THIS is how to give the bugs, birds and bees in your backyard a celebrity makeover. With glamorous photo shoots on brilliantly lit but plain white backdrops, the Meet Your Neighbours project plucks these beasts from obscurity and gives them the star treatment.
This selection of A-listers was shot by local photographers in field studios all round the world. The first to step onto the white carpet is a cicada nymph from Panama that mimics leafcutter ants (top). Next up, the heavy-set dude with the prominent eyes (below) is a mole cricket from the Netherlands, and its flamboyant neighbour (below it) is a flag-footed bug, also from Panama.
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Below, is聽a cheerful-looking forest dung beetle from France.聽And the final celebrity (bottom) to take to the stage is a fetching Spanish festoon butterfly from Germany.
Niall Benvie and Clay Bolt, who founded the project in 2009, hope the photos help excite interest in otherwise overlooked wildlife. They invite more photographers to contribute, either through the Nature Picture Library in Bristol, UK, or through local conservation NGOs.
Photographers
Clay Bolt, Dirk Funhoff, J.P. Lawrence, Marc Pihet, Paul van Hoof, Gil Wizen, , Nature Photo Library
This article appeared in print under the headline 鈥淐elebrity beasts鈥�
