All insect life (and death) is here

It's not just the pretty-pretty stuff that fascinates - insects are I think the largest class of animal life on earth, and we have about 20,000 species in Britain.  The closer you get, the more amazing they are.  Here are some of what we've managed to photograph in and around Tisbury over the past week or so.

Of Andrew Carter's photo of the hoverfly on hawkweed, Peter Shallcross (our resident insects guru), said there's an interesting way of telling the sexes apart.  'In common with many other species of hoverfly, males have the eyes meeting on the top of the head, whilst females have their eyes widely separated. Adults are very similar in appearance to Syrphus vitripennis and Syrphus torvus.'

Of the rather gruesome photo, Peter said, 'Crab spiders are voracious: I watched one overpower an oil beetle larva much larger than itself on Swallowcliffe down in early May.' 

Just great to learn something new.