Alien or Bug?

[Swampy]

Anyone know what this is? I found this on my car this evening. Lit it up with a flashlight and took this pic. It's about 4mm long, kinda small. The color speckles all around are from the paint of my car.

[Wichita Wayne]

I's got to be animal, vegtable, or bug. And I vote for bug.

[Swampy]

I know it's a bug. :) I feel like an idiot though. Guess I should break out my 60mm more often and play with all the buttons on it. Yeah, both of them. The auto/manual focus I know. I forgot that I had set the Limit/Full switch to Limit a few weeks ago when I took the above picture. I kept telling myself the whole time earlier... "I wish I bought the 105mm Micro so I could get closer". By the time I figured out my goof, it was dark. I recruited my wife to handle the lighting (5 D Cell Mag light) and went back out there. Hmm. It was actually still there! But, I couldn't get a manual focus dialed in for some reason, nor could I get a good balance to play with exposure (Yeah, I know, if I shot RAW, I could have played with it ALOT more...Leave me alone! :D ). I was balanced over the center of my hood with my trusty Bogen tripod with the extension tube mounted sideways to get the camera over the car. Well, needless to say, I got an ok shot, but it was still an interesting bug. It's eyes turned Red after the sun went down!

[Europa_714]

We don't have anything like this out in Michigan, looks like part frog, part lobster, part Q-Tip. Maybe you can train it to spin it's arse around on your hood and get a good wax job out of the deal. Cool picture!

[Swampy]

That would be nice. But, it'd take too long considering this thing was maybe 3/16" to 1/4 inch long. :)

Melvindale, eh? I just got back from Coldwater, MI, about 40 minutes south of Battlecreek. :)

[Europa_714]

Coldwater, you were rite near both Tony the Tiger, and Ted Nugent... of course maybe Tony got 'wacked' by Ted by now, who knows. Hope you enjoyed yourself (and others) while in Michigan... I'm sure you were able to soak in some of our Great Lakes humidity.

[Swampy]

Some semi famous race car driver lived down the street from my aunt and uncle's place too, but he died in an accident at Indy I think it was, about 10 years ago.

Humidity? Nah, it was actually gorgeous out there when we were there. Only one semi-humid day while we were there, the other days were real dry for out there. In fact, the strange part was when I came home and got outside our airport, it was much more humid here than it ever was there. But I know what you mean, it can get bad there.

[SwitchBL8]

According to this guys captions, the insect you found is a Leafhopper.

See:

http://www.pbase.com/image/19626958

and

http://www.pbase.com/image/19681037

I came accross these, while looking for some macro-stuff.

Cheers!
Reginald

[Swampy]

Thanks Reginald! Apparently there are over 20,000 species of these little bugs and this one (and the two in the other pics you posted) are in the "larva" stage still.

[sandman]

Well thats re-assuring knowing that thing on your car going to turn into some sort of bigger bug, any time now........... time for Jaws music...........be afraid ...............be very afraid.


or maybe move home...quick