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Blog Archives
Caraça Tiger Beetles
January 27, 2010 | Caraça Natural Park, Minas Gerais, Brazil
I encountered a handful of these tiger beetles. At least, I think that’s what these are. I hope I don’t embarrass myself.
Most of them were up in trees and bushes as suggested by the first photo. I only encountered one on the ground.
From a distance, I mistook the first one for a large ant. Indeed, they move more like an ant than what I expect from a tiger beetle. I believe they may in fact be mimicking ants, and I found some references to back that up. None gave even a general identification though, so I wasn’t able to search for any online photos.
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Pumped Up Snout Beetle
January 26, 2010 | Caraça Natural Park, Minas Gerais, Brazil
This one looks like it has been doing push-ups on that leaf. Check out those foreleg femurs!
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Snout Beetle with Orange Bands
January 26, 2010 | Caraça Natural Park, Minas Gerais, Brazil
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Pink and Yellow Flea Beetle
January 26, 2010 | Caraça Natural Park, Minas Gerais, Brazil
Now there’s some colors you don’t see on a beetle very often. Warning colors perhaps?
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Fuzzy Jewel Beetle
January 26, 2010 | Caraça Natural Park, Minas Gerais, Brazil
Quick! What is it? From this angle, you might mistake this jewel beetle for a bee.
The beetle was feeding on the purplish flowers. Purple in, purple out.
Side view
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Leaf Beetle Feeding Behavior
January 26, 2010 | Caraça Natural Park, Minas Gerais, Brazil
This leaf beetle has created an interesting little scene.
There’s the leaf damage caused by feeding. The spots appear to be changing color as they age. I assume the green one to the top right of the beetle is the freshest. The light colored ones near the top must be the oldest.
There’s also some frass spread around.
Looking at this, I wonder if the feeding behavior isn’t offering some measure of camouflage. From a distance, the beetle appears to be just another damaged spot on the leaf.
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Parasitic Wasp Stalking Tumbling Flower Beetle
June 14, 2009 | Twelvestones, Roswell, GA, USA
As usual, I was working in the yard when I got distracted by some sort of dramatic natural scene. This time, I noticed that some magnolia blooms were literally crawling with tumbling flower beetles. Mostly, there was a lot of mating going on amongst the beetles. Then I noticed this little wasp that kept approaching various beetles, usually resulting in the beetle running off. Finally, she found one that was less wary. Above the wasp is closing in. Below, it appears she eventually made contact.
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