Images

Mile-a-minute weevil, Rhinoncomimus latipes, this weevil has been brought into North America to contol Polygonum perfoliatum, the mile-a-minute weed. Bob Trumble from Maryland's Department of Agriculture dropped off a few of these minute (about 1.5mm) babies and we photographed them using out 10x lens set up.

A wasp species. Note the lovely folds and ridges in the wing, a feature of the wasp family Scoliidae.

Scoliid Wasp, Hawaii

Two VERY SMALL spiders. Sadly I know little about spiders so can't tell you the species / group other a number that it is not. This Spider was only about 4mm. Captured outside of my lab in Beltsville, MD. Once I started looking I realized...there are billions of such spiders (tiny ones that is) in an average field.

Unknown spider found March 21, 2013 in a steam tunnel underneath the Beltsville Agriculture Research Center

The Striped Bark Scorpion. A lovely specimen found on the floor of FT Eyre in Hot Springs Village, Arkansas. It is always good to have friends who send you such lovely presents in the mail. This is the only scorpion in the state and over the next few days I will post more shots of this baby. Check out the hypodermic at the end of the sting.

Sergiolus capulatus found by Wayne Boo in the lab....Identified by Jersey Bug, found in Beltsville, MD

The tricky Small Hive Beetle. One of the banes of bee keepers, Aethina tumida. Small things, about the size of half an eraser head. These beetles smell like bees and even sometimes get fed by bees. As you will see in another post showing the larva, it is not the adults that are the problem to the bee keeper it is ....the bad habits of the babies.

Arizona poppy pollen on Protoxaea gloriosa. Yep, the fluorescent orange Kallstroemia grandiflora, has fluorescent orange pollen and this bee loves it and becomes also fluorescent orange.

An unknown Horsefly from Upper Marlboro, MD

Collected , in Glycol trap, Tarpela micans, with lovely oil can sheen, identified by Warren Steiner

The Madagascan sunset moth, yes indeed a Moth not a butterfly. Endemic to the Island of Madagascar. Large, migratory, and day flying it is another example of Nature's breaking of the rules. The colors are not created by pigments but by the structure of the scales themselves (look it up...very cool).

A twinkly white spring Andrena found on blooming wild plum in my front yard.Canon Mark II 5D, Zerene Stacker, Stackshot Sled, 65mm Canon MP-E 1-5X macro lens, Twin Macro Flash in Styrofoam Cooler, F5.0, ISO 100, Shutter Speed 200, link to a .pdf of our set up is located in our profile

This tiny bee is a specialist on Willow Pollen, and was captured early this spring, unfortunately it is also completely coated in pollen and lint from the collecting process and did not go through our usual wash and blow dry procedure...thus the bad hair, but on the other hand it shows the characteristic light green tinge to the integument and generally captures the

Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore, in Alger County Michigan has a specimen of Andrena nivalis. In this particular case Wayne Boo took the picture of this difficult to identify male.

A little male mining bee about the size of a grain of rice. Andrena personata is something I associate with sparse fields, not so much lawns. My guess that the usual lawn weeds don't have the right mix of patriotically native flower species it is looking for. Kind of pixie like, is what I want to say.

Sexy Andrena. Yes, the normally black Andrena does have some sexy species. Here is one of my favorites. Andrena prunorum jacketed in amber with ribbing of white fur...or something like that. A common western species that leaked just enough out of the West to show up in Badlands National Park where we were studying the bee fauna of the Park.

Andrena specularia - This is a prairie bee. I know that because it is from North Dakota and there are no records that I know of east of the Mississippi River. In fact, there are no legit records outside of North Dakota. Other than the mysterious Turtle Mountains, ND is all about prairie. I would like to propose that this become the state's bee.

Tiny Ceratina from Panama...in the first picture in this series you will see a rod going into its body to hold it in position for photographing in our mini bee studio. Actually this is not a rod but the very tip of the finest acupuncture pin. Yep, that is a small bee.

A Beautiful Invasive. Ceratina smaragdula, male, captured on Hawaii, Oahu, March 2012. This Asian species, along with others has invaded the Hawaiian islands where it thrives in sea of introduced garden plants found at lower elevations on the islands.

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