All Multimedia

Oak Timberworm, Arrhenodes minutus, and an interesting mite on its mid femur, found at my moth light...likely attracted to the area due to the fresh red oak I am adding to the wood pile.

Oak Timberworm, Arrhenodes minutus, and an interesting mite on its mid femur, found at my moth light...likely attracted to the area due to the fresh red oak I am adding to the wood pile.

Oak Timberworm, Arrhenodes minutus, and an interesting mite on its mid femur, found at my moth light...likely attracted to the area due to the fresh red oak I am adding to the wood pile. Note the odd mite appears to be glued to the femur, it was still alive when the picture was taken, but apparently could not leave its host.

Asarum canadense - Wild Ginger. The deep purple/maroon on this bulky little flower tells you that it aims to attract beetles and flies rather than bees. Check out the fine textures to the flower body. To what evolutionary end to the small projects and long white hairs make? Picture and specimen by Helen Lowe Metzman.

Common Milkweed - The primary foodplant in most of the range of the loved-by-all Monarch Butterfly . Also a weed, if you are a wheat farmer, and also something much less common in agricultural landscapes where they dominated in the past. Why? Because we figured out how to create food plants that cannot be killed by herbicides.

Common Milkweed - The primary foodplant in most of the range of the loved-by-all Monarch Butterfly . Also a weed, if you are a wheat farmer, and also something much less common in agricultural landscapes where they dominated in the past. Why? Because we figured out how to create food plants that cannot be killed by herbicides.

Common Milkweed - The primary foodplant in most of the range of the loved-by-all Monarch Butterfly . Also a weed, if you are a wheat farmer, and also something much less common in agricultural landscapes where they dominated in the past. Why? Because we figured out how to create food plants that cannot be killed by herbicides.

Orange in Saturation. No need for Photoshop filters here. This is the orange orange of butterfly weed, Asclepias tuberosa, a magnet for bees and butterflies, but provider only of nectar. Its visitors transfer butterfly weed pollen in sacs that get clipped onto the legs of big visitors when their foot slips into the florets.

Butterfly Weed. The orange trickster. Providing nectar, but instead of edible pollen for a nice bee to eat. Wham. it locks packets of pollen onto the legs of a bee or butterfly and if the bee is strong enough it pulls free to possibly fly off to maybe or maybe not insert those pollinia into another butterfly weed plant.

Orange in Saturation. No need for Photoshop filters here. This is the orange orange of butterfly weed, Asclepias tuberosa, a magnet for bees and butterflies, but provider only of nectar. Its visitors transfer butterfly weed pollen in sacs that get clipped onto the legs of big visitors when their foot slips into the florets.

Orange in Saturation. No need for Photoshop filters here. This is the orange orange of butterfly weed, Asclepias tuberosa, a magnet for bees and butterflies, but provider only of nectar. Its visitors transfer butterfly weed pollen in sacs that get clipped onto the legs of big visitors when their foot slips into the florets.

Another small Ashmeadiella species (A. aridula) again from Claire Kremen's studies. This one's distributions fills the western states but does not leak into Canada and Mexico. I am sure there are stories to tell here, but I basically know that they are small and nest in holes in wood...often using rosin. Photos by Erick Hernandez.

Another small Ashmeadiella species (A. aridula) again from Claire Kremen's studies. This one's distributions fills the western states but does not leak into Canada and Mexico. I am sure there are stories to tell here, but I basically know that they are small and nest in holes in wood...often using rosin. Photos by Erick Hernandez.

Another small Ashmeadiella species (A. aridula) again from Claire Kremen's studies. This one's distributions fills the western states but does not leak into Canada and Mexico. I am sure there are stories to tell here, but I basically know that they are small and nest in holes in wood...often using rosin. Photos by Erick Hernandez.

Here is a bee from the Central Valley of California,part of Claire Kremen's 10 years study of hedgerows as bee repositories in industrial ag lands. Pollen-wise it leans towards composites, and, this is also a bee that can be found all the way to the East Coast... Georgia and North Carolina even. Small so likely often overlooked.

Here is a bee from the Central Valley of California,part of Claire Kremen's 10 years study of hedgerows as bee repositories in industrial ag lands. Pollen-wise it leans towards composites, and, this is also a bee that can be found all the way to the East Coast... Georgia and North Carolina even. Small so likely often overlooked.

Here is a bee from the Central Valley of