Images

A small Centris species taken by Sara Prado in Puerto Rico

A small Centris species take by Sara Prado in Puerto Rico

Dominican Republic, Centris species female,

Dominican Republic, Centris species female,

Dominican Republic, Centris species female,

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.

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.

Buttonbush, Cephalanthus occidentalis. Likes its feet wet, bumper crops of bees (particularly Hylaeus) and butterflies. No specialists in the bee arena, but adds pollen and nectar in wetlands. Photo and specimen by Helen Lowe Metzman.

White Oak Borer (Goes tigrinus) - larvae live in living white and related oaks - , but which one? Where is a Coleopterist when you need one... Collected by Bob Trumbule, fab entomologist for the state of Maryland in our building (likely because there elements of dead wood present).

White Oak Borer (Goes tigrinus) - larvae live in living white and related oaks - , but which one? Where is a Coleopterist when you need one... Collected by Bob Trumbule, fab entomologist for the state of Maryland in our building (likely because there elements of dead wood present).

And now....Ceratina from Asia! Vietnam to be exact. The overall shape and aspect of Ceratinaness remains but what lovely facial colors or maculations as the old literature calls them. A betting person would use the patterns of past specimens to guess that the female will have fewer maculations, but the stripe running down the center of the clypeus will remain.

Tiny, Tiny, Ceratina arizonensis from the Zuma Canyon in the Santa Monica National Recreation Area in coastal California. Almost all Ceratina have that white stripe (or some greater embellishment thereof) on their face and are relatively hairless, perhaps because of their lifestyle in the pith of plant stems or...perhaps not.

A blueberry specialist. Look how long that face is...The space between the mandible and the eye is what bee heads often use to separate species. This Colletes validus has a huggggggeeee malar space...other Colletes species essentially have none, the mandible being directly at the base of the eye. Why?

Look at the veryyyyyyy long distance from the bottom of the compound eye to the mandible base (technically this is called the malar space). Few bees show this long a head and it is nearly distinctive within Colletes at least in the north. This is a species that likes to hang out around blueberries and other Vaccinium type things.

Bedraggled Bee. We picture here Colletes willistoni, with mussy hair, something Colletes is prone to. For me this is mostly irritating, in that they don't clean up well for their pictures, for the bees, well, its hard to say, they are an old lineage and apparently great looking hair under all conditions was not their evolutionary priority.

Female Colletes compactus

South Carolina

Collops bipunctatus, taken from flowers in Badlands National Park, South Dakota

A tiny little bee from Arizona. Conanthalictus is usually a specialist on small low growing plants in the waterleaf family. Collected by Tim McMahon or Don Harvey on one of their expeditions to the region. Note the lovely shades of the wing coloration that pop when you use a black background.

What a little lovely parasitic wasp in the Chalcididae clan. This one appears to be Conura dema, based on picture booking from bugguide.net. I am not sure if that is true or not, but it is a very reasonable match, but I will let experts determine and validate that identification. Captured at Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge in Dorchester County, Maryland.

Specialist: Colletes latitarsis, a lover of ground cherry,Physalis, a weedy plant, but a flowering one, and a native one, with its own set of the species that appear to only gather pollen and perhaps nectar from its flowers. This plant though is not uncommon, and occurs in many of the gardens.