Pollinator Portraits from the Prairie Pollinator Project
The Prairie Pollinator Project has accumulated several thousand specimens, affixed with tiny labels in hundreds of boxes. These encompass the fantastic diversity to be discovered in the small space of a Pacific Northwest prairie. Some of this is evident at a glance, bees that are iridescent green (Ceratina), brick-red (Nomada), hairy in the extreme (Anthophora), and enormous (Bombus). The next level is harder. Typical sweat bees (Halictidae) are brown and black with hairy white stripes. Among these are several dozen species distinguished by the details - the distribution of tiny pits, or the precise shape of the "carina of the posterior propodeum." Another problematic group, the mason bees (Osmia), have a generally consistent appearance but comprise perhaps 75 species in Oregon.
Images in this gallery are from our specimen collection, representing pollinators at 14 sites in the Pacific Northwest. We've photographed them for own use, as vouchers, and to help in identifications by others frustrated, as we have been, by the lack of exemplars for comparison of samples. We also shoot them because they are beautiful, and worthy of close scrutiny.
These images are part of a larger collection, with accompanying data (location, date, scale, identification), on the citizen science site iNaturalist.
Technical: all images were made with a Canon 65mm lens and ring flash. The most recent are focus-stacked, i.e., composited from a series of 30 images made while moving the focal point in small increments.
Images in this gallery are from our specimen collection, representing pollinators at 14 sites in the Pacific Northwest. We've photographed them for own use, as vouchers, and to help in identifications by others frustrated, as we have been, by the lack of exemplars for comparison of samples. We also shoot them because they are beautiful, and worthy of close scrutiny.
These images are part of a larger collection, with accompanying data (location, date, scale, identification), on the citizen science site iNaturalist.
Technical: all images were made with a Canon 65mm lens and ring flash. The most recent are focus-stacked, i.e., composited from a series of 30 images made while moving the focal point in small increments.