachinid fly: I was scared of something flying around and I was not sure what is was. Once it landed I thought it was cool, and it was just sitting there looking at me. I got my mom's camera started taking pictures of it. I was amazed it just sat there for me. Great capture and congratulations on the winning entry for insect image by photographer under 13!

photographer: Clyde Sorenson
title: Adult Polyphemus moth (about this moth species)

Congratulations go out to Clyde Sorenson, whose adult Polyphemus moth (Saturniidae: Antheraea polyphemus)) photograph was selected as the best in the Adult Lepidoptera category. Rumor has it that this particular specimen ended up in an ENT 502 collection! Hmmmm...

We held our annual banquet last Friday, and I've been slow to announce the winners of the NCES Insect (and other terrestrial arthropods) Photography Contest. We had a total of 98 entries this year, which is 14 more than last year! The quality of this year's entries was exceptionally high, and I extend a hearty thanks to the judges for grinding it out and doing their best to narrow the field to just four per category.

The winners (it was a tie!) for the best photograph of an Adult Insect or Other Terrestrial Arthropod are:

photographer: Marshal Hedin
title: Leiobunum harvestman with prey

photographer: Steve Frank
title: Texas skies

Congratulations Marshal and Steve! The other winners will be posted here tomorrow. Stay tuned.