Bombus affinis, f, mandible, Oriental L.I

A head of a specimen of Bombus affinis from the tip of Long Island, collected by the fabulous Roy Lantham a Potato Farmer, naturalist, and insect collector. From what I know, Roy (now passed on) was quite the eccentric, but he made very valuable contributions to all sorts of natural history fields from his collections of local plants and animals. [Aside: A little sidebar here: Why not do a little self check-in here to assess whether you have made any sort of permanent contribution to the natural history world]. Roy's permanent contributions form reference points from now until we depopulate ourselves and the insects once again take over. Photograph by Greta Forbes. Photography Information: Canon Mark II 5D, Zerene Stacker, Stackshot Sled, 65mm Canon MP-E 1-5X macro lens, Twin Macro Flash in Styrofoam Cooler, F5.0, ISO 100, Shutter Speed 200 USGSBIML Photoshopping Technique: Note that we now have added using the burn tool at 50% opacity set to shadows to clean up the halos that bleed into the black background from "hot" color sections of the picture.