Six thousand bucks is a lot of money, but it's small change compared to the price of many professional camera kits.

Here for spreading far and wide is entomologist-cum-photographer Alex Wild's answer to all those arachnophobic "nopenopenopenopenope" spider memes. Because let's face it, spiders can be pretty adorable (even when you least expect them to be).

"The worst enemies of ants are often other ants," writes entomologist-cum-photographer Alex Wild. And what brutally savage enemies they are.

From entomologist, blogger and insect photographer Alex Wild comes this remarkable image of a trapjaw ant, torn asunder to reveal the wriggling, 8-inch parasitic worm living inside. (The ant, by comparison, measures about half an inch long.)

Everyone, these are trap-jaw ants. The two featured here are fighting. Watch them closely – even in slow motion, the the spring-loaded snap of a trap-jaw's maw is powerful enough to send both ants twirling in opposite directions in the blink of an eye.

Entomologist and insect photographer Alex Wild has captured a gorgeous image of this Greta oto, or glasswing butterfly, in Belize (click to enlarge). You can see the color of the flowers perfectly through its wings. Though it looks like an alien or mutant, the glasswing is perfectly natural. Most butterflies have…

Seriously. It's not. And no, it's not an image of an ant, either. In fact, the creature you see pictured up top isn't even an insect. Can you guess what it is? Here's a hint: count the legs.

Are you a fan of embiggened bugs? Alex Wild — master of ceremonies over at Myrmecos — has just posted over 600 of his best photographs from 2011, and it is one of the most jaw-dropping collections of insect macrophotography we've ever seen. Click through to check it out — you won't be disappointed.

Sometimes it's easy to make a mistake when picking a photo of an animal — presenting an image of a rat instead of a mouse, for example. Or mistaking a crane fly for a mosquito. But whoever made this missing cat poster has taken the crown for animal mis-classification.

Here you can see an ant shooting a dose of venom straight into a centipede's head. The centipede is translucent, so you can actually see the stinger in its brain. And there's more.

Earlier this year io9 pondered the question of what future space structures and cities might look like. For me, the work of Alex Wild really stood out.