Tonight’s insect challenge is a tight crop:
What is it?
Points will be awarded to the first commentators to pick the structure (5 pts) and the genus (5 pts).
The cumulative points winner for the month of November will win their choice of 1) an 8×10-sized print from my photo galleries, or 2) a guest post here on Myrmecos.
Good luck!
Hmmm — tympanal organ, spiracle, or one above the other? Looks like an orthop of some kind. If it were a katydid, the tympanal organ would be on the leg, so it’s not that …
I want to say this is the skin to a caterpillar as it is being shed off.
Is it inside out?
I’m going to say the fat bodies of a tobacco horn worm as seen through the integument (genus Manduca)? Crazy challenge this week!
Ok, so I’m gonna also say that’s a spiracle in the low centre…
You can only guess once!
NS
Spiracle of a pupa?
jesus dude, these are usually hard, but this is weird hard. I thought that was an eye first glance, then a spiricle, but, um…all i can say is that the structural detail of whatever it is is amazing, I love all the brainy wrinkles. I’m calling Cthulu emerging from the depths. If I’m right we’re screwed.
This reminds me of “Boys’ Life” which i used to read during my um…boy’s life. they always had a super weird closeup. i will never forget what velcro looks like at like 74,892x.
I don’t think it’s a spiracle, but rather a gland opening – perhaps the scent gland of a stink bug (green and in a northern clime would likely be Acrosternum). Confidence level low.
All those veins look like a mantis wing or part of a katydid, but the sutures are just bizarre. Some kind of horrible gall?
It is clearly from the genus ‘Panthera,’ but I’m not sure what you mean by structure. The homeostatic cluster property that makes up pantheras, and Felidae more broadly, has a lot to do with the glandular elements, so I think I’ll guess that.
Cheers,
NS
Definitely not a katydid wing. Looks like a butterfly pupa, a nymphalid, if I were to guess.
I’ve been chewing on this one all morning…I agree with whoever first said it’s a pupa, but I think it’s something in the Papilionidae…Battus something?
Maybe?
B. philenor?
I see it now – definitely a lep pupa (and I agree that it is probably Battus), and the mystery structure in the middle is the future compound eye of the butterfly.
Chrysalis of Battus philenor, head and upper thorax, with eye, left antenna, and left front leg: http://myrmecos.net/insects/Battus4.html
Hmm. Tough one to award points on since there are at least two structures (and possibly also an antenna) visible. Great challenge though.
Since I’m an argumentative person, I’ll disagree with JasonC and also retract my eye and antenna: the only structure visible is the spiracle opening and the pupal cuticle if that count.
Heheh! — I thought this was something wet-skinned like a nudibranch, but the Battus contingent seems to be on to something.
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