Monday macrobug: Sarosesthes fulminans
This lovely longhorned beetle was on my house last week. Bugguide.net helped me identify him as Sarosesthes fulminans.
insects
Monday macrobug: the 17-year periodical cicada
Brood II. We gots ’em. The noise is so cool….
Monday macrobug: a purple beetle
Found this fellow while weed-whacking thistles last week… A lovely iridescent purple – the photos don’t really capture it.
Monday macrobug: A golden weevil
Spring is back in the Fort Valley, and that means many serendipitous bug encounters. I think it’s safe to say that the Monday Macrobug is back as a regular feature on Mountain Beltway for the foreseeable future! Today, I give you…. a weevil! You’re welcome.
Monday macrobug: Flight of the termites
Termites can fly. But not all termites. Around here, the only flying termites are the reproductives – the fertile males and females that a termites colony produces periodically. It seems to be associated with the advent of spring. I spotted this group a couple of weeks ago, when I noticed the sunlight catching in their … Read more
Monday macrobug: Carpenter bee
These guys are the bane of my existence lately. Now that the ladybugs are gone, we’ve got a dozen carpenter bees orbiting the house, seeking an opportunity to drill holes in it. Here’s one after an encounter with a tennis racket I keep on the porch expressly for the purpose of controlling their population: Look … Read more
Monday macrobug: Twilight of the ladybug infestation
Spring has arrived in the Fort Valley. We went from snow and sub-freezing nights to two 80°F+ days in a row, and then throttled back to normal springtime temperatures. The pulse of heat brought about a big release of ladybugs from our walls, and at times it was as apocalyptic a scene as it was … Read more
Monday macrobug: Hercules
Eastern Hercules Beetle, Dynastes tityus. Dessicated sample, collected at the 7-11 on the corner of route 55 and route 522 north of Front Royal, Virginia. Collected by one of my wife’s students (she’s a science teacher). I like the shadow of the horns in this one: Monday macrobug is officially on winter hiatus. We’ll resume … Read more
Industrious iridescent blue wasps
A friend of the family sent me these photos from coastal Ecuador, where these fast-working wasps rapidly constructed a nest. Photo #1 is from Tuesday morning, and photo #2 is on the afternoon of the same day!
Monday macrobug: ladybug infestation
October 2012 was a bumper month for macrobugs here at Bentley Farm. But… none more so than the ladybugs: One of the downsides to living way out in the sticks is that we have to deal with a lot of insects. Mostly, I relish this interaction, as the “Monday Macrobug” series attests. But the gnats, … Read more
Monday macrobug: Orange wasp
Saw this one on the Neoacadian Inner Piedmont field trip before GSA in the fall… I guess it’s something of a break from tradition to show you a bug from any place other than my yard, but this one’s pretty enough to justify the excursion… Yes, that’s the Walker Top Granite that it’s resting on.
Monday macrobug: Leafhopper from below
This leafhopper, seen through my sliding doors to the deck, is about 6 mm long. Basically, this critter is a miniature cicada!
Monday macrobug: Katydid
Happy New Year’s Eve! Here’s a katydid seen on my porch back before it got really cold: Can you tell if it’s a male or a female? (Hint: look for the ovipositor!) This one’s out of focus, but I like it anyhow because of the character lurking in the background: Happy New Year!
Monday macrobug: Lovecraftian larva
This maggot, with his prominent segmentation and his contrasting armor plates, reminded me of something in an H.P. Lovecraft story: Cool. And “ewww.”
When a batfly is really a deer ked
Monday I posted photos of what I had thought was a batfly, but I was wrong. A skeptical reader forwarded a link to the post to an actual entomologist, and he said “Nope, that’s no batfly.” I was right about it being parasitic, but the host is more likely deer (which we have in abundance … Read more
Monday macrobug: Batfly!!
UPDATE: This isn’t really a bat fly. It’s a deer ked. Back in October, I was weed-whacking in the yard, cutting down some 1-meter-tall grass and then picking up bundles of the fallen grass to put on our compost pile. I was out in the yard doing this for about an hour, then I came … Read more
Monday macrobug: Delicate little wasp
We had several of these guys come inside in October, only to find themselves trapped and spend days flying around the window screens, trying to find a way back outside. This one is dead: Look at those stripey antennae! That thread-like waist! That extended stinger(?) or is it an ovipositor?
Monday macrobug: Wheel bug
This is a wheel bug, so called because of that protuberance on its back… Here’s another one – but this “wheel” has a flat tire…
Monday macrobug: Brown marmorated stinkbug
These guys were all over the exterior of our house in October, trying to get into the interior. Here’s the view from the outside, looking down on the back of stinkbug: Nasty species – invasive, destructive to plants, persistent in its desire to be indoors, and most pointedly, downright smelly.
Monday macrobug: big green worm
Found this caterpillar in the dirt the other day outside my house… Here it is (in the palm of my leather work gloves – the width of a finger may be seen blurrily in the background): I spent some time looking for matches on Bug Guide and in Garden Insects of North America by Whitney … Read more