INSECTS LIKE YOU’VE NEVER SEEN BEFORE
This article is an adaptation of our weekly Photography newsletter that was originally sent out on March 19, 2021. Want this in your inbox? Subscribe here.
By Whitney Johnson, Director of Visual and Immersive Experiences
The food was putrid. The entomologists stocked up.
It wasn’t for them, but for the flying creatures they—and Nat Geo photographer Craig Cutler—hoped to attract high up in the canopy of the Amazon. Using trap cameras on a 131-foot tower in Brazil (pictured below left), the scientists, including Nat Geo Explorer Stephen Marshall, found hundreds of new species.
For readers of April’s issue of National Geographic, that means we get to see flying insects like we’ve never seen before.
Pictured above is an iridescent orchid bee, a tropical cousin of the bumblebee and honeybee. Read on to see, very close up, the beauty of a chalcidid wasp, a jewel beetle, and a weevil.
Changing it up: Instead of studying life on the ground, these entomologists looked at insects along different levels of the research tower, at left. Above right, Brian Brown prepares to suck a phorid fly into a tube to study. He has spritzed leaves with diluted honey to attract the flies—and the bees they attack. “How many people,” he asks, “would voluntarily sweat in the forest surrounded by bees and wasps?“
Teensy: Usually smaller than a grain of rice, chalcidid wasps inject their eggs into other insects, which die after the eggs hatch and the new larvae start to feed on their hosts. The fuzzy-jointed antennae on the wasps’ faces help them hunt victims.
Hard to catch: Jewel beetles have massive eyes. Their watchfulness means they can flee from predators quickly, so they’re difficult for researchers to collect.
That’s a schnoz: Known for its elongated snout, the weevil belongs to one of the largest groups of insects. This weevil’s iridescent neck, created by the flattening of hairlike structures, probably serves to attract mates or confuse predators.
In reaching out to Nat Geo photographer Cutler in 2019, Brown acknowledged that flies might not be the glamour creatures that people expect, “but that is largely due to our inability to portray them effectively." In this story, at least, they’re portrayed very effectively.
But glamorous? Well, you tell me.
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THE BIG TAKEAWAY
Light like halos in her eyes: This 1967 image of Aretha Franklin by Art Kane looks ethereal, using natural light and an upward gaze to capture the gospel star on the brink of mass stardom. Franklin, the subject of a new Nat Geo Channel series, has a genius for taking songs deeper—sometimes deeper than the songwriters had intended. “She understood the essence of both language and melody and was able to take it to a place very few—if any—could,” music mogul and longtime Franklin friend Clive Davis tells DeNeen L. Brown in this profile in the April issue of National Geographic. (By the way, Kane, the late photographer, also had captured a Who’s Who of Jazz in his classic 1958 image, “A Great Day in Harlem.” See it.)
Tune in: Cynthia Erivo portrays the Queen of Soul in an eight-part television series Genius: Aretha, which premieres at 9 p.m. ET Sunday on Nat Geo. It’s available on Hulu the next day. Here’s a trailer.
TODAY IN A MINUTE
This just in: Got vaccinated? Got a sore arm? Don’t worry, it’s normal. Emily Sohn writes today on why so many people are reporting sore arms. An innate immune response produces an immediate reaction; an adaptive immune response comes later. The story notes that no reaction is normal as well, and that temporary pain, of course, beats the alternative.
Photo ‘preservation’? An iconic image from the Spanish Civil War by Robert Capa has, more than seven decades later, helped residents of a Madrid apartment building find a new life. Spain has decided to preserve the building, which was immortalized by Capa after it was bombed by Hitler’s warplanes. The Guardian reports that the government will find new homes for current tenants. See the photo.
Award season: Nat Geo won a host of National Press Photographers Association awards, including a team prize for Magazine Picture Editor of the Year. First-place prize-winners included senior immersive producer Kaitlyn Mullin and photo editors Kurt Mutchler and James Wellford. Editors Jennifer Samuel, Mallory Benedict, and Todd James also were among the award winners. See the full list here.
Another gaze: One photographer has produced a visual narrative of Tribal sovereignties in the United States, hoping to “change the way we see Native America.” Another seeks to foster creativity and build self-esteem for children to express, protect, and expand their vision of who they are. A third has been following a project that teaches young women in ultraconservative Zanzibar to swim. The three photographers—Matika Wilbur, Karen Zusman, and Anna Boyiazis—won Leica’s Women Foto Project Award, the photography site Fstoppers reports.
INSTAGRAM OF THE DAY
Deep breath: Female divers known as haenyeo are celebrated throughout South Korea and have been designated on a UNESCO cultural heritage list. Pictured above is Jeong Ok-seon, 80, still an active diver for abalone and clams and also an instructor. Many of the divers can hold their breath for two minutes as they hunt underwater. Most these days are older, says photographer Jun Michael Park. “Some of them can no longer walk without a cane or walker on land, but once they put on a wet suit and dive into the sea, they are magically rendered free and full of life.”
Snapshot: A day on the island of the haenyeo
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THE LAST GLIMPSE
Wiping the eyes: Photographer Karen Kasmauski focuses on the humanistic side of science, industry, and social developments, says Sara Manco, senior photo archivist of the National Geographic Society. This image was taken in Japan on assignment for a 2002 feature on Mount Fuji, but didn’t run, Manco says. “A similar image ran on the opening spread that did not feature the person cleaning the statue, but I think it adds to the scale and makes the image more much more interesting.” Kasmauski, who photographed for National Geographic magazine for 20 years, now teaches at the Corcoran School of the Arts & Design in Washington, D.C.
This newsletter has been curated and edited by David Beard, and Jen Tse selected the photographs. Monica Williams and Gretchen Ortega helped produce this, and Amanda Williams-Bryant, Rita Spinks, Alec Egamov, and Jeremy Brandt-Vorel also contributed this week. Have an idea or a link? We’d love to hear from you at david.beard@natgeo.com. Thanks for reading, and have a good weekend!
