Reader Mark Sturtevant sent four lovely insect photos:
A camouflaged stink bug (possibly Brochymena arborea). Try to imagine this one on tree bark!
Robber fly (Laphria grossa). I think most people will be familiar with this family of predatory flies. This fly, which is clearly a mimic of bumble bees, flew away when I first approached it to take its picture. But experience told me that insects are often seen on a favorite perch to which they will soon return. So I simply froze, aiming my camera at the spot where it was. I heard a bit of buzzing behind me, and sure enough back it came carrying a still alive flea beetle!
I have decided that robber flies may be among the most ferocious insects since an internet search for robber fly pictures will turn up several examples of them casually eating bees and wasps and vigorous insects that are much larger than they are. In a later posting I can show you that they also have a surprising talent that I did not know about until this summer.
Sumac flea beetles (Blepharida rhois). These are identified as flea beetles by the enlarged hind femora. Here they are of course making more flea beetles (and robber fly food) but when they are not ‘getting busy’ they are excellent jumpers. Flea beetles are members of the gigantic family of herbivorous beetles known as the Chrysomelidae. Basically, if you see brightly colored beetles on plants that are roundish and shiny and if they are not ladybugs then they are probably Chrysomelids.
A young queen carpenter ant (Camponotus pennsylvanicus). This large insect was beating its wings as it crawled up a plant, I think to warm up its wing muscles. Here she paused for a quick cleaning. She flew away a moment later, presumably to find a mate and to start a new colony.
Unfortunately the stink bugs don’t seem to care for tree bark; instead they cause mayhem in my zucchinis….where they are often quite visible before burrowing into the stems and killing the plants
Gorgeous ant!
Robber flies will even eat their own species… If you like flies & Twi*ter, follow the NHM’s Erica McAlister – @flygirlNHM
Thanks! This particular picture has been a favorite of mine.
It is funny how one can take maybe 80 pictures of various things, and have perhaps 10 worth keeping. But every once in a while one picture just hits the sweet spot with composition, focus, background, and behavior.
Some friends of mine and I tore down an old grain elevator building for salvage back in the 70s and got about 50 4×8 foot sheets of nice 3/4 inch plywood out of the deal, which we stored in an old barn near our place. A couple of years later we had a construction project that they would be perfect for, so we went back over to get some of them. Imagine our chagrin when we found out that carpenter ants had decided to make a nest in the stack and had tunneled galleries through about half of the sheets!
Nice pics Mark!
I’m patiently waiting for more on Robber Flies. They are the killer, screaming, death-ningas from hell of the insect world.
I used to handle these things without a care, convinced that their wicked piercing mouthparts would only be used on prey. But I eventually read that they will bite if handled, and that it is especially painful.
err . . . ninjas
Jesus Crisis! (as my son likes to say).
The Laphria robber flies seem to be very common this year, in Massachusetts. And I never see a robber fly without a meal — they are ridiculously successful hunters. Great photos!
Mark, can I ask about your macro photography setup? What equipment do you use?
I use a Canon T5i body, but I currently use cheap lenses. My main lens is a consumer grade Canon 50mm prime lens + a set of inexpensive Neweer brand extension tubes. These maintain an electrical connection between the lens and the body.
If the extension tubes are not too long I will use the on-camera flash with some paper taped around the light for a diffuser. In other situations I attach a Neweer brand flash, but man, a flash head adds a lot of weight.
In the field, I oscillate between just going hand-held to using a cheap tripod as a monopod. Lately I am finding that a quick way to steady oneself is to just plant a 1/2 inch wood pole into the ground near the subject, and then grip camera alongside the pole.
Mark, do you think you could identify something else by description? I’m in central Texas, and the last three springs, my garden (blackberries plus whatever I try to start from seed plus a peach tree and a fig tree) get attacked by tiny things that hide in a cottony — even cotton-candy-like — coating of what stuff on the stems and branches. The tiny little things jump off, if sprayed with water, etc. At first, I wasn’t sure they were even living things; I thought they were just bits of gunk flying off under the pressure of the spray or water.
No one around here can envision it, though I saw some on a couple plants at Home Depot, last year. I tried obtaining samples, but the white cottony stuff disappeared within minutes of the plant piece going into a plastic bag.
Pardon the several typos! It’s white stuff, not what stuff, for example.
There are different species in the Homoptera which suck plant sap and produce a waxy secretion that looks like cotton. Common examples are the woolly aphid
and the mealy bug. There are others, but your insects will be in the general vicinity.
Environmentally friendly control includes just spraying the plants with water, or a spray of ‘insecticidal soap’. Conventional poisons are also effective.
Thank you! Are they seasonal? They seem to have tapered off, the past couple of weeks.
I do not know. But they have scads of predators and parasites. The host plants can also build some defenses to ward them off.
I have a batch of sunflowers in our garden this summer- something that I had been intending to do for some time. They quickly accumulated a fine crop of red aphids which I photographed often. But these too have tapered off sharply for some reason.
Great insect photos Mark. I live in a log home, and the sight of carpenter ant queens is not a welcome sight…though it is a beautiful insect.