Images

Corn Destructor! Not the beautiful form pictured here, but her rapacious teenagers, who tresspass, and just trash fields of corn, hide as pupae and repeat the whole cycle. Oh BTW this is the Fall Armyworm. Spodoptera frugiperda. Quite pretty really.

Cicindela scutellaris - the Festive Tiger Beetle, found on top of a butte in Badlands National Park that had ancient windblown sand at its crest, very different from the rest of the gumbo soils of the park. Here this sand specialist can build its long burrows. Experimenting with using Black Velvet as a background ...

I love bird feet...Here is the curved, plated, semi-reptilian presentation of a lost dinosaur in the form of a Field Sparrow that lost its life running into a window at night in Washington D.C. during migration.

Not 100% sure about this one, but seems likely that it is Cimbex americana, the elm sawfly, but in any case, quite the boss sawfly. There is something interesting going on here. If you meet some insects at a party and ask the question: Insect, show me your fluorescent orange parts they will only show you their antennae and their tarsal segments. Why?

Destroyer of Ash, this is Agrilus planipennis an invasive Buprestid that has invaded North America where it feeds on Ash. trees. At this point all ash trees in North America are threatened and could ecologically eliminate them from North American forests. On the other hand it is a beautiful Buprestid beetle that simply was brought to the wrong place.

Entylia carinata, arrayed in pits and prominances, the Keeled Treehopper is a mighty beast up close. Collected in Upper Marlboro, Maryland

A nest parasite...an invader of other bees nest's ... eggs are laid and the host's young killed and food eaten. In this case the host if Colletes latitarsis. This rather beat up specimen comes from Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge....paid for with lots of donations to the mosquito population on the refuge. Photography by Ashleigh Jacobs.

Collected in South Dakota in Badlands National Park, this tiny nest parasite of Colletes is the first record for the state. Amber Reese took the pictureCanon Mark II 5D, Zerene Stacker, 65mm Canon MP-E 1-5X macro lens, Twin Macro Flash, F5.0, ISO 100, Shutter Speed 200

Cumberland Island National Seashore, Georgia...A pretty little nest parasite of Colletes bees

Cumberland Island National Seashore, Georgia...A pretty little nest parasite of Colletes bees

A small heath, the trailing arbutus. Often thought to be rare, but more often than not simply overlooked. Attracts pollinators like the rest of the grouip. Epigaea repens. Specimen and photo by Helen Lowe Metzman.

Ahhhhhh, something new under the sun. Alma Solis a USDA entomologist showed me these specimens of the smallish moth Epitamyra thermalis. After finding essentially nothing about these moths and the super cool sound structure on these male's wings I wrote Alma and she replied: "Sam, you are venturing into scientific NEW information.

Ahhhhhh, something new under the sun. Alma Solis a USDA entomologist showed me these specimens of the smallish moth Epitamyra thermalis. After finding essentially nothing about these moths and the super cool sound structure on these male's wings I wrote Alma and she replied: "Sam, you are venturing into scientific NEW information.

Eriotremex formosanus, A giant introduced horntail from Asia found in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, TN

That Badlands...of South Dakota. One of my favorite places and filled with bees! Here is Eucera aragalli from Badlands National Park. Juking on those colors. Photography by Dejen Mengis.

Previously seen on this Flickr site was the male of Eucera dubitata, now here is the female. The genus is a spring one and as you can see from its longggg tongue it has the equipment to harvest nectar and pollen from long corolla-ed flowers.

An uncommon spring Eucerine bee, in this case, from SE Ohio near the West Virginia border. Collected by MaLisa Spring and photographed by Brooke Alexander.

Some ratty specimens of Eucera dubitata from West Virginia. Photos by Kamren Jefferson.

They don't call them long-horned bees for nothing' ... This is the male of an obscure Eucerine, captured in a lovely residual Long-leaf managed forest with much of its original flora...and much of its original bee fauna too... collected by Sabrie Breland from Ichuaway, Georgia near the Florida Border.

A nicely arrayed longhorned bee from southern Georgia. It is rare that we get to see a bee so nicely laid out. Of the tens of thousands of these that we process each year most are hair-matted, covered in pollen or dirt, have crumpled wings, and are nowhere near this symmetrical. What a delight.Collected by Sabrie Breland in cool whispering Pines of the lowlands.

Collected by Dave Gruenewald from Emory in the southern piney forests of Georgia, where he is studying forestry regeneration impacts on native bees. This is a rare species, located only in the deep south along the coastal plain, perhaps it is not so rare as we think, but that so few people collect and study bees in this area.