Guess what this is?

This week’s Cosmic Photo Challenge prompt is ‘Guess what this is?’

The prompt took me back to the 1980s. In those days BBC Wildlife magazine had a monthly competition for its readers. It was a photo of a mystery species, the first reader to correctly identify the subject won a years subscription to the magazine.

The photo below was used one month, nobody correctly identified the subject.

Anyone interested what the subject is, scroll down under the photo.

Hairy caterpillar

The photo shows clumps of hair on the caterpillar of a Ruby Tiger Moth.

Egg laying.

This is the female egg laying in the early morning.

I checked the nestbox early morning and in the evening. Some evenings there was another egg being laid. At the time I assumed that it was the same female laying twice a day but current research suggests that it was probably a second female laying in the evening. Normal clutch size for the Eurasian Blue Tit is seven or eight eggs but as you will see later, there was a lot more eggs laid in this nest.

Female Blue Tit egg laying

Lines of a fingerprint.

The Daily Post Weekly Photo Challenge is Lines.

The photo shows two overlapping fingerprints in sodium thiosulfate which has crystallized. The crystals were photographed through a microscope using polarized light.

Sodium thiosulfate is used as a photographic fixer in the darkroom as silver halide dissolves in it. Commonly known as Hypo in the days of the black and white darkroom.

A fingerprint in sodium thiosulfate.