Anthomyiid Fly

From back in 2010: a female Anthomyiid fly, probably Hylemya vagans (Diptera: Anthomyiidae).

Photos taken in Whiteknights Park, Reading, UK, on 2010-09-19.

Flesh Fly

From last summer: a Sarcophaga sp (Diptera: Sarcophagidae).  Rather like a small black Tachinid fly but with red eyes.

Photos taken in Whiteknights Park, Reading, UK, on 2012-06-17.

Soldier Beetles

A pair of Rhagonycha fulva (Coleoptera: Cantharidae) mating. 

In this species the males have distinctly larger eyes than the females, presumably this has evolved because the males search out the females by sight.  It is common amongst the flies for males to have larger eyes than females but this is the first time I have noticed this in beetles.

Photo taken in Whiteknights Park, Reading, UK, on 2012-07-17.

Slime Mould

Fruiting bodies of the slime mould Lycogala epidendrum.  These  fruiting bodies are know as aethalia and are much larger than the smaller sporangia of most other slime moulds.

The older aethalia are brown.

The spores are spherical and are about 6um in diameter (this x600 image is about 86um in width).  This is consistent with the 6 - 8um given for Lycogala epidendrum by Stephenson and Stempen (Myxomycetes: A Handbook of Slime Molds, 1994, page 136).  You can also see some of the tubular pseudocapillitium in the background.

First 2 photos taken in the Wilderness, Whiteknights Park, Reading, UK, on 2012-05-06.

Cocoon

The white fuzzy thing on the left is, I think, the cocoon of an ichneumon wasp (Hymenoptera: Ichneumonidae).  The long spotty thing on the right is the husk of the moth (or sawfly) caterpillar that the ichneumnon larva developed in.  I am not sure what the transparent globular object is.

Here is another photo (by Linden Gledhill on Flickr) that shows an ichneumon cocoon beside the remains of its host.

Photo taken in Whiteknights Park, Reading, UK, on 2010-06-06.