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Bug Experiments

davidsteinmoss
Nov 28, 2015
1 min read

Little did I know this but the meal worms from a previous film About Time: Decay and Regrowth had turned into pupae. Some internet research informed me that the meal worm was the larval stage of the Darkling Beetle. I had hoped to use a time lapse of the beetles metamorphosis to symbolise rebirth in Christian theology.

With the pupae gathered I set up a time lapse first on matt black cardboard but after shooting over night the pupa it seemed are still quite active and several had moved out of shot.Changed the location of the pupae to a patterned glass that had a water like effect pattern to contain the pupa. Filming started again on Monday morning till Friday evening, with 2 of the pupa hatching while the others showed very little movement. Temperature, heat and light are a big factor in how fast the pupa hatch. The two that did hatch the transformation was so fast that it lasted only 2 or 3 frames of the time lapse set to take a shot every 6 minutes.

I decided to omit this footage from the final film.

Items used:Nikon D80: settings: ISO: 400 Aperture: F6.3 Focal length 38mm (Macro fish eye lens)

Tripod

Timer unit: set to every 6 seconds.

Links: About Time: Death & Regrowth https://vimeo.com/142555092

Original influence for the About Time strand from the BBC's Earth Unplugged series.

Link: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2449514/Time-lapse-video-shows-lizard-reduced-bones-maggots-beetles.html