Dennis has had a lifelong interest in insects. First collecting them when eight or nine, later photographing them.
My interest in insect behavior led me to video, 3-D video and high-speed video.
My interest in becoming a Wikimedia editor is to add video clips to existing pages illustrating that insect's behavior.
I have added video to the following pages:
Coleoptera (Beetles)
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Hymenoptera (Bees, Wasps and Ants)
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Polistinae Paper Wasp plusAdditional description.
Single paper wasp foundress establishes her nest, adding cells, renewing repellent on the pedicle. She has already laid eggs in several of the incomplete cells and continually checks the nest and cells.
Foundress' nest raided by a rat, beetle or other predator. Nest was previously photographed eleven days earlier when there were five eggs. If the foundress survived, she would start a new nest at a different location
Worker adding additional matrial to expand nest
Queen replacing an egg that was either not viable or laid by a worker
Masticated caterpillar portion brought to nest and fed to the larvae
Water is brought to the nest for the larvae
Wasps fanning the nest with their wings to provide breeze/cooling
Wasps bring water to place in nest to provide cooling by evaporation
Paper wasps disturbed by hits to their nest support.
Potter wasp
End of season: Male wasps mature and leave, nest shuts down leaving nest empty.
Potter wasp forming a mud ball.
Four-toothed mason wasps nectaring on Canadian thistle
A gold-marked thread-waisted wasp in family Sphecidae flying near blooming yellow ironweed .
Yellowjacket wasps
Yellowjacket wasps can be very aggressive if disturbed. Here the ground was pounded next to their nest—with sound.
Yellowjacket wasps using a stone as a landmark to navigate to their nest entrance. When the stone moved, they continued for a time to return orienting with the stone.
Yellowjacket response when a leaf blocks their entrance--with sound.
Very late in season, nearly every morning is too cold for the yellowjackets to forage. In another several weeks all are dead—except the new queens sheltering somewhere else.
Yellow jacket wasp catches green bottle fly to feed its larvae, followed by the final catch in slow motion. rabbit carrion is four days old.
Sphex digger wasp nectaring on Queen Anne's Lace ; replayed at one tenth speed.
Parasitized white cabbage larvae showing wasp larvae exiting its body, spinning cocoons. Playback at double speed. Adult wasps at normal speed.
Bombus Bumlebees
Bumblebees can be active in cooler and less favorable weather than most other flying insects. Here it is cool and raining (with audio)
Honey bee hive entrance with audio. The last part is at one fourth speed
Family Formicidae Ants
Bold Jumping Spider (Phidippus audax ) with a cutworm (tribe Noctuini ) and then lost to ants (Family Formicidae )
ants from different colonies steal the cranefly that a pair of silverr long-jawed orb weaver spiders were consuming.
Ants find a dying white cabbage larvae that parasitoid wasps larvae exited two days earlier.
Ants nectaring on dandelion .
Ants collecting honeydew from Calico scales (Eulecanium cerasorum then played at 30 times speed to show the pumping action of the scale.
Hemiptera (True Bugs, including Aphids, Cicadas, Leafhoppers and Planthoppers)
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Arilus cristatus North American wheel bug
American wheel bug attempts capture of spotted cucumber beetle and captures and rejects an ambush bug
North American wheel bug grooming
Sinea diadema The spined assasssin bug
Adult spined assassin bug on goldenrod
Phymatinae Ambush bug
Adult Phymata sp. attempting its lie in wait technique to ambush a syrphid fly (Orthonevra nitida ) and a Halictus bee
Adult Phymata sp. catches a Halictus bee.
Adult Phymata sp. catches a much larger honey bee .
Ambush bugs attempting mating.
Fieberiella florii nymph leafhopper
Fieberiella florii nymph leafhopper
Jikradia olitoria leafhopper
Jikradia olitoria leahopper nymph on sweet corn leaf (nearly eight millimeters long)
Cicadidae Annual cicadas
Annual Cicada adult male singing (with audio)
genus Magicicada Periodical cicada
Adult cicada and female creating a slit in twig and inserting eggs. The sounds of thousands of cicadas.
Emergence! Nearly all at once. Many do not survive, but with mass emergence, many will reach maturity to start the next generation.
Acanthocephala terminalis
Acanthocephala terminalis on milkweed
Insects live in a world of motion. This leaf-footed bug climbs wind blown grass and flies off.
Two leaf-footed bugs interact.
A female leaf-footed bug , family Coreidae and tribe Acanthocephalini , deposits an egg before flying off.
squash bugs
squash bugs including a Sphecidae wasp investigating them and a feather-legged tachinid fly quickly depositing another egg on one of them.
A Sphecidae wasp, probably Sceliphron caementarium , investigates two squash bugs , but doesn’t attempt capture to provision its nest.
squash bug with Tachinid fly eggs attached and a feather-legged tachinid fly quickly depositing another egg on it.
Mating pair of squash bugs .
Ants collecting honeydew from Calico scales (Eulecanium cerasorum then played at 30 times speed to show the pumping action of the scale.
