Now, how many of you would think twice looking at this tree? See anything here?







What about in the crack of the trunk...?







Because if you had looked reaalllly carefully at the tree, and in the tree, you would have seen this baby rat snake





Heh-heh ... enjoy!




Jack

Eastern Fence Lizard

Nestled into a dead palm tree ...




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Sadly, the Carolia Wren's camoflage didn't work ... she was killed and all her eggs eaten by (I guess) a rat snake ... as there are a lot of them around.




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Here is a shot I took of a Grizzled Mantid (Gonatista grisea) I caught last night. They have evolved to look like the lichen on tree trunks and sticks ...




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Excellent examples demonstrating Darwin's theory of 'survival of the fittest' (fittest in the sense of best adapted to the environment).

However, I get a sense there's quite a bit of noise in some of these shots. Did you not use a tripod? The ratsnake looks pretty stationary. You probably could have bracketed shots for greater DR and less noise with that one.

Just a suggestion .

The "noise" in the mantid photo was actually the plastic of the container I was keeping him in.

I caught him at night, and the next day I tried to set him up on a treetrunk for a photo ... but he is a fast lil bugger and I barely caught him again.

So I "cheated" a bit and put him on a lichen-rich stick in his plastic container in order to get the photo ... so that's why it has kindofa lousy backdrop. But even though the shot would never make it to a magazine, I still find the camo interesting.

Maybe I will try an old bug-photographer's trick and stick him in the refrigerator to "slow him down," so that I can place him on a nice setting to where I will have a few minutes to really get a nice shot of him, before he becomes "fast" again

Jack




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