Agrilus sp., Buprestidae (I'm leaning towards A. suvorovi)
Size: 9 mm
A bluish variety of the Agrilus from the previous post. At least I think it's the same species – they seemed quite variable in coloration, ranging all the way from bronze to green and blue.
This female specimen has deposited eggs on a beaver felled Aspen log and is now in the process of "brushing". This means covering them with some kind of secretion. She does this by repeatedly brushing the tip of her abdomen over the the eggs whilst excreting some fluid. See the comment section for a youtube clip showing this process!
This is a single handheld (mixed light) exposure, manually patched with a few pixels from a consecutive frame in order to get the entire eye in focus.
Canon 5DmkII, Canon 270EX, Canon MP-E65 @ 2.7X (cropped), 1/100s, f/7.1, ISO400
BTW, I've been playing with a new DIY-diffuser design the past season – most of the hand held shots from 2014 posted so far has been with this diffuser. Expect som more info on it soon!
Watch this in action on youtube: youtu.be/yhY1APtcsWk
More on flickr: https://flic.kr/p/qRUwfG