John Carlson

@johncarlson.bsky.social

1550 Followers 1209 Following

Allergist/Immunologist, Entomologist/Parasitologist, Pediatric Residency Director at Ochsner in New Orleans. Research, MedEd, Insect macrophotography

A dark black shiny fly with thin yellow stripes on the abdomen is sitting on a white flower
Looking down on the back side of an Aedes aegypti with belly full of blood, otherwise black with white lines splashed about the insect.
A black beetle with reddish color that takes up the anterior half of the elytra is hanging up-side-down on a cluster of whitish pink flowers.
In the foreground are stems rising up from below the frame of the photo, each bearing clusters of bright pink flowers. There is a black and yellow butterfly perched near the top of one, drinking from on of the flowers. In the blurry background you see the Mississippi River, a green forest on the other side and a sky that is blue but with a lot of fluffy clouds.
A bright yellow butterfly is seen in profile sitting on a pale yellow flower. The sun’s angle sets off the texture of the wings with shadows under the veins.
A black beetle with a faint greenish hue is at the edge of a bright green leaf. You can see plant hairs on the bottom of the leaf giving you the sense that this is really zoomed in to a tiny beetle. The beetle is peering over the edge of the leaf.
A brown beetle stands on sand. There are white curly lines on the elytra scribbled in from the lateral margins. When you look closely at the brown parts of the elytra, thorax and head you see red and green iridescent sparkles
A bug with an orange head and body with speckles of white, pink, and maroon, is standing on the edge of a flower petal that is light pink in color. The translucent wings folded over the back of the bug have a hint of orange to them. It is a bit gaudy.
A man with brown boots, khaki pants, tan shirt, and greenish hat is holding an aerial sweep net, standing on a wooden walkway in the woods next to a first with yellow shirt, blue shorts and gray boots. She looks happy.
A group of people are standing in front of a fountain with a statue of a woman at the top, seen above the heads of the people standing in front of it. The oldest of the group is a man to the far left wearing brown boots, green pants, a tan shirt, tan hat, and brown tie. That’s me! The Allergy Fellow in the bottom right hand corner is holding an aerial sweep net. A huge live oak tree is in the background
A wasp with red head and thorax, black abdomen and wings l, and yellow legs is face-down on a green leaf
A screen shot from the iNaturalist app. In the top left is a tiny photo of me with my son. Below that you can see the species number, 20,000 and to the right on the same line it says 3,250 species. You can see the three most recent posts, a metric paper wasp at the top, the a North American spit-throated grasshopper and lastly a sleepy orange butterfly.
A wasp is standing on the backside of a stem with little white flowers on it. The flowers are so little that we can see most of the underside of the wasp. The abdomen is light brown with yellow stripes, the thorax black with yellow legs grasping onto the plants, and most clearly you can see the face of the wasp that is light yellow with shiny brown eyes on each side and antennae curing in front of it.
A photo of a bee hanging down from the bottom of a white flower. It’s very fuzzy with black and yellow fur. Its tongue is probing into the flower. Off to the left of the bee are little white specks floating in the air, seen on the bah round of blurry green vegetation
An insect seen in near-profile. Its abdomen is a reddish brown. Thorax is black and yellow but mostly covered by translucent wings with dark veins folded over the back. The head has large black eyes and a pale yellow face. The black legs are helping to crawl across a background of grass that is green and tan.
A brown butterfly seen in profile on a rough patch of sand. The background of the photo is mostly white, with the bright sun causing the photo to be over exposed.
A cicada is upside down hanging from a braided metal wire. In the blurry background is a parking lot with cars at the bottom of the image, and above that is a blue sky mostly covered in soft clouds that are white and gray
A macro photo looking into the face of a mosquito with dark brown shimmery eyes, head and thorax that are various specked colors from dark brown to white, legs sticking out to either side with similar spatter colors of brown and white. It is sitting on a brown fabric driving its proboscis into the fabric.
A close up photo of a black insect with orange spots seen in profile. Its head with long pointy proboscis is pointed downwards relative to the rest of the body. It is sitting awkwardly on the small top leaves of a plant.
