'What a body!!!'

My kyamera is quite good at snaps of very close-by objects. Stuff like flowers & insects are captured well. So, I have started observing the surroundings more closely. And, soon I was amazed at the number of insects that appeared before me. Hardly knew any of them. This has got me into reading 'bout them. Lets take a quick look at some of the eye-catching flying objects (apart from birds & butterfly's).

We used to call these wonderful flyers 'helicopters'. Apparently, they are called dragonfly's ;-) Snapped at ECC, whitefield, B'lore. Another similar insect is called....hold ur breath...damsel fly ;-))

This damsel sat meditating for quite a long time, right besides a stream, in the western ghats.

Another flying/jumping expert is the grass-hopper. This guy was chopping away the grass blades as I took the snap at IISc. This was in the open spaces behind the lecture-halls.

Insects. Yes, insects 1000's of them inhabit this earth. And, they are characterised by their body segmented into 3 regions.

The head has mouthparts, eyes (always compound ??), and a pair of antennae. This guy simply buzzed around, sat on my head, finally landed on my palms . After 'n' shots, and watching him for quite sometime, he refused to fly away. I had to say 'buzz off ' ;-) This again behind lecture halls IISc - on my palm -

From the middle body - thorax - comes out 3 pairs of legs and one or two pairs of wings. This beetle, Hoskote lake, B'lore, sat on some cacti, was quite big, after lotz of snaps, he got irritated, and took off in style. He roared like a bullet, and flew like a helicopter ;-)) The tip of the beetle, not covered in this snap is orange.

Coming down further( going up in the above picture), you have the abdomen, that houses the digestive, excretory & reproductory parts of the body. This lovely dragon fly, again behind lecture halls IISc -a treasure trove -

Insects 1000's of species, need to get to know at least some of them. Actually over 8 lakh species have been listed - that covers 3/4th of animal life - I still recall the shock & surprise, on encountering a stick insect for the first time. This was in our research room, CSA, IISc days. And, of-late I have been watching out for mating dragon flys. They do a 'wheely' and fly along!!! Haven't got a good shot yet. There are lots & lots of fascinating insects, most of them very tiny, less than 6 mm, beyond my Kyamera eyes.