Images

Found on Eastern Neck Island National Wildlife Refuge in their lovely lovely native plant garden and fields. This large Eucerine bee is a good indicator of high quality habitat. May we see them in more than places with this bee.

Sawfly, Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming

Interplanetary alien space ship or spadix of Skunk Cabbage (Symplocarpus foetidus). You decide. Picture by Helen Lowe Metzman.

Unknown Syrphid fly from last fall. Beltsville, MD Canon Mark II 5D, Zerene Stacker, 65mm Canon MP-E 1-5X macro lens, Twin Macro Flash, F5.0, ISO 100, Shutter Speed 200, link to a .pdf of our set up is located in our profile

Unknown Deer Fly form near Bowie Maryland

Cuba, GTMO, Guatntanamo Bay Naval Base

I am 80% sure this is a just hatched spring peeper tadpole. This is taken at 10x so it is very very tiny, the peepers are still calling and little else has started to breed or would be this small.

Tarsalia persica, Persian Asymmetric bee, collected in Iran. 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.

Need an ID Beetle Heads...This is a lovely tortoise beetle that Ashley Bradford showed me at Pickering Creek Audubon Sanctuary BioBlitz where all the it nature heads gathered to talk about how the natural world was going to hell, except for places like Pickering Creek. Plagiometriona clavata from Ash...

More Velvet Ant pictures...who wouldn't want more shots of this Badass Cowkiller? This one from Arkansas sent live in the mail by our correspondent FT. Its good to have such friends. Photos by Wayne Boo.

COWKILLER! Sorry for the capitals, but its seems inevitable. As this glorious large specimen of Velvet Ant demands attention. I haven't tried picking up one of the females, but apparently it is one of the most severely painful stings available. Capture in Badlands National Park in South Dakota.

Anticarsia gemmatalis - Velvetbean Caterpillar - Soybean eater....this species can't overwinter in most of North America but moves north to populate bean and legume fields in large enough numbers to become a major pest, but like our other pesty moths...pretty sharp looking when you get to know them personally. Specimen provided by Benzon Research.

Anticarsia gemmatalis - Velvetbean Caterpillar - Soybean eater....this species can't overwinter in most of North America but moves north to populate bean and legume fields in large enough numbers to become a major pest, but like our other pesty moths...pretty sharp looking when you get to know them personally. Specimen provided by Benzon Research.

Verrucosa arenata, Experimental Shot, Spider in a cuvette filled with hand sanitizer, note reflection within bubble. Identification made by Lady Arachnophile

Vespa crabro - The European Hornet...this one is actually in Europe, Denmark to be exact, where the nature artist, Anne Post's mother found this one dead in her garden. While somewhat beat up, it retains its essence as a well put together as a predator. Photograph by Ashleigh Jacobs or Hannah Sutton.

Yellowstone National Park has wasps. Here is one I'm not sure what species it is, but it struck me as particularly eye-catching and so we took a picture of it. If anyone wants to put a determination on it that would be super wonderful.

Vitis...grapes, one of the wild species in Maryland. Species unknown at this time. Note that bees have little interest in grapes, most, if not all, grapes are self-fertilized so one rarely sees bee visitors here. Picture and specimen by Helen Lowe Metzman in Howard County, Maryland.

Unknown Chalcidoidea Wasp, Timucuan Ecological and Historic Preserve, Florida

I believe this to be a wasp in the Genus Ectemnius, but I don't know for sure as I just am not a wasp expert. This one was collected in the Neck District of Talbot County Maryland a few weeks ago. Photo by Wayne Boo.

Unknown Chalcidoidea Wasp species from Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming

Vespid wasp from Kruger National Park in South Africa. This is one that we see periodically taking nips of nectar from some of the trees we study. No time to look up the species group, but likely it a social species of some kind. Large too, about the size of a bumblebee in length..,Photo by Erick Hernandez.