Macro in B&W

Something you don't see a lot of is B&W shots of insects and spiders. After all, these animals are often very colourful, or at least are often sitting on something colourful (flowers, leaves), so why would you want to shoot in B&W?

As a reaction to the glut of insect on flower shots I finished with last summer though, here's something that I'd like to produce more of this year:

Nikon D300 + Nikkor 200mm f4 AF @ f/10, 1/640th, ISO 560

A shot of a Butterfly on a Buddleia says nothing more to me than "colourful insect on colourful flower". Once you've seen half a dozen of them, they can become boring record shots. This wolf spider shot though has something different. I guess what I'm saying is that shooting B&W macro allows you to portray aspects of these animals beyond "this insect is colorful".

It only seems to work with some shots though. I tried converting about a dozen old shots to B&W yesterday - only this one seemed to work. I guess it's a matter of working out what will work in B&W and what will not. With this spider shot, I think it's the menace and the undergrowthy feeling it has to it.