Last month I led my final trip of the year, to Malaysian Borneo. Afterward, I felt it may have been my favorite trip of 2025, mainly due to the many exciting macro finds we had. Southeast Asia is quite different from the Latin American rainforests I’m used to exploring, so even though this was my third time in Borneo, so much of it felt fresh and different.
It helps that there are some fantastic macro opportunities… and that I’m feeling a little more confident in my macro abilities these days.
This was a particularly large type of caterpillar we found a couple times. It was a good 3-4 inches long, and as you can see, somewhat fuzzy. I don’t have an exact species ID, but I believe it belongs to the moth family Lasiocampidae. The ants were a nice bonus.
Pertinent Technical Details
Canon R3
Canon 100mm 2.8 macro
ISO 1000
1/100th
f/13
Off-camera flash and softbox
Very, very cool critter, Max. I like the depth of field in this image with the face nice and sharp as well as the ants and the plant it was munching on. There is quite a bit of light reflected from the plant and I could see toning it down a trifle as it does tend to pull my eye, but that’s a pretty small nit in a very fine image.
Max: You should feel no lack of confidence in your macro ability if this is any indication. What a great subject and a superb capture, Top notch in every way. >=))>
Max, this is so interesting. It seems to be immune to the ants - and vice versa, because hairy caterpillars in Borneo can have pretty lethal stings. I really love how your flash caught the firework display of hairs. The top half makes this shot for me. Was this in Danum Valley?
Mike, it was in Danum. In fact, the ants may have been the star of the show when it came to macro. We had multiple interesting moments with ants, either interacting with other species or exhibiting other interesting behavior.
