EKOMacros

20/05/2026

Happy bee day.

28/07/2025

🕷️GOLDENROD CRAB SPIDER

👉🏻 Here are two photos of a male and female goldenrod crab spider. These spiders are notorious for their camoflage on various flowers. They even mimic the UV light reflections of their surrounding flowers to attract prey - studies show bees fly more frequently to flowers with a goldenrod spider than elsewhere. The crab spider spend 7-10 days changing their moult to become the same color like their background.

One can easily see the sexual dimorphism of the spiders here too. Sexual dimorphism is the systematic difference in sexes within the same species.

🕷️Misumena Vatia
🇳🇴Kameleonedderkoppen
🇬🇧 Goldenros Crab Spider
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ID Corrections Are Welcome!

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© 2025 EKO Macros
All Rights Reserved
Please do not download and distribute without my consent.

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📸Sony A6000
🔬Laowa 90mm
📞Handheld singleshots
🔦 Godox V350
📡 🕷️
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24/07/2025

15/07/2025

🔴Endangered Species Alert🚨‼️

👉🏻 These last days, I’ve been searching for a critically threatened species of mining bee in Norway (Andrena Hattorfiana, and we’ve found it); but this post is about another species entirely. Along the way, I came across this bumblebee-looking hoverfly. I’ve seen many hover flies with great biomimicry, but this one looked very similar to Bombus Hortorum.

This is in fact a hoverfly that is listed as VU; Vulnerable. In 2010 it was even more endangered, but has steadily recovered to vulnerable for the last 8 15 years. The reason the species struggle is largely due to habitat fragmentation. It seems that they are recovering so well, that experts I’ve spoken to think they’re likely to be removed from the redlist in the next evaluation! That’s awesome news!

🪰 Arctophila Bombiformes
🇳🇴Gulstripet Bjørneblomsterflue
🇬🇧No common name
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ID Corrections Are Welcome!

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© 2025 EKO Macros
All Rights Reserved
Please do not download and distribute without my consent.

————————————————————————
📸Sony A6000
🔬Laowa 90mm
📞Handheld singleshots
🔦 Godox V350
📡 🕷️
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08/07/2025

🦋ADMIRAL🦋

👉🏻 One of the most common, but nonetheless beautiful of the butterflies we see during the day. The Admiral is a large species, easily recognizable by their distinctive patterns and colors. The caterpillars depend on a particular host plant, the stinging nettle Urtica dioica, but can still be found on the false nettle Boehmeria Chylindrica.

The adult drinks nectar from plants typically in the Buddleia genus and overripe fruits. The males fend for a territory to impress a mate.

🦋 Vanessa atalanta
🇳🇴Admiralen
🇬🇧 The Red Admiral
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ID Corrections Are Welcome!

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© 2025 EKO Macros
All Rights Reserved
Please do not download and distribute without my consent.

————————————————————————
📸Sony A6000
🔬Laowa 90mm
📞Handheld singleshots
🔦 Godox V350
📡 🕷️
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23/06/2025

This weekend we went out to count pollinators for a Norwegian project titled The Wild Pollinatorcount ( ). I registered quite a few bees and added some species to my preservation collection too.

During the count, I also got some picures of this beauty. This butterfly is a quite elusive one as it tends to fly high in the tree canopies. It gets its name “W” due to the white pattern on the rear side of the wings resembling the letter W. The larvae of this butterfly depends on Elm. In Norway, Elm (Ulmus glabra) is endangered EN. Weirdly enough, the butterfly pictured is only evaluated as Near threatened even though they entirely depend on an endangered plant.

🦋Satyrium w-album
🇳🇴 Almstjertvinge
🇬🇧White-Lettter Hairstreak
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ID Corrections Are Welcome!

http://www.inaturalist.org/observations/290705191

————————————————————————

© 2025 EKO Macros
All Rights Reserved
Please do not download and distribute without my consent.

————————————————————————
📸Sony A6000
🔬Laowa 90mm
📞Handheld singleshots
🔦 Godox V350
📡 🕷️
————————————————————————

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21/06/2025

This is the 24-spotted ladybug. Don’t be fooled by the name though, they do not actually have 24 dots. They are one of the few ladybugs that are herbivores, and sometimes they can be a pest for greenhouse gardeners for this very reason.

There are some variants to how this beetle may appear. In Norway there’s two common variants; one with lighter coloration and two dots and this one pictured that is a darker variant.

🐞 Subcoccinella vigintiquatuorpunctata
🇳🇴24 Prikket Marihøne
🇬🇧24-Dotted Ladybug
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ID Corrections Are Welcome!

http://www.inaturalist.org/observations/290705191

————————————————————————

© 2025 EKO Macros
All Rights Reserved
Please do not download and distribute without my consent.

————————————————————————
📸Sony A6000
🔬Laowa 90mm
📞Handheld singleshots
🔦 Godox V350
📡 🕷️
————————————————————————

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14/05/2025

These here is the very common red forest/wood ant. It’s a widespread species in boreal forests, particularly Northern hemisphere and Europe. They’re recognizable from their red colored bodies and heads and their black/brown abdomens. They resemble other Formica ants both in behaviors and looks, but tend to have either more or less hair than the relevant species.

The workers of the species are capable of spraying Formic acid 🧪 from their abdomen as a defense. The adult ants tend to feed on honeydew from Aphids, and the colonies are made from forest litter. The colonies vary in whether they have one or multiple queens.

🐜 Formica Ruca
🇳🇴Rød Skogsmaur
🇬🇧Wood Ants / Thatch-Mound Ants
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ID Corrections Are Welcome!

————————————————————————

© 2025 EKO Macros
All Rights Reserved
Please do not download and distribute without my consent.

————————————————————————
📸Sony A6000
🔬Laowa 90mm
📞Handheld singleshots
🔦 Godox V350
📡 🕷️
————————————————————————

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12/04/2025

Their colonies harbor a range from a couple of hundred to 2.5 thousand workers and up to 20 queens! It is a very abundant species in woodlands above 1000 m above sea levels. There is another species of ants (M. Rubra) which is very similar, but cannot live at such high altitudes. There are also some tiny other differences, like the shape of their antenna.

🐜 Myrmica ruginodis
🇳🇴Skogeitermaur
🇬🇧Woodland Red Ant
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ID Corrections Are Welcome!

————————————————————————

© 2025 EKO Macros
All Rights Reserved
Please do not download and distribute without my consent.

————————————————————————
📸Sony A6000
🔬Laowa 90mm
📞Handheld singleshots
🔦 Godox V350
📡 🕷️
————————————————————————

http://www.inaturalist.org/observations/234672541

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