Images

Graphocephala versuta - A beautiful multiculored, but minute leafhopper, here captured and photographed in Upper Marlboro, Maryland

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I feel like I should know what this beetle is...but I do not. It has a tortoise beetle feel. Patuxent Wildlife Research Center, Anne Arundel County, MD Identified as Gratiana pallidula, Eggplant Tortoise Beetle by Treegoat. Living specimens are a nice hospital green.

Another picture of greensand, this is the same sample as the last one, but one that was wetted down ... what follows is the rest of the post from the previous picture of greensand....greensand dug from my backyard, which at one point was on the ocean floor...and at a point in the future will return to that state.

Gynandromorph, bilaterally half male/ half female, very rare, the left hand side of this he-she is male (13 antennal segments / lacking pollen carrying hairs on the legs) and the right it female with 12 antennal segments and pollen carrying scopa on the hind legs. The differences are most obvious on the face shot and the underside shot.

Habropoda excellens, Three spotted Digger Bee, specimen collected by K. Moredock in Utah, USADigger Bees in the genus Habropoda occur around the world across middle northern latitudes and are usually plant specialists, collecting pollen from only a small number of all the plant species that might be available.

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Once of our dirtball species. Common, found almost everywhere including people's gardens and in our agricultural fields. This is group (Halictus) if often identifiable in the males by the the dark spot/section on the outer face of the hind tibia.

Once of our dirtball species. Common, found almost everywhere including people's gardens and in our agricultural fields. This is group (Halictus) if often identifiable in the males by the the dark spot/section on the outer face of the hind tibia.

Bees of Bryce Canyon...yep, plenty of different kinds of bees in this National Park including this darling but drab Halictus farinosus. Photography by Brooke Alexander. Photography Information: 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.

Gynandromorph. Park male. Part Female. Intersex. We run into these periodically. Maybe something like once every 25,000 specimens or so. This one is Halictus ligatus and was collected by Sara Bushman from Maine as part of her studies of coastal bees. This specimen is a hodge-podge of male and femaleness.

Halictus ligatus. One of the crow bees of the North America. It occurs almost everywhere and remains common in urban and disturbed sites, where it is just fine with gathering pollen from alien weeds and flower beds.

A relatively new invader to North America. Unlike most of the other invasive bees, this is a ground nester, most of the others nest in holes and likely come over as nest stowaways in shipping containers and dunnage.

Another set of shots of a masked bee from the Adirondack Mountains. This is a northerish bee...it extends south, but only along the Appalachians. Most of the females (as in this one) have a bit of yellow on the tip of the clypeus. Not uncommon, look for them on flat topped flowers such as Queen Anne's lace. The look is more wasp than bee however.

In rough translation this would be the "Florida Masked Bee." Tiny, grain of rice things, and usually mistaken for wasps as they carry their pollen internally rather than in their body hairs like other bees. Thus they have reverted to the wasp shape from whence bees came.

In rough translation this would be the "Florida Masked Bee." Tiny, grain of rice things, and usually mistaken for wasps as they carry their pollen internally rather than in their body hairs like other bees. Thus they have reverted to the wasp shape from whence bees came.

In rough translation this would be the "Florida Masked Bee." Tiny, grain of rice things, and usually mistaken for wasps as they carry their pollen internally rather than in their body hairs like other bees. Thus they have reverted to the wasp shape from whence bees came.

New State Record for Maryland, April 2012 Collected on Willow blooms in Dorchester County....a very rarely collected bee east of the Mississippi. I don't know any recent records

Morris Arboretum, Philadelphia Pennsylvania, non-native species, collected by Stephanie Wilson

For some reason this species, Hylaeus leptocephalus, one of the masked bees, is one of the first non-native bees ever detected in the Americas. Oddly, it was first detected in the Dakotas around 1900. There must be a good story there, but we don't know what it is.... Reasonably common now, but mostly in disturbed, urban environments.