Friday, November 4, 2011

White Tortoise Beetle - Silana farinosa

I have moved to http://keicmacro.blogspot.com/

The picture below is the pupa of the white tortoise beetle, a genus originally restricted to Sri Lanka feeding on curry leaves, and probably on other citrus family. It was first noticed in Malaysia in 1994 by a Malaysian entomologist, Prof. Mohamed Salleh Mohamed Said. This species of beetle is believed to have been introduced into the country via air transportation. They are pests that can destroy these plants if left uncontrolled.

The white tortoise beetle pupa in this post is found at my home curry leaf plant in Malaysia.


This image can also be found at my flickr page: http://www.flickr.com/photos/anthonywg/6305361548/sizes/l/in/photostream/

Scientific Classification:
Order: Coleoptera
Family:Chrysomelidae
Subfamily: Hispinae
Tribe: Cassidini
Genus: Silana
Type species: S. farinosa

Photography Tips:

Sharp picture requires a photography technique called focus stacking. Since the depth-of-field (DOF) in macro photography is quite narrow, a series of pictures are taken at various focal lengths. You can do it either with the help of a tripod and focusing rail, or hand held the camera with a steady hand and turn the focusing ring.

As you focus the specimen from the front to the back, take a series of shots making sure the focused area on all shots cover the entire specimen. Do not worry if your hand move a little to the sides, as long as it is not too much, they can be aligned and stacked using free image stacking software such as CombineZP by Alan Hadley.

The above image was stacked using the following 6 images:


Thanks for visiting!

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