Oncopeltus fasciatus , The large milkweed bug in the family Oncopeltus
Large milkweed bug flying , repeated at one fifteenth speed.
Large milkweed bug molting from third to fourth instar. Scenes of the molting followed by the entire molt at fifteen times speed. Last is superposition before to just after molt showing the increased size already.
Early instar large milkweed bugs on milkweed late in the season.
Late instar and adult large milkweed bugs on milkweed late in the season.
A brown marmorated stink bug uses its stylet to pierce a sweet corn stock, inject enzymes and suck in partially digested sap.
genus Podisus Spined soldier bug eggs and then the recently hatched first instar bugs
Helmeted squash bug late instar nymph.
Family Gerridae Water Striders
Water striders
Butterfly Life Cycle in Video (Pieris rapae , the common cabbage white)
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Cabbage white emerging from egg and starting to eat broccoli leaf.
Second instar larvae eating. Speeded up 50 times to illustrate feeding behavior. Nearly transparent body shows internal digestion.
Second instar larvae sheds skin in under 20 minutes.
Cabbage white larvae eating remainder of a
broccoli leaf. Six hours speeded up one hundred times.
Segments of the last two hours of the
Cabbage white larvae shedding its 4th instar skin. It started a few hours earlier. The integument has already pulled away from its head capsule as this video starts.
Fifth instar
white cabbage larvae walking on broccoli stem and on glass, showing it laying down silk it then walks on.
Parasitized white cabbage larvae showing wasp larvae exiting its body, spinning cocoons. Playback at double speed. Adult wasps at normal speed.
White cabbage larvae shedding skin, becoming a chrysalis. Recorded over fifteen hours. Closeups at two times speed. Other clips at ten times speed.
Cabbage white emerging from chrysalis into an adult.
White cabbage butterflies flying. Later clips in slow motion.
Male cabbage white (
Pieris rapae ) butterflies
mud-puddling
White Cabbage Butterflies depositing eggs under broccoli leaves. Each repeated in slow motion.
Hemaris diffinis the snowberry clearwing
Hemaris diffinis is a excellent bumblebee mimic.
Family Pterophoridae Subfamily Pterophorinae Geina buscki Bucks Plume
Bucks Plume avoids a crab spider
Family Nymphalidae
Monarch Butterfly Danaus plexippus
Adult Monarch butterflies Flying and sipping nectar
Monarch caterpillars eating milkweed leaves
1) Fourth-instar Monarch larvae killed and being consumed by a stink (shield) bug. 2) Mature fifth_instar larvae jerks to dislodge a large milkweed bug (a herbivore). 3) Fourth-instar arvae killed by insect parasitoids, non-insect parasites or a pathogen.
Geometridae Inchworms
Locomotion of a looper
Synchlora aerata Wavy-lined emerald moth
The camouflage not only hides it visually but masks it from the chemical sensors on this crab spider's front legs.
Wavy-lined emerald moth is an inchworm. It defensively bumps insects that get too close to it.
The milkweed tiger moth larvae (23 mm long) consuming common milkweed .
Noctuidae owlet moths
Cucullia asteroides Asteroid Caterpillar
Asteroid larvae on goldenrod
Cross-striped cabbageworm larvae on the underside of a broccoli leaf. Larvae spinning silk readying to pupate. Lump of tan silk is cocoons of numerous parasitic wasps that parasitized that larvae. Later they emerge as adults.
Zebra Longwings nectering
Skipper nectaring
Black swallowtail nectaring
Spilosoma virginica Yellow Bear
Yellow bear on milkweed .
Pyrrharctia isabella Wooly Bear
Pyrrharctia isabella Wooly Bear.
European corn borer (Ostrinia nubilalis ) nectaring .
A buckeye butterfly flitting from bloom to bloom nectaring .
Orthoptera (Grasshoppers, crickets and katydids)
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Oecanthus nigricornis the Black-horned tree cricket
Black-horned tree cricket bats away a hover bee (could have been a parasite or predator) with its antenna (replayed in slow speed). Later a cricket sings.
Gryllus Field Cricket
This female field cricket was seen in Ohio in September.
Odonata (dragonflies and damselflies)
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Zygoptera Damselflies
Western forktail damselfly attempting on-the-fly catches. Each repeated in slow motion. The second prey landed, escaping capture. Finally closeup devouring medium sized fly.
Western forktail damselflies interacting.
Common blue damselfly , genus Enallagma , family Coenagrionidae
Anisoptera Dragonflies
Dragonfly returns to same perch each time it darts out to catch very small flying prey.
Dragonflies over a pond (including female inserting eggs below the water surface.
Camouflage and Motion camouflage
Preying mantises exhibiting motion camouflage
A female Chinese mantis (Tenodera sinensis ) catches and consumes a smaller immature preying mantis.
Praying mantis nymphs emerging from their ootheca.
Preying mantises exhibiting motion camouflage
Praying mantis (Tenodera sinensis) catches and eats an adult grasshopper