Looking down onto a plant with radiating light green leaves. On two of the leaves there are black bees with bright white abdominal stripes. They are both facing towards the center of the plant.
A photo of a flea under the microscope showing long hairy back legs and smaller middle and front legs. A bullet-shaped head points to the right, with very dark bands of thorax and then abdomen to the left. This is a low quality, somewhat grainy photo
Mostly out-of-focus photo of an arm that has a somewhat reddish swollen part in the middle of the frame. Within the center there is some very mild tearing of the skin from scratching.
A red insect with black legs, black horizontal stripe across the abdomen and black horizontal stripe at anterior abdomen is on sandy ground. The fine, dense hairs make it look very soft, like velvet.
A dead insect curled up. It is red with black markings, slightly out of focus. You can make out the long thin stinger protruding from the tip of the abdomen.
A profile view of a black fly, with yellow bands on the posterior abdomen, orangish wings folded over the back, and eyes that are dark green striped with black lines.
A shiny red beetle with five visible black spots and a black pronotum and head with smaller white spots is sitting on a green leave that as tufts of white fluff on it. Looking closely you can see a small brown aphid being eaten.
A side view of a fluffy caterpillar that is entirely covered with tan hairs flowing from the front to the back of the insect, making it tear-drop shaped
A beetle seen in profile. The background color is creamy white with large brown splotches on the pronotum and darker brown splotches on the elytra. While the pronotum is smooth, the elytra are dotted with small dark pits. About half of the overall color is the light cream of the background and the other half is brown because there are so many splotches and pits.
Looking down into an oval insect that is shaped like the domed shell of a turtle. The front and sides have transparent sections with the middle of the shell is a shiny brown. The shell has a wrinkled texture. At the leading edge you can make out two tiny feet and two long segmented antennae poking out. The insect is standing on a bright green leaf.
A black bee is in the middle of a bright yellow flower. Looking down to the bee you can see yellow pollen stuck to the hairs on the legs such that the margins of each leg looks fuzzy yellow.
A dark brown mosquito is on a slightly hairy leg. This view looks onto the face and thorax of the insect vent to probe its proboscis into my skin. The brown legs fold out from the sides of the thorax with the hind legs lifted into the air behind the insect. Because the thorax and head are bent down, the wings and abdomen are running away from the plane of focus and get blurry in the distance
Profile view of the same robber fly seen in profile, now with legs in clearer focus grasping onto a free stem, and now in focus with the little whitish fly being chewed up by the robber fly
A fly seen in profile, head up and abdomen down with legs projecting to the left, clinging onto a stem. The wings are folded over the back. The eyes are a dark red with hundreds of facets. The mouth has a small insect out of focus being eaten.
Looking down onto a light brown moth that is just off center of a frilly pearled red flower last looking closely the two round eyes of the moth are dark red.
The center of the photo is an area black in shadow while around is bright and over exposed because of harsh sunlight. Within the dark hollow there are two paper wasps visible with bright yellow markings on an otherwise back insect making it stand out within the shadow. Looking closely you can make out the pattern of the brown open comb nest of the wasps, but just barely because the shadowed area is so dark.
A fluffy moth is seen in profile on a white wall, head facing down. The front fluff is orange. In the middle the fluff has a lot of black with some streaks of white on the fluffy wings. The backs of the wings are a fluffy tan.
Looking down onto the back of a gray beetle that has a soft appearance from gray scales that cover it. It has very long antennae, as long as the length of the beetle, curving out from the head in gentle arcs that end up pointing laterally to the right and left of the beetle. The beetle is on a green leaf that makes up the entire background of the photo
An orange caterpillar with rows of black branching spikes from head to posterior is seen in profile, sitting atop a green vine half the width of the caterpillar. Out of focus you can make out leaves that have been chewed up by the caterpillar
A dark brown insect is seen in profile, sitting on a light green plant stem. The only real color variation of the bug is a slightly reddish eye. The shape of the bug is thorn-like, with a cone projected up above the head, but the tip is blunt, not sharp. With the light turned up to catch some of the fine details of the insect you can also see that the plant stem has fine white hairs that give it a soft texture.
