Such a strong blue is a rare colour to be found in butterflies which makes the Blue Morpho an excellent find. This vibrant blue is very visible to their predators and so they rarely rest with their wings open to display these alluring colours.

I'm certainly not a marine biologist, but am informed that this is a 'Dactylometra Quinquecirrha' type jellyfish, so I'll take their word for it. Their tentacles are covered with stinging cells that attach themselves to anything that touches them and injects a venom into it's prey. Fortunately I didn't get the opportunity to experience this in action even though I'm told it's not fatal. My biggest problem capturing this image is that there is absolutely nothing stable to attach a camera to underwater. Tripods are useless, I'm moving, the camera is moving, the sea creatures are moving, all at different rhythms (guess I didn't need to bring the cable release). All in all, this was probably the most serene and beautiful creature I've ever witnessed; it's pulsating motions and delicate nature were extremely enjoyable.

sun setting above the clouds near hawaii

Sunlight reflecting from the pond's surface, was shining up through a lily pad leaf that had grown to a few inches above the water. I loved the way it illuminated the structure of the leaf and it reminded me of modern fractal art (complex patterns generated by mathematical algorithms).

Indiana wetlands

Along the desert surface, a lengthy crack can be seen. More exploring reveals an entire other world of underground beauty. I have the camera pointed up at about 45° toward these whirls of sandstone carved out by centuries of flash flood waters from rain many miles away.

a super closeup of an ant's head showing a portion of it's face along with half of it's lateral eye. visually, the entire head appeared a stealthy black, but the photography lighting caused the eye to glow a dark red which made for some interesting contrast. each of the micro-lenses on the compound eye, measure 0.00074 inches in diameter (1,350 of them would make inch). another interesting effect is how the translucent hairs acted like lenses and focused our lighting into little hotspots on the scaly surface.

foliage on the tropical island of Guam