Insect Photography Contest: winner announcement

Hi there my Steemian friends and followers!

I was totally blown away by your amazing response to my last INSECT PHOTOGRAPHY CONTEST. The post received almost a hundred comments and as many as 27 great entries, making it one of the most successful contests I have ever hosted on Steem. Thank you so much everyone for your participation!

With that being said, it was very difficult to pick the winners, even though 10 participants were to be rewarded this time. After repeated browsing through all the entries and some proper consideration I decided to choose these 5 winners:

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@outlinez with this entry:

Very nice contest just saw it. Shoot this little beetle 2 weeks ago on one of my daily walks. It's as small as the nail and it's very difficult to shoot it.

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@mweich with this entry:

This is the face of Vespa mandarinia japonica, the Giant Asian Hornet. This is a social wasp and can be found throughout Japan and East Asia as well, Japonica is a sub-species but the size really doesn't change all that much. Found this one recently deceased, I think it drowned, they are, ironically, rather weak to heavy rain.

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@r2cornell with this entry:

I found this moth/butterfly on my front step a couple of days ago. Initially I only saw the wings and their markings. Once I took a few photographs, it moved and colors emerged that were hidden by the wings. I have no idea if this is a butterfly or moth, I just know it is beautiful!

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@jjprac with this entry:

I met this beautiful girl on a nature trail on the meadows around Starý Plzenec. I don't know what a dragonfly is. I'm not an expert, a odonatologist ;)

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@tinabrezpike with this entry:

I found this crazy little creature outside, sunbathing on my flower. he was brave enough to go enjoying on this flower, because that is a carnivorous flower and she is feeding herself with similar insects. But he was too big for her, so she left him alone. I need to say he was very brave during the photoshooting. :) Such a beautiful colors but I'm still not sure if I can identify this particular beetle :)

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...and these 5 runners-up:

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@gotlius with this entry:

Found this beautiful beetles when I do gardening at my back yard. Tried to google search it to find out what kind of beetles is this, but couldn’t. Because there are so many type of beetles and I have a hard time to figure it out.

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@mustavi with this entry:

Couple of days ago I went to a plant house and found some trees with beautiful flowers and few Butterflies roaming around. I've followed couple of them and able to capture few pictures & videos. Here I'm posting one of the pictures captured in that good moment. Hope you like the colours.

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@barski with this entry:

In this photo, my close acquaintance with the butterfly, which is called - Cardinal. This is a cautious butterfly. I had to convince her that I did not represent a danger to her. As a result, I got a picture in which the butterfly proboscis is very clearly visible, at the moment when she drank nectar from the thistle flower.

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@nelinoeva with this entry:

I missed the first round and now I am happy to submit my photo that I took two days ago. It was a hot day and I was on a street with roses where I took many photos of the flowers. As usual I was looking close for anything small that maybe hiding and I saw this little one sunbathing on top of the flower.

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@theissen with this entry:

This one is a Libellula depressa, or also known as broad-bodied chaser. It's very common in Europe and i managed to photograph this one at our own pond. Personally I totally love its blue chitin-plates.

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As promised in the original post, the winners won 5 SBI shares each, paid by me (you can check that in my wallet) and the runners-up got my full upvote on their entries.

Congratulations guys, you did an excellent job :)

Hopefully, you enjoyed the contest as much as I did and I cannot wait to host another photo challenge soon (I already have some cool themes in my mind) so stay tuned! :)

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Thank you for visiting my blog. If you like posts about #nature, #animals, #ecology, @crypto, #traveling and discovering secrets and beauties of the #world, feel free to follow me as these are the topics I mostly write about. Have a wonderful day and keep on Steeming! :)