Nicky Bay

Nicky Bay Amphidromus sp. moving, illuminated with a modified UV flash. I may write a detailed blog post about this, but here's the gist of it. A few months ago, I rekindled my UVIVF project...

Described the gist of what I did in this post. Haven't gotten down to writing a full post about it yet.

www.facebook.com/nicky/posts/...

Macro Highlights – The Best of 2025 - Macro Photography by Nicky Bay After years of trudging through forests and peering into the hidden lives of tiny creatures, the number of lifers I get should rightfully decline but 2025 proved to be remarkably defiant. This year de...

Please take some time to look through some of the discoveries photographed in 2025. It should interest some invertebrate enthusiasts. yes? yes?

bit.ly/nickybay2025

Albinistic Scorpiops sp. from Laos.

Oh, you're tired after taking care of your one kid for the entire day?

Here you go! I bought the entire series (over 20 books) for about $50, so less than $2 per comic. Getting just one book will be much more expensive.

www.amazon.com/Science-Comi...

I finally got to observe these tiny theridiosomatids that live at the edge of streams, thanks to Yuya Suzuki.

Then my 9-year-old showed me her comic book detailing Wendilgarda's hunting strategies to tell me what a noob I am. 😱😱😱

This is the Sunburst Candy Spider from Thailand. Not AI (sucks to have to declare this). Very real and had been on my wish list for a long time.

The taxonomic placement is unclear, so we are leaving it at Cyrtarachninae.

Otacilia cf. tham
Sinopoda caeca

Blind cave spiders~

This occurs due to the process of regressive evolution. In an environment without light, vision provides no advantage in finding prey or avoiding predators. The loss of their eyes means that energy and resources once used for eyes are instead allocated to other traits.

Meet bob the red velvet mite

Tarantula foot-pad. Who knew they could be so pretty?

Been looking for a fresh specimen of Leucauge sarawakensis for a long time! Each time we found one, someone walked into its web. Hence, the ex situ shots.

Lucanidae Checklist: Stag Beetles - Macro Photography by Nicky Bay Stag Beetles from the family Lucanidae are strikingly charismatic beetles, easily recognised by the males' oversized, antler-like jaws that resemble a stag's horns. These impressive mandibles are used...

A collection of pretty stag beetles that fight with their mandibles. I had one grasping my lens before. They are ridiculously strong!

bit.ly/lucanidae

That's why they are called selfie sticks

Superman wannabe

A little busy with work now so I'm holding off trips for a bit. I'll be hunting for eyeless huntsman spiders towards the end of the year!

Let's do BugShot in the tropics! Did you go to Costa Rica?

On a good day, I should scream more. Either when I find something cool and screaming at everyone else to come over, or screaming nuuuuuuu for not telling me when they find something cool just next to me. 😂

The specific epithet vaginatus is derived from Latin, meaning "sheath". Not too uncommonly used in the naming of animals and plants.

Here are 3 incredibly beautiful mantids that I saw last month.

Toxodera fimbriata
Paratoxodera meggitti
Hymenopus coronatus

All of them are Dundubia vaginata.

No, single shots. They are quite big.

The larvae will go after spider eggs.

Here are 3 beautiful mantidflies that I saw last month!

They are neither mantises nor flies; their larvae are parasitoids of spider eggs, and these adults appear to mimic wasps.

Euclimacia rufocincta
Tuberonotha sp.
Euclimacia sp.

A pair of treehoppers tending to their eggs. The dorsal fin seems to be variable, as we've seen individuals nearby without any dorsal fin at all. Some also have a red longitudinal stripe on their wings.

Pyrgauchenia sp.

Gunung Trusmadi, Sabah, Malaysia

Black-femur Selenocosmia, a mini gorilla.

EM10m4, Laowa 50mm 2:1, dual Raynox, 2.1mm cctv fisheye, lighted with Godox V350 diffused, handheld without looking through the viewfinder nor LCD screen. Working distance about 1cm to its face.

Sure, here are some shots of the male and some with the pair.

Other photos are here if you need more:
www.flickr.com/search/?user...

Thanks! Are there any images online of the little blobs with legs? How do they mate with others after the permanent anchor to the plant?

The primary eyes of spiders are known to exhibit a pigment ring shortly after ecdysis (moulting). During this phase, the lens grows until the pigment ring is no longer visible.

The pigment rings are typically more visible in salticids and deinopids.

This is the mystery spider egg sac covered with a veil of pink silk that was determined to be woven by a Poltys based on several rounds of discussion on iNaturalist and Twitter.

Thanks to @arachnonaut.bsky.social for the lead!

The biology of scale insects is a mystery to me. What's their life cycle like? How do they eat? How do they mate? How do they lay eggs? What do their larvae look like? How do they even move?