Reader Tony Eales sent “a selection of inverts” from Australia.
The Blue Banded Bee (Amegilla cingulata), a favourite garden visitor:
A Flower Longicorn Beetle, Aridaeus thoracicus:
The caterpillar of the Four Spotted Cup Moth, Doratifera quadriguttata. Cup moth caterpillars are way more interesting to look at than the sexual adults, and their common names are based on the larvae rather than the adults.
And a male Golden Green Stag Beetle, Lamprima latreillii, a spectacular large beetle I’ve seen only once:
And a landscape from reader Randy Schenck in Iowa, where they rise with the sun:
A Midwest sunrise. It pays to get up.
Great photos! Love the caterpillar especially.
Very nice, thanks!
That nice sunrise is what I see lately, since I often need to get up early to beat the traffic to work this winter.
Meanwhile, the cool pix of Southern hemisphere insects makes me a little jealous, since in your region the seasons are changing to the warmer.
Aren’t they changing “from” the warmer? Or do they sometimes have March “Indian Summers” as we (sometimes) get in September?
The Lamprima reminded me of other beetles that have similar weirdly upcurved mandibles. A quick check confirmed that these are among a group of beetles where the males have these sorts of mandibles, and that there are species where the up-curved mandibles are even longer. They of course use them in combat over females, where they compete to up-end up their opponent. I have seen a drawing that depicts them doing battle in tunnels, and there the strangely shaped mandibles would be effective at engaging an opponent if one beetle were upside down to the other. I am not sure if they really need to be in tunnels for the mandibles to work, though.
Beautiful!
Thanks so much, Tony! Wonderful capture of that bee in flight! Appears to have quite the load of pollen.
Love the caterpillar–are those spines just for show or do they have venom?
Great look at a very cool beetle! Strange antennae they have, too.
Beautiful sunrise, Randy! (The way I see ’em usually is to stay up as opposed to get up…)
No lesser luminary that Sir Joseph Banks the botanist on Cook’s historic voyage to the east coast of Australia in 1770 was stung by a cup moth caterpillar so yes, more than just for show 🙂
What a fun record to know about. 🙂 (For us, if not for Banks.)
Thanks, Tony!