I found this pair of northern flatid planthoppers - at least I’m pretty sure that’s what they are - while walking the dogs today. There are about 10,000 species of birds in the world spread across twenty-three orders (remember your junior high biology: Kingdom → Phylum → Class → Order → Family → Genus → Species). Planthoppers like this one are in the order Hemiptera, the “true bugs,” along with cicadas, aphids, and stink bugs. There are somewhere between 50,000 and 80,000 species just in this one order of insects! Insects account for at least 80% of all animal species on Earth. There are over 900,000 known species of insects, but it is estimated that at least that many remain unknown. Conservatively there are probably at least 2 million. We share the planet with A LOT of bugs!
Northern Flatid Planthopper (Flatormenis proxima) | Louisville, Kentucky
50mm reversed with 48mm extension tubes | 1/800th second | f/5.6 | ISO500
Fun and interesting photography project: I took this shot with a 50mm f/1.8 lens (aka the “nifty fifty”) attached to my camera backwards. So if you have a detachable lens camera, you can grab one of these used for less than $100. Add a $7 reversing ring and some $10 extension tubes and you can do macro photography at 1:1 magnification or more (1:1 means a millimeter of bug takes up a millimeter of space on your camera’s sensor). These bugs are only about 5mm long, and I was able to fill the frame with them.