We have a new contributor today, Christian Allesandro Perez, who takes terrific photos and videos that you can see only on his flickr site and his website, alephrocco.  He’s lately been in Costa Rica, but today gives us photos from Australia. Please give him a warm welcome to inspire him to keep contributing here!  Christian’s notes and IDs are indented:

Unless you have a preference for organisms for the neotropics, I think I’ll start with some arthropods from my first weeks in Australia.

Green lacewing (Neuroptera: Chrysopidae) ovipositing. Lacewing eggs are like no other. They look like small elliptical neon green pellets (~1.5 mm long) attached to a stem by long wire-like filaments for protection against scavenging insects. Although I see them frequently, this night was the first time I watched a lacewing oviposit. Both the lacewing and her eggs shone brilliantly from the light of my head torch, not to mention the classic galaxy-like neuropteran eyeshine.

Aquatic spiders such as the Giant Water Spider (Pisauridae: Megadolomedes australianus) are covered in hydrophobic hairs, allowing them to sit on top of and move along the water’s surface. In Peru, I found my first Pisaurid in a stream, and when I approached the spider, it hopped along the water’s surface to safety with a fast jellyfish-like motion. I have not observed that behavior again in any aquatic spiders. Megadolomedes can attain a legspan of more than 18 cm, but this individual had a legspan of around 13 to 15 cm (5-6 inches).

An elephant weevil (Curculionidae: Orthorhinus cylindrirostris) during take-off in a superman pose. This weevil feeds on a variety of woody plants including grapevine, and they are major pests for wine companies.

Centipedes are often hard to photograph, especially during the day. As soon as I flip a rock they usually bolt immediately. This centipede (Scolopendridae: Cormocephalus cf. aurantiipes, ~15 cm long) scurried on top of a rock, and I cupped my hands over it. Sensing that it was now in a dark safe space, the centipede let me snap a few quick photos.

Lifting a rock and finding gold… well golden abdomens; a colony of Dolichoderus cf. doriae, a mimic of the bull ant Myrmecia fulvipes. [JAC: the species below is also an ant]

Hangingfly (Mecoptera: Bittacidae: Harpobittacus australis) with its beak ready to pierce the exoskeleton of an unsuspecting prey and inject a tissue-dissolving enzyme to liquify its interior.

This red and gray Hercules robber fly (Asilidae: Neoaratus hercules) landed on a tree a few meters in front of me, happily cannibalizing a more regular-sized robber fly.

I spotted this large wasp flying around a bush, constantly entering from different angles. After waiting for several minutes, the wasp finally emerged with a huntsman spider, scurrying across the ground in search of its burrow. It was an orange spider wasp (Pompilidae: Cryptocheilus bicolor) parasitizing a Huntsman spider (Sparassidae).  Below is a short video:

Don’t forget to send in your good photos; I can always use more.  And don’t forget to tip your waitress!

Today’s photos come from regular Mark Sturtevant, whose words are indented:

Hello! Here is another batch of pictures taken over the summer. Enjoy.

The first two pictures are of ‘inchworms’, which is the descriptive name for the larvae of moths belonging to the family Geometridae. In a high percentage of Geometrid species, the distinctive locomotion of their larvae is reflected by a loss of up to several of the abdominal prolegs that are seen in other caterpillars. The first species is a young larva of a moth known as the half wing (Phigalia titea). The name refers to the adult female moths because they have vestigial wings as shown here.

The second Geometrid larva was expected to be unremarkable, but the picture shows that it bears an interesting feature in the form of vestigial pro-legs! This is the Fall cankerworm (Alsophila pometaria), and it is one of several Geometrid species whose larvae have not completely eliminated prolegs that have fallen into disuse. Adult females of this species are completely wingless, as shown here. Why have flightless females? I suppose it makes sense in a species that ecloses in close proximity to their food plant. The newly emerged female moths can stay put, and after being mated by the flying males they can put their energy into laying lots of eggs.

Next is a marmorated stink bug (Halyomorpha halys), which is an invasive species not particularly liked by anyone since large numbers of them sometimes share our homes during the winter months. But seen up close, one can perhaps appreciate that they do have some interesting colors and textures. Now, do you see the little white objects scattered on the thorax of this individual? Those are the eggs of a parasitic Tachinid fly. This little stinker is doomed to be eaten alive from the inside by flesh-eating maggots.

The next picture is of a lovely pair of mating aurora damselflies (Chromagrion conditum). This species has always been too shy for my camera, but these two hadn’t a care in the world. They are the only species in their genus, and they often sit with their wings slightly spread even though they are not in the family of spread-wing damselflies.

The next picture is of a neat-looking moth that was hanging out for a couple weeks near my shed. It took several days to get a picture since it preferred to settle on the undersides of leaves close to the ground. I eventually chased it to a perch under some low hanging leaves of a tree, and there I could lay on my back under the tree to take pictures. I wound up using my shoes as a pillow, and the entire experience was… actually quite comfortable. The moth is the small magpie moth, Anania hortulata. It is in the Crambidae family, which is a family of photogenic moths that are often found perching low under leaves.

The next two are six-spotted tiger beetles (Cicindela sexguttata). These beautiful predators are easily the most common tiger beetles around here, especially in and near forests. It should be added that tiger beetle larvae are also worth looking for. The larvae are also predatory, and are found lurking at the entrance of a vertical burrow in the ground. When a small arthropod passes near, they suddenly strike out like a nightmare jack-in-the-box to snatch it. This can be seen here (although with a non-living prey).

The next picture is of a large wolf spider which is proposed to be Schizocosa ocreata.

The final picture is of a beautiful queen bald faced hornet (Dolichovespula maculata) who decided to start her nest early this summer in the frame of our garage. Hornets build very large nests, and these robust wasps have a reputation for being aggressive at the nest. But I soon found that the queen (who is easily twice the size of a worker) was really very tolerant of my close attentions. All she would do if alarmed was fly away, after first hovering to closely inspect me and the nest to memorize landmarks so that she could find her way back again. But I could not later have a foot wide nest full of hornets hanging down into our garage entrance, so I had to use bug spray to remove her. There really was no other option, I think, but I was remorseful about that.