Images

The Virginia Carpenter bee. The bane of those who build with Cedar Siding, have redwood picnic tables, or who have barns made with softwoods. Other than the recently invaded Lithurgus chrysurus (we certainly will hear more about this wood eater in coming years), this is our only bee int he East that regularly makes holes in wooden structures.

Xylocopa sonorina, Female, March 2012, Hawaii, Oahu

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Sonchus species, Beltsville, Maryland, August 2012

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

Common Pricklyash. Zanthoxylum americanum. Very rare now in Maryland. Specimen and photograph 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.

Zizia - Every garden deserves a set of plant folks from the carrot family. This is Golden Alexanders, it even comes with a bee that only uses its pollen to feed its young, Andrena ziziae. Flat-topped and little flowers, this creates the perfect feeding platform for little wasps and bees. Check out the rest of the family and include them in your gardens too.

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

Unknown Wasp, Yellowstone National Park, 2012

Dominican Republic - Presumably an Ensign wasp?floating in hand sanitizer in a quartz cuvette

Just a white oak leaf bud from several years ago. Botanists, at some point, realized that many plants go through a period of time where they have no leaves. So, being clever (and having no leaves to look at) they have devised alternative strategies to identifying plants using things like buds, leaf scars, patterns of pith, color of bark, and so forth.

Peromyscus leucopus, the white-footed mouse, this one dead from one of the many traps in our lab, where we fear the number of bees one mouse can eat in a day. Photo by Hannah Sutton.

A couple more prickly ash photos taken by Helen Low Metzman.

Xenoglossa strenua. People who know something about native bees often know about the "Squash Bee" Peponapis pruinosa. However, there are other native squash bees, and here is one. This is Xenoglossa strenua.

Xenoglossa strenua. People who know something about native bees often know about the "Squash Bee" Peponapis pruinosa. However, there are other native squash bees, and here is one. This is Xenoglossa strenua.

A lovely dark Xylocopa from Kyrgyzstan with shimmering dark iridescence of wing and abdomen. 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.

Of all the pictures I took up at Laurence's this is by far my favorite. I love the geometry, the complementary colors, the contrast between the texture of the abdomen and the texture of the wing, and just the lushness of the whole thing. Here we have a Xylocopa from Kyrgyzstan to thank.

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.

More slime mold action from the Adirondacks...in this case a miniforest of Stemonitis sporangia corn dogs emerging from a rotting log after some good all day rain action. What if we just did a 3D print of these bad boys and made them 100 feet tall and put them in the middle of the Hudson?

Experimental Shot. One of the problems with macro photography is that sometimes your subject is too big. In this case this lovely very large scarab beetle would not fit in the field of view of my MPE65. I could switch to a 100mm lens but I would then lose a lot of lovely detail.