Friday, July 14, 2006

Insects at Sunset

Went out in the garden at sunset tonight. First up is a Melissodes male. I was hoping to get a cluster of males as sometimes a group of males will cluster together on the same plant.

melissodes1

But this was not the only bee getting ready to sleep. I found several of these very tiny bees with a yellow clypeus nestled in my false sunflower plant. I am guessing some sort of small Andrenid. Hopefully I can ID them next week when I get to a 'scope and my Mitchell.

littlebee1

I love this milkweed bug; I didn't remember that they had quite so much white on the wings.

milkweedbug1

I love Cleome, and one of the first shots I took tonight shows this little beetle, probably a Chrysomelid among the blooms.

cleome1

And there were predators out. Polistes on the Cleome, and on my plants in the front yard a couple of nice surprises. First this wonderful Salticid on butterfly weed.

salticid1

Notice the spider silk.

Next is a very young Mantis:

mantis1

Finally this handsome grasshopper. I should hate grasshoppers for the number they are doing on some of my plants but they really are pretty.

hopper1

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4 comments:

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Ron Hudson said...

Great photography....I especially liked the cleome shot.

Paul D. said...

Yes cleome is a wonderful plant. Does very well in the heat and I just love those spidery flower heads.

Anonymous said...

Re: grasshopper
Hi Dr. Paul, I was in the WebCetera class, and thought I'd check out your web page. I also think grasshoppers are neat-- I make my drawing students catch and draw them every fall. And, yes, they sure can do a lot of damage. It's interesting what they will and won't eat. Eventually I'll work out which plants can survive temperatures over 100 degrees, 30 mph winds, and plagues of 'hoppers.