Black bee with white fuzzy stripes on the abdomen is perched on the yellow tuft as the center of a flower that has white petals. The oblique view shows the head close up with eyes that are very light green in color. There is a little tongue sticking from the bottom of the head into the middle of the yellow florets
A reddish golden dragonfly is seen in profile, with its little legs grasping onto a dry brown reed. There are several green reeds out of focus behind it and the background is a blurry rippling water that is green and blue reflecting light from the sky and homes on the far bank of the bayou.
A blurry golden dragonfly is sitting on a blurry green leaf at the center of the photo. The blurriness is framed by green leaves that are closer to the photographer and these boring leaves and stems are in focus.
A large black bee is on a bright yellow flower that has a rim or red in the middle. The wings are folded on the back with textured veins making a wrinkled texture to the bee’s back.
A flower has six bright yellow flowers that become read towards the central part has a wasp on it. The wasp is as long as the flower is wide. It is nearly all black with a very skinny long “waist” extending from the thorax that becomes reddish in color before a bulbous black end to the abdomen.
A small fluffy bee is generally brown, but has the dark bands of the abdomen that gives it a striped appearance. Its back two left legs are still touching the frogfruit blossom rimmed with white florets otherwise it appears suspended in the air.
A black bug is face down on a blade of grass. It is all black except for a reddish stripe on the thorax and there is also a hint of the same color on the lateral aspect of the abdomen
A white butterfly with brown markings is standing on a little cluster of flowers that is only as wide as the insect’s thorax. The round black eye is in contrast to the fluffy white of the head.
A brown cricked with long back legs is sitting on leaves of a plant, situated in the bottom left hand corner of the photo. Off of the head you can see a very long thin antenna poured to the top left of the photo. It’s skinny but the light color of the antenna contrasts enough with the dark background that you can see it to the end, perhaps three times as long as the length of the cricket’s body
A brown beetle is hanging head down from a cluster of light green florets. The brown elytra have a few black markings. The pronoun has a big black circle on it with a yellow triangle in the middle. The black head has light yellow markings and two big anted have three finger like projects at their ends.
A close-up view of a dragonfly face. The face oval, mostly white with a line bisecting midway, and a darker area it the top of the face. To the lateral aspect and above the face are huge specked eyes, turquoise with reddish spots on the top, and blue-green with large black spots below.
Looking down onto the back of a brown pear-shaped abdomen that is cross-crossed with white lines. A little brown head is pointing to the right, and two of the long legs on each side are outstretched to wrap around the leaf that it is sitting on. The back legs are too but are less visible because the lead is rapidly tapering to a point that is just behind them end of the abdomen.
A black bee with bright yellow patches on the lateral aspects of each abdominal segment is resting on a bright yellow flower. The head with black eyes that seem to be reflecting a bit of the flower’s yellow is stuffed into the open funnel of the flower. It’s a pretty bee on a pretty flower.
A video starts off showing the large brunch of a live oak tree along St Charles Avenue. Much of the trunk is covered in the soft greens of wet redirection ferns. As we get slower to the tree we see that the trunk has a hole in it, and then we see hundreds of honeybees within that hole. We keep moving closer until the whole view is of buzzing honeybees
An insect is seen in profile, head down, abdomen up, stilling on the left hand side of a stem that’s about the same thickness as the insect. The insects head and thorax are spotted with maroons and yellows while the abdomen is maroon and white with bits of black mixed in. The stem is mostly green but has a lot of maroon spots and streaks on it
An orange buttery has black lines over its surface, sitting on green leaves. Much of the left wing is ripped and tattered. The bright orange scales are dulled to whitish gray streaks in many places so that the vividness is diminished.
A close up view of caterpillar spines. The whole insect is lime greens there are rows of tubercles coming off of the caterpillar’s back and maybe 50 skinny spines combining off of each tubercle, spreading out in all directions. This leads to over-lapping spines between clusters on each tubercle in a town and between rows of the ends of each spine come to a very tiny point that is dark red in color.