Reader Mark Sturtevant sent three photos of insects, one engorged with his blood. The third photo has a “spot the spider” feature.
A completely adorable grass skipper [species unidentified]. Just look at this little cutie! Skippers are traditionally classified in their own suborder, separate from true butterflies and the moths.
I was being eaten alive by mosquitoes while photographing insects in our garden. I then found this little bastard relaxing after a big meal. I think it was Aedes vexans.
I have learned to take pictures of the many kinds of small yellow and black wasps that I see. I often find that some are a species I have never noticed before, and some of these turn out to have an interesting back story. This little wasp is Philanthus gibbosus , which is a kind of parasitoid wasp known as a bee wolf. Parasitoid is a term commonly used for organisms that feed on a host, but they eventually deliberately kill or otherwise harm the host. A true parasite in this sense does not intentionally harm their host.
Bee wolves dig burrows and provision them with paralyzed bees to feed their larvae. Bee wolves have to be well armored because their prey does fight back.
Bee wolves are of broader interest because one of the pioneering papers on animal behavior in the field was done by Nikolas Tinbergen on a different species of bee wolf. In this paper he showed that bee wolves have an innate ability to precisely find their burrow entrance by first forming a detailed mental picture of surrounding landmarks.
Finally, do you see the spider that is photobombing this picture?
Reader Randy, in southeastern Iowa, took this photo of the Moon last night:
I was out on the back patio with the cat about 10 pm when the moon suddenly came up in the east. It was not quite full but very bright orange and worth a picture at least. Some might refer to this as the harvest moon but it is something to see in compete darkness with no city lights.
The red moons in the upper midwest, are, I think, due to the smoke from the WA and OR fires.
Suspect you are correct on that. Has made for a lot of colorful sunsets as well.
Would like to recommend for Mark, during those Aedes vexans photo sessions, some insect repellent. If you don’t like the stuff with teet, and some do not, there are some with 15 or 20% Picaridin that will do the trick to reduce that hazzardous duty.
I see two spider legs, but other than that I can’t really see it.
Nice photos Mark. That mosquito looks ripe for splatting. The color of its gorged abdomen is striking.
Where were Mark’s photos taken?
In the middle of Michigan.
I am intriqued by the coppery moon seen from Iowa. That may indeed be due to the NW fires. However, here on the Big Island Hawaii the moon also rose a deep copper color last evening. That is very unusual here in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
It was not due to VOG from Kilauea. Also, hurricane Ignacio (cat 2) was just 250 miles north of us.
Aedes vexans has short basal white bands on the tarsi. This appears to be a species of what we used to refer to as “black-legged Aedes”, now genus Ochlerotatus. There are many species in this group.
I am glad to be corrected. I do my best, but I will always get some wrong. Thanks.
It’s a beautiful picture, Mark. Also kind of surprising it isn’t Aedes vexans at this time of year. I remember collecting snow-pool Aedes in the upper peninsula of Michigan in June when I was in graduate school. Between the mosquitoes and the black flies, I left a bit anemic.
Are the details about the image of the Moon correct? It’s almost a full moon, and if it has just risen in the East, then the Sun should have just recently set since the Sun has to be opposite in the sky. The darkness of the sky suggests it’s long after sunset or before sunrise, which would be in keeping with 10 pm. But if it’s 10 pm, the evening, it’s a waxing moon, and in the Northern Hemisphere, the dark edge of the Moon faces to the left not the right as here.
It appears to be a morning waning moon. More likely to be around 2 am than 10 pm.
Sorry Wayne, I did not see this until 8 pm.
I took this last night 31 Aug. 2015 at 10 pm central daylight time. I would say sunset took place around 7:30 pm. or 2.5 hours before the picture. The moon had come up a few minutes earlier than the picture and in the east, almost where the sun comes up in the morning.
Hope this helps….Also, I noticed this morning around 8 am. that moon was still up there high in the western sky.
Without seeing the dorsal surface of the skipper’s wings, it’s hard to be sure but I think it’s a Zabulon Skipper (Poanes zabulon). The ventral surface pattern looks very similar to the plates in “Butterflies through Binoculars – The East” by Jeffrey Glassberg. Although according to this book, the northern most range of this skipper is southern Michigan. Doesn’t mean it can’t go further north though.