Images

Here is one of the native azaleas...with the lovely name Pinxter (Rhododendron periclymenoides).

Woof. Not great pictures of a bit of beat up bee, but it is a rare bee and I think the only one I have ever gotten. In this case these came from Shelby Wilson who did surveys of bees on Isle Royale in Lake Superior. A very cool place. Very canadian in bee aspect.

Number 2 of 3 new state records of Carabid (ground beetle) records for Maryland. This Stenocrepis mexicana beetle was found by Brent Steury while doing a survey of the Cove Point liquid natural gas terminal on the Western Shore of the Chesapeake Bay in Calvert County. Isn't it nice that studies these things?

A very very variable in color (polymorphic) species in the stinkbug family from South America. I have a couple of other examples, but there seems to be no limit to the color variations this species has. How lovely and mysterious. Not sure what the research is on this thing, but it must be an interesting story.

One of the southern Svastra species. Big Bee, uncommon and probably restricted to areas of relatively intact native flora, which are getting to be harder and harder to find.

Large bees, rivaling bumblebees, the presence of these bees are indicators of high quality natural habitats, this group does not do well in human environments and does not invade urban areas.

Svastra, a good name I think for this moody genus, I am not sure of the derivation, but these are large, mostly uncommon bees that inhabit high quality diverse open bioscapes. They do not occur in cities. This species is especially dark and is at the southern edge of its range at Canaveral National Seashore in Florida.

While most people would not necessarily think about this very much (beer, for example, is thought about a lot more), many bees are specialists on Cacti. Here is Svastra duplocincta collected in Pima County, Arizona...very likely on a cactus by either Tim McMahon or Don Harvey (my notes are not with me).

Beautiful, but scary. This is the Spotted Lanternfly (Lycorma delicatula). An impressive 2 inch exotic Fulgorid type thing from China and Southeast asia, it is a bark sucker and can do tremendous damage to smooth barked woody plants.

Claytonia virginica - Spring Beauty, Patuxent River Bottomlands, Upper Marlboro, Maryland. 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.

Sandhills National Wildlife Refuge, South Carolina, nest parasite of other bee species

Stelis australis....A nice colorful Stelis from the pinelands of Georgia. This group is likely to be a nest parasite (lays eggs in nests of other bees) of species in the uncommon Megachilidae bee genus Trachusa, so overall a very rare bee on an uncommon to rare host. Nice to see that such things still exist. This one was collected by Sabrie Breland.

Stelis australis....A nice colorful Stelis from the pinelands of Georgia. This group is likely to be a nest parasite (lays eggs in nests of other bees) of species in the uncommon Megachilidae bee genus Trachusa, so overall a very rare bee on an uncommon to rare host. Nice to see that such things still exist. This one was collected by Sabrie Breland.

Stelis labiata "“ A female of a very rare species found, in this case in the sandhills of North Carolina, collected by Heather Campbell

Stelis labiata "“ A male of a very rare species found, in this case in the sandhills of North Carolina, collected by Heather Campbell

Stelis labiata "“ A male of a very rare species found, in this case in the sandhills of North Carolina, collected by Heather Campbell and photographed by Amber Joyce.

A new species record for Maryland collected by Richard Orr in the Catoctin Mountains. We will be looking into it over the next few weeks.

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

Acer saccharinumDetail along the trailing edge of the samara.

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.

A weed that irritates everyone, thorny, leaves are shot through with holes from being fed on by many of its personal insect hosts, but...this is a native plant, related to tomatoes and T'ai Roulston's work in Shenandoah Valley shows that for some bumblebees this is the main pollen source in the summer.