Arctic Refuge: Arctic Hare & Mosquito

Hello there! If you are new here, you might want to subscribe to the RSS feed for updates on this topic.

With wildlife photography luck is always part of the equation, but you never know how or when it will come into play. While in the Arctic last summer I had the good fortune of photographing an Arctic Hare that was resting in the shade to avoid both the sun and predators. Although the hare was stationary its ears were twitching in order to keep a small swarm of mosquitoes from biting these blood rich organs. I only took a few photos and didn’t think much of them until I got back to review them. This one photo of a mosquito landing on and biting the hares nose immediately caught my attention. I was very happy to have captured this subtle interaction between host and parasite that exemplified the on going battle, small and large, these creatures face on a daily basis to survive.

Arctic Refuge: Arctic Hare and Mosquito nature photograph by Jim M. Goldstein
To see this and other wildlife photos from the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge visit my Arctic National Wildlife Refuge photo gallery

Technorati Tags: Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, ANWR, Arctic Refuge, arctic hare, wildlife, Lepus arcticus, photography, photo

Stay Connected with Jim
	Join Me On Twitter	Become a Fan on Facebook
	Listen to EXIF & Beyond	My Latest on YouTube

Posted by Jim on 08.13.2007 at 12:55 am
Tagged: Alaska, Arctic Refuge, Landscape, Photography, Stock Photo, Wildlife

http://macedwithgrace.squarespace.com Heyjules

That is really a once-in-a-lifetime catch. What an amazing photo.
http://www.my-photo-blog.com/ Ron Niebrugge

Great timing Jim! It would have been easy to miss this as you edit through thumbnails.

How did you ever find a mosquito?

Ron
http://www.jmg-galleries.com jim

Jules and Ron thanks for commenting.

Ron as you know mosquitoes are always so hard to come across in the Arctic
http://latogaphoto.blogspot.com/ latoga

Great shot Jim! At times luck is a great photo assistant. And it’s always fun to come back from a shoot and find something like this hiding.
A.Barlow

Ha! awesome shot! almost couldn’t find the skeeter.