What are some of your best photos that show the scale of small creatures such as ants?
It’s nice to have a clear photo of a tiny creature. But, I also admire photos where the scale is obvious because of the context?
Especially of ants, but also other small arthropods, creatures and plants.
I have some aphid observations that might fit well
Like this one sitting on the same blade of grass like a crab spider
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/72173376
ir one that turned out to be in my personal top 10 of photos I took back in Ecuador.. an aphid sitting at the tip of a wing of a giant beetle
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/39183275 (beetle observation, never uploaded the aphid separately)
Maybe not the smallest of creatures, but surely these are the smallest of butterflies, on my fingertip for scale.
The first two are a North American Euphilotes sp. and Brephidium exilis. The latter is often considered the smallest butterfly in the world, although I found the Omani Freyeria trochylus, in the third and fourth photos, was even smaller.
They were tasting you. Could you feel that?
Yes, they enjoy the minerals in the sweat on our skin. But these are so tiny and lightweight that you hardly even notice their presence on your finger.
Here is an ant showing how small some aphids are.
This is probably one of my cleanest images of a tiny insect
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/329607925
In my opinion though there’s no better way to show how small something is than taking the photo through a microscope
Technically a mushroom not a creature but I feel like it’s in the spirit of things: A mushroom growing inside the cap of an acorn
I took this one to really give people an idea of how small goblin spiders are
Nice picture! Some ants tend aphids kind of like livestock. The ants collect the aphids’ honeydew and protect them from other insects. This looks like a prime capture of that symbiotic behavior.
Coenisia are a genus of unassuming looking small flies, a little smaller than house flies but they’re ferocious predators. Which makes this tiny wasp prey even smaller.
A mesostig nymph on a little Crematogaster ant
When you see the taxon thumbnail for Fungi, little blue mushroom – here it is in context !!
One time, we found a box turtle in our backyard with little Homidia Socia springtails climbing all over it! (I made separate observations for the turtle and for the springtails)
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/359111901
Also cool:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/388835624
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/388835622
A pseudoscorpion clinging to a beetle’s leg!!
Springtails always seem so tiny in the moss bed in my yard!
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/358164926
