Observations "hiding" in other observations; Share your examples!

Took me a while

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I had been watching the leaf beetle larva… oh it’s an aphid!

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I had seen plenty of twigs along the railing and thought this Chrysomela vigintipunctata (Spotted Willow Leaf Battle / 버들잎벌레) might have walked out onto one when I snapped its picture. It wasn’t until I got home and was cropping the image that I realized … that’s no twig.

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Was photographing the flowers, Goodenia rotundifolia when I noticed the snake peering back at me. Dendrelaphis punctulatus so I lodged the same photo again as a seperate obs for the snake.

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Is that a mongoose?

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I saw this big pink orchid (Dactylorhiza incarnata) in a wet meadow next to the trail and so walked there (getting my shoes all wet) and snapped the above picture (first shot, off center and all…). Only then I was like, whoa, there’s two way cooler plants growing right next to it hidden in the grass (Liparis loeselii, another orchid, but very rare around here) :smile:

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Wait… are those someone’s arms/legs???
Could that be a spider?

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I think they belong to a crab spider.

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I was looking at my photos of this aquatic plant and found a water strider

And this hoverfly on an orchid

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I often find small insects and other arthropods that were not the original target of the shot in my photos.

For example I nabbed this photo of some sort of fly

But later noticed that clinging to it was my first Pseudoscorpion! (at least I think)

https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/204373648

I also only noticed this Pumpkin Gall Wasp (Dryocosmus minusculus) in a photo intended for a Plate Gall Wasp (Feron pattersonae) some two months after the initial picture was taken.


https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/189746801

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I observed a powdery mildew infecting a vervain. In addition to the full-leaf view, I also took a micrograph to show the hyphae:


As I did so, I noticed movement. It turns out that small mites were crawling among the hyphae:

Both taxa are difficult to identify and may never get to species, but here is the observation for the powdery mildew: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/222440010
And two for the mites: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/222499799
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/222499797

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some sneaky guys in here that I didn’t notice for 4 whole years until today

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Tried a 20-photo stack with a Clarkia flower, and voila: a crab spider!

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Those crab spiders sure are sneaky! Most of my crab spiders I found while photographing bees or wasps, and sometimes didn’t even notice until I was looking at the photos later.



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I snapped a quick photo of the milkweed plant to go with my observation of the butterfly, and afterwards I realized there are 5 additional insect species on it.


https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/227375672

A milkweed bug, a striped cucumber beetle (I guess) and what I guess is a young version of something (it’s creepy, I’m working on it), plus a honeybee and some kind of greenbottle fly. I don’t think that any of these species are especially thrilling, but it was a great example of the value of native plants, and I had fun trying to spot everything.

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I also had a hidden pseudoscorpion that I didn’t notice until later.

Original observation of a Painted Lichen Moth: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/127105711

Observation of the pseudoscorpion I added later: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/127044949

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Find the monarch caterpillar, and other creatures hiding in the picture

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Found a tiny spider in my flax photo

@mo0nsgreenthumb I see lots of aphids and what might be lacewing eggs. I can’t find the monarch caterpillar though! Edit: Found the caterpillar after I realized I wasn’t zoomed in all the way.

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Just sat down after a short hike through the woods by our house recovering from all the spiderwebs that got stuck in my hair and saw something in the picture hiding at the base of this brittlegill (which was very spicy by the way and no, I didn’t eat it). I’d totally go back down there but there’s just too many dang spiderwebs!

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