Drain Fly, A Macro View. The Toilet "Moth"!

Whenever we see them sticking on the toilet wall, we know somewhere within that place is a damp, wet, clogged-up hole, sponge or  pipe! It just need a very tiny dark place to breed.

My curiosity took hold of me and I decided to capture one and place it in my PhotoBox for a macro exposure. Hope you like it!

This is a shot taken through a glass. This fly certainly looks like a moth, with all the hairy stuff on its body. The look can kill, if this thing is not of microscopic size.

As it does not keep still, it has taken a different position, with better light exposure. Still, if not for this picture, I would not have known that it has puffy legs!

Would we have taken note that even the wings have long hairs? And, it can still give a good flight! So, the fact that it is a drain fly or sewer gnat (Psychodidae) does give me a consolation that it probably would not find its way onto my dinning table.

Here is a BATMAN perch. Okay, maybe more like a Dracula stance.

Up till now, it has been accommodating and it seems to enjoy being photographed. Just kidding.

And yet another pose - on the photographic twig that I use as a prop for insects. This shot shows that the drain fly can be cute and gives one the temptation to hug it!

After the photo session, I let it off. Alright, please do not let my wife know! As I discarded it outside the balcony, I am sure it will not want to come back.

Cricket Nymphs Having Fun

I breed small cricket nymphs for my fish. This adds to the variety of diets for the small fishes that I keep, in addition to their fish flakes and frozen worms. Some of the nymphs will eventually grow into full grown crickets - where I will use them to lay more eggs for the net batch of nymphs.

Here are some pictures of the nymphs. Their body length is between 2.5mm to 3mm long.

This one is a model nymph. It stays here for as long as I am willing to take shots of it. As they move around frequently, and quickly, opportunity like this is hard to come by.

The one on the left looks like a hippo. Yes, they are cute fellows. When you look at the thickness of the leaf, you will get to understand how small these nymphs are. These are less than a day old. For the record, I juxtaposed two photos together just to get this "circus" feel.

This is another one, exploring the small area where I keep them. This special area is my PhotoBox where I put little insects, eggs and nymphs together for photo shoot. When they first emerged from the egg, they were between whitish and milky. Over time, they will become darker, as seen here.

This one ran into a corner that was full of ultra-fine sand. These sand had been pounded for some purposes. Unfortunately, I did not know that they were so fine until I saw the nymphs being covered totally with them. Eventually, I had to clear the sand for they were simply too fine to be of any benefit to all the micro-insects around.

This spider came by when I was taking some pictures and I let it have one of the nymphs for food. This shot is another juxtaposed situation where I merged two separated shots together. 

 A totally "black" nymph. This is a senior and is about 2 days old.

From each batch of eggs, I would probably get between 900 to 1200 nymphs.