Images

Another bee from Kruger National Park in South Africa. This is Xylocopa caffra...the male. Note how it is all yellow? Well the female is almost all black with some blocks of yellow on the abdomen. In a number of Carpenter bees on a number of continents this pattern repeats...while in other Carpenter bees the male and female are both dark.

Another bee from Kruger National Park in South Africa. This is Xylocopa caffra...the male. Note how it is all yellow? Well the female is almost all black with some blocks of yellow on the abdomen. In a number of Carpenter bees on a number of continents this pattern repeats...while in other Carpenter bees the male and female are both dark.

Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge is a good place for Svastra obliqua. This is the male which was quite common around their pollinator garden at their visitor's center. Nice to have mini-wildlife as well as macro-wildlife taken care of at a refuge.Pictures by Hannah Sutton and Ashleigh Jacobs, Photoshopping by Elizabeth Garcia.

North Carolina, Wake County, collected by Adrian L. Carper

ns, Twin Macro Flash in Styrofoam Cooler, F5.0, ISO 100, Shutter Speed 200 USGSBIML Photoshopping Technique: Note that we now have added using the burn tool at 50% opacity set to shadows to clean up the halos that bleed into the black background from "hot" color sections of the picture.

Unknown Deer Fly form near Bowie Maryland

Unknown Deer Fly form near Bowie Maryland

A black and white version of the previous picture...can't decide if I should have left that straying barb on the left in there or not...it adds a lot of tension to the picture...perhaps too much.

Membracid from Dominican Republic floating in hand sanitizer in a quartz cuvette

Vespula squamosa - The Southern Yellow Jacket....the two yellow racing stripes on the top of the thorax (scutum) are diagnostic in the SE U.S. Collected by Tim McMahon from Talbot County, Maryland

Yucca filamentosa. A wild eastern Yucca. I always thought the odd Yucca in some beatup corner of the East was an escapee. But this is not the case as you can see here. Pollinated by moths, not bees. Specimen and picture by Helen Lowe Metzman.

Zanysson - A crabronid wasp. Most of the stinging wasps are fairly badass in aspect, to use a technical term. This one certainly is worthy of a tattoo on someone's chest and was collected by Merle Shepherd from Spring Island along the coast of South Carolina. It is unclear which species this is, but perhaps someone will reveal that to us.

Zanysson - A crabronid wasp. Most of the stinging wasps are fairly badass in aspect, to use a technical term. This one certainly is worthy of a tattoo on someone's chest and was collected by Merle Shepherd from Spring Island along the coast of South Carolina. It is unclear which species this is, but perhaps someone will reveal that to us.

White-throated Sparrow, Died in downtown Washington D.C. in the fall or spring of 2012 from striking a building at night. Retrieved by the Lights out DC program

White-throated Sparrow, Died in downtown Washington D.C. in the fall or spring of 2012 from striking a building at night. Retrieved by the Lights out DC program

Xylocopa cubaecola, female, on the base of Guantanamo Bay, GTMO, Cuba, endemic Cuban Carpenter Bee

Guantanamo Bay, Cuba

A lovely yellow yellow yellow Carpenter Bee from India. The brown wings and yellow hairs show extremely good taste. From the Packer Lab 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.

A lovely yellow yellow yellow Carpenter Bee from India. The brown wings and yellow hairs show extremely good taste. From the Packer Lab 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.

Here is a lovely carpenter bee from the southeastern part of the U.S., a bit smaller than X. viginica and as far as I know nests in twigs rather and does no damage to timbers (not that X. virginica does much in the way of real structural damage).

Xylocopa mordax, female, Dominican Republic, March 2012