Long-Horned Beetle

Posted: July 27, 2009 
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I took this shot using my Sigma 70-300mm apochromatic zoom lens at full zoom and my Nikon 6T close-up lens from a foot and a half away, using a shutter speed of 1/60 and an aperture of f/5.6 on Kodak Elitechrome 100 ISO slide film.  For local photographers, this great film can be purchased at GINN photography, with developing including, for $12.99.  The developing is done within just a few days, and the service is fantastic, not to mention the price is unbeatable in the Ottawa area.

Insects are very tricky to photograph in the wild: tripods are necessary in order to utilize the correct shutter speed, yet the odd placing of most bugs prevents the use of such.  Thus, one must adapt their hands to using slow shutter speeds and maintaining a very still lens, as at 1/60 at full zoom on a 300mm lens, even a slightly tremulous breathing pattern combined with a somewhat accelerated heart-rate from the excitement of the moment can prevent one from getting a clear enough photograph.  It is important to study the way your camera shakes as you breathe and to find the point during a rhythmic breathing pattern wherein there is minimal camera shake.  Anticipate this moment, which is usually just after the apex of inhalation, and shoot accordingly, keeping the camera tight to your face and, whenever possible, bracing your elbows against your body, be it on your knees, the ground, or even just keeping them close into your chest or hips.  Keeping your heart rate calm will help to minimize additional shake caused by the blood pulsing through the veins in your hands.  When you get your photographs back, or see them on the LCD screen of your digital camera, do not just dispose of them immediately because they lack clarity.  These mistakes are not enemies, for Buddhists teach that your enemy is your greatest teacher, because it is they who teach you true patience, understanding and compassion.  These shots which are not as you wanted them to be are your teachers for the kinds of small things you can take into conscious awareness in the future, and by doing so will help prevent their recurrence.  Study bad photographs; learn from them, and from doing this you will evolve both stylistically and technically.  On a good shoot, a nature photographer can only really expect about 10% of his shots to be useable, which on a roll of 36 is only about 3-4 photographs.  The rest are bracketed shots that did not turn out well enough, but whose existence ensured that at least one of them would turn out well; but, even getting just one is a treasure in itself and is the trophy of a successful outing.

This wide-striped beetle belongs to the family of beetles called the Cerambycidae, or Long-Horned Beetles, named so after the size of their antennae, which can stretch beyond their own body length.  There are more than one thousand species of beetles within this family, thus I have not been able to narrow this particular one down to genus and species.  However, I have dug up some information on these beetles as a family, and of beetles in general.

The Long-Horned beetles of Canada are a common find for cottagers, people with dark cellars, or plenty of wooden lawn furniture, as the female carves a hole in the wood of a tree, or any other available piece of wood, using her mandible.  A mandible is an appendage, near the mouth, that acts like a jaw (wikipedia).  This appendage is especially elongated in ground beetles such as those in the family Cerambycidae, as they are used to pierce through tough surfaces, like the bark of wood.  Males, however, will also use their mandibles to wrestle each other when competing for mates.  These beetles are quite long lived for insects, lasting from 1 to 4 years.  They remain a larva over the winter, and pupate in a chamber of wood carved out by the female.  To know if these beetles are infesting your basement, look for audacious piles of sawdust, and loud chewing noises, as the Long-Horned beetles tend to make a deal of audible and visual mess.  These insects do have wings, but use them only on occasion, and are generally quite slow moving.  Aside from wood, they feed on foliage, pollen, and fungi.

Adult beetles, and other insects, are comprised of three body parts: a head, a thorax, and an abdomen.  However, insects have theoretically evolved from a common ancestor whose body was comprised of eleven body parts.  As with human evolution, this early stage in their development can still be seen in their young.  A human fetus, at first, develops gills before it develops lungs, and in essence develops through the various precursor evolutionary forms until becoming a human infant, which then still has to change through the stages of brain development, specifically of the frontal lobe.  Concurrently, beetle larvae are typically born with eleven body segments that will, through its development, fuse into three, joined together by “bands or folds of pliable skin which allows one segmental ring to telescope over the one behind it” (Ralph Swain, The Insect Guide, pp. 14).