{"id":264114,"date":"2024-11-08T13:02:08","date_gmt":"2024-11-08T13:02:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/2024\/11\/08\/see-nature-in-close-up-in-these-stunning-photographs\/"},"modified":"2025-06-25T17:10:34","modified_gmt":"2025-06-25T17:10:34","slug":"see-nature-in-close-up-in-these-stunning-photographs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/2024\/11\/08\/see-nature-in-close-up-in-these-stunning-photographs\/","title":{"rendered":"See nature in close-up in these stunning photographs"},"content":{"rendered":"

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A spiny toad amplexus, with a female in the middle of several males.<\/p>\n

Aloys Pichard<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

Each year, hordes of spiny toads (Bufo spinosus<\/i>) gather to breed and lay their eggs in freshwater lakes and ponds, mainly across Spain, Portugal and France. Mating is a rough and tumble affair, though, with males often outnumbering females by 5:1. In their desperation to find a mate, males will commonly clasp onto a female already locked into an embrace \u2013 known as amplexus \u2013 by another mate.<\/p>\n

Aloys Pichard captured one of these \u201cbreeding balls\u201d in May (main picture), when the toads were crossing a road at night in southern France to reach egg-laying grounds. His photo, along with the others shown here, was shortlisted in this year\u2019s Close-up Photographer of the Year<\/a> contest.<\/p>\n

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Gold\u2011tailed Melitta bees<\/p>\n

Joris Vegter<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

Joris Vegter\u2019s image of four gold-tailed Melitta<\/i> bees (Melitta haemorrhoidalis<\/i>) nestling in a flower head is shown above. Melitta<\/i> bees often sleep together inside bell flowers overnight for warmth. Vegter says he looked in more than 1000 flowers around Groningen in the Netherlands until he found the snoozing bees. \u201cMy passion is to share the unseen beauty of the tiny world all around us,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

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A male Polyphemus moth<\/p>\n

Ignacio Castellanos<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

Pictured above is Ignacio Castellanos\u2019s image of a male Polyphemus moth (Antheraea polyphemus<\/i>) in an oak forest in Huasca, Mexico. These moths measure more than 15 centimetres from wing tip to wing tip.<\/p>\n

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\"-Pot-bellied<\/div>
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Potbellied seahorse<\/p>\n

Daniel Sly<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

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Daniel Sly\u2019s shot of a potbellied seahorse (Hippocampus abdominalis<\/i>) near Bare Island, Australia, is shown above, with Aris Kolokontes\u2019s close-up of a ladybird spider<\/a> (Eresus walckenaeri<\/i>) pictured below.<\/p>\n

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\"Stacked<\/div>
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Ladybird spider<\/p>\n

Aris Kolokontes<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

The competition winners will be announced in January.<\/p>\n

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Topics:<\/p>\n<\/section><\/div>\n

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[ad_1] A spiny toad amplexus, with a female in the middle of several males. Aloys Pichard Each year, hordes of spiny toads (Bufo spinosus) gather<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":264115,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[177],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264114"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=264114"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264114\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/264115"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=264114"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=264114"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=264114"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}