A tumbling flower beetle (Mordellidae) feeds on the anther of a white rhododendron flower. And yes, I do believe that is pollen poop.

It’s snow week here at BugPhoto.net, but I guess if you’ve been following along, you’ve noticed “snow white” doesn’t exactly describe each photo accurately. The anthers and filaments add pink hues in certain cases, e.g. the tumbling flower beetle shots in this post, but there’s also a certain muted tone I’ve settled on for the white petals. It’s tempting to blow out the backgrounds, whiten everything up, by jacking up the contrast, but detail loss and distracting, over-emphasized reflections and glare made it too prohibitive. (Another shot after the break.)The photo below has a certain dullness to the background, but I was more concerned with emphasizing the white rings around the openings of the anthers (which also happen to be where the sharp focus is). I’m not particularly please with this one; t probably could have done better to make some selective contrast adjustments.

A tumbling flower beetle (Mordellidae) peeks out from in between the anthers of a white rhododendron flower.

(P.s. Can’t remember if this is the same individual beetle; I don’t think so but not sure.)