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Blog Archives
Longhorned Beetle Damaging Stem
January 28, 2010 | Caraça Natural Park, Minas Gerais, Brazil
This longhorned beetle blends in pretty well with these stems.
Some longhorned beetles are known as girdlers and that name might be aptly applied here. See the damage to the stem in the upper right? I didn’t witness it, but I suspect this beetle is responsible. In fact, given the bending of the stem under its head, it may very well have been chewing away when I took this photo. Further evidence is the frass present, indicating it’s been here awhile.
Why girdle? Some beetles that do it deposit an egg in the stem and then effectively kill the stem by chewing a ring into it. The stem beyond the girdle eventually dies and falls to the ground. The stem provides nourishment for the beetle larva and is then well placed for the grub to later escape into the soil where it completes its development.
Posted in Easter Eggs, Featured Photos
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Mottled Tortoise Beetle
October 10, 2010 | Twelvestones, Roswell, GA, USA
A few weeks ago I found this tortoise beetle, Deloyala guttata, on the underside of a sycamore leaf in a nearby park. Most of the time you only see tortoise beetles safely tucked away inside their “shell” (hence their name). I waited for this one to start moving around so I could get this shot.
Posted in Featured Photos
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Glittery Micromoth
January 28, 2010 | Caraça Natural Park, Minas Gerais, Brazil
While less noticed and more difficult to identify, the majority of lepidoptera species are small and are collectively referred to as microlepidoptera or micromoths. Though small, this one’s glittery wing scales caught my eye.
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A Walkingstick with Wings
Walkingstick | January 28, 2010 | Caraça Natural Park, Minas Gerais, Brazil
We don’t have that many species of walkingsticks here in the Southeastern US. None of the ones I’ve encountered have wings. So this one looks odd to me.
Remember the jumping sticks? Here’s one more photo of one of those so you can see how easy it is to distinguish the two based on their antennae.
Jumping stick | January 28, 2010 | Caraça Natural Park, Minas Gerais, Brazil
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Crypsis Challenge #4 Reveal
Hopefully it didn’t take more than a few seconds to spot the katydid in this image.
January 27, 2010 | Caraça Natural Park, Minas Gerais, Brazil
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A Caterpillar to Avoid
January 28, 2010 | Caraça Natural Park, Minas Gerais, Brazil
I found a couple of these large caterpillars very near to each other. First the one above and then the one below. I believe they are a species of Automeris.
With those spines and colors, it’s pretty obvious they are to be avoided. Each one of those spines is like a little hypodermic needle bearing venom.
Here are some closeups.
Head
Spiny cluster
And here’s a particularly intimidating display.
Back off!
So what would mess with this spiny critter? I discovered while reviewing photos of the latter caterpillar that there was a small fly up to no good. Sorry for the photo quality. These are extreme crops.
Posted in Easter Eggs, Featured Photos
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Colorful Butterfly
January 28, 2010 | Caraça Natural Park, Minas Gerais, Brazil
I usually don’t have the patience to stalk butterflies. The colors on this one were just so vibrant that I spent about 20 minutes chasing after it.
Even the undersides of the wings, while definitely muted, are attractive (to me anyway).
Wings closed showing underside
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Glasswing Butterfly
January 28, 2010 | Caraça Natural Park, Minas Gerais, Brazil
Glasswing butterflies lack scales on parts of their wings, leaving those parts transparent.
Though similar looking, this is not the species (Greta oto) commonly found in many of the butterfly houses I’ve visited. That one’s range doesn’t extend into South America. This is probably a closely related species. I was surprised there are so many that look very much alike. Check out this Florida Museum of Natural History page on the tribe Godyridini to get an idea.
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Target Tortoise Beetle
January 28, 2010 | Caraça Natural Park, Minas Gerais, Brazil
I’ve seen variations on this pattern for tortoise beetles throughout Central and South America. I often see the species referred to as target tortoise beetles, though a quick google search seems to confirm my suspicion that that common name applies to many different species across several genera.
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Ants Herding Treehoppers
January 28, 2010 | Caraça Natural Park, Minas Gerais, Brazil
These ants have quite effectively corralled their herd of honeydew producing treehoppers.
There’s a lot to see here if you look carefully. First, it looks like quite a few of the life stages of the treehoppers are present. There’s the dark adult in the center, an early instar in the bottom center, and the majority appear to be middle instars.
In the detail below, you can see the ant on the right has just taken a drop of honeydew and the dark adult has a drop waiting.
Detail
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