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Jithesh Pai's Image
Jithesh Pai (India) discovers three tiger beetle larvae waiting in ambush.
Jithesh was watching the mossy wall in his family’s garden.
He’d seen an adult female tiger beetle push its eggs into the loose soil between the bricks. So he started monitoring the wall.
Within days, tiny, armoured larval heads began to appear in the holes.
To ensure every detail was sharp, Jithesh used a technique called focus stacking.
Tiger beetle larvae have large eyes alert to the slightest movement and open wide, needle-sharp mandibles.
They lurk in their burrows, ready to seize whatever stumbles within lunging distance.
Behind the lens
Jithesh Pai
India
Jithesh is a software engineer by profession and a naturalist at heart. He strives to document as many behaviours as possible across various taxa. He’s particularly fascinated by arachnids and is interested in studying and recording their natural history. As a member of Team Saaliga – a group of nature enthusiasts dedicated to documenting spiders – he’s actively contributed to research, publishing findings in scientific papers.
Image details
- Canon EOS R6 Mark II
- 100mm f2.8 lens
- 1/80 at f4 • ISO 1000 • focus stack of 70 images
- Mangaluru, Karnataka, India
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