Mark Sturtevant Loc: Grand Blanc, MI

Over the previous summer, I made it a regular habit to scour the front porch in the morning to look for insects that were drawn in by our porch light overnight. Among the more common squatters are these small mayflies. Although they look very different from each other, I believe they are different sexes of the same species: Callibaetus ferrugineus.
Here is the female.
Minnow mayfly by Mark Sturtevant, on Flickr

Males are very tiny, but they have extraordinary compound eyes. This seems to be pretty much characteristic of the entire genus. The upward turret-shaped eyes are thought to be used to watch for females.
Minnow mayfly by Mark Sturtevant, on Flickr
Minnow mayfly by Mark Sturtevant, on Flickr

The pictures were taken as manual focus stacks. The lens was the Venus/Laowa 2.5x-5x. Merging the stacks was done in Zerene Stacker, and then further processed in Gimp.
Thank you for looking!

tinusbum Loc: east texas

those males are cool,nice shots

Mark Sturtevant Loc: Grand Blanc, MI

Thanks! It's funny, but these crazy-looking mayflies are actually quite common around here. I can generally find at least a half dozen every morning on my porch. Since they are the size of a mosquito, they are easily overlooked, though.

docshark Loc: Millersville, PA

Very different shot of this creature Mark. Fine work.
>i< Doc

EnglishBrenda Loc: Kent, England

What beautiful wings shown here on the female - great shots of them both.

sippyjug104 Loc: Missouri

Way cool series.

Curmudgeon Loc: SE Arizona

Beautiful set Mark