Images

Beetles from Kruger National Park in South Africa. This is the start of a series of pictures of insects that come to the flowers in Kruger. This is a project led by James Harrison from S.A. and Jonathan Mawdsley from the U.S. I was lucky enough to come along and do some bee collecting. Interesting system.

Black Cohosh, Actaea racemosa. An interesting flower of midsummer in forest openings. Seems to attract the odd bumble bee and Augochlora pura that linger in the shade. Collected and photographed by Helen Lowe Metzman.

Nectaring on goldenrod and aster, Beltsville, Maryland. Thanks to Chris Thompson for the identification.

Pennington County, South Dakota, Badlands National Park

Check this bee out! Anyone with an eye can tell how it got is name, This male was captured in the Great Basin National Park, Nevada as part of a survey of bees in high elevations vulnerable to climate change.

Yet another Agapostemon, this one was collected in the southern remote portions of Badlands National Park in South Dakota within the Pineridge Indian ReservationCanon Mark II 5D, Zerene Stacker, 65mm Canon MP-E 1-5X macro lens, Twin Macro Flash, F5.0, ISO 100, Shutter Speed 200, link to a .pdf of our set up is located in our profile

Gliding in from Costa Rica comes a moderalely large, moderately green bee. An Agapostemon nasutus. There are a lot of the these bright green bees out there...Not just in C.R. but throughout the Americas. Beautiful, and once you start paying attention, quite common. But are there any songs written about them? No. Poems? Zero. Green Bee Secret Societies?

Gliding in from Costa Rica comes a moderalely large, moderately green bee. An Agapostemon nasutus. There are a lot of the these bright green bees out there...Not just in C.R. but throughout the Americas. Beautiful, and once you start paying attention, quite common. But are there any songs written about them? No. Poems? Zero. Green Bee Secret Societies?

Dominican Republic, The only described all black Agapostemon in the Caribbean is from Cuba. (A. obscuratus). Collected in November of 2012. This is either A. obscuratus and a new record for Hispaniola or a new species.

More Green Bees. This is a common one, one of the commonest summer bees in the East. Agapostemon virescens. The females have a black abdomen unlike the other female Agapostemons in the East which are bright green all round. This one was caught in Caroline County in Maryland. Picture by Amanda Robinson.

More Green Bees. This is a common one, one of the commonest summer bees in the East. Agapostemon virescens. The females have a black abdomen unlike the other female Agapostemons in the East which are bright green all round. This one was caught in Caroline County in Maryland. Picture by Amanda Robinson.

More Green Bees. This is a common one, one of the commonest summer bees in the East. Agapostemon virescens. The females have a black abdomen unlike the other female Agapostemons in the East which are bright green all round. This one was caught in Caroline County in Maryland. Picture by Amanda Robinson.

Here is the face of the specimen in the previous photo.Canon Mark II 5D, Zerene Stacker, 65mm Canon MP-E 1-5X macro lens, Twin Macro Flash, F5.0, ISO 100, Shutter Speed 200, link to a .pdf of our set up is located in our profile

White Snakeroot, Ageratina altissima. Collected and Photographed by Helen Lowe Metzman.

Today - Amazonite up close. So interesting to go from photographing the complexity of carbon based insect life to the complexity of minerals. One earth, all connected, such glory that cannot be recreated by men.

Amblycorypha oblongifolia, Oblong-winged katydid, Upper Marlboro, Maryland, July 2012

India = An unknown species of Amegila collected by Suzanne Batra.

Ammobates muticus, Mediterranean Bee Stalker, specimen collected by E.L. Merim in Palermo, ItalyAnother red-abdomened cuckoo bee; why is it that so many cuckoo bees are more brightly colored than their hosts?

This is picture 2 from a 12 picture invited series by Matt Buffington at the USDA Parastitic Hymentoptera group using specimens from the U.S. Natural History Museum Smithsonian. Matt uses a system very similar to ours to photograph and stack this super tiny wasp. This native of the Rift Valley in Africa is called Anacharoides.

A couple more shots of Andrena asteris, one male, and one female. Note the super fluffy hairs on the hind tibia of the female.

Andrena astragali, female, Badlands National Park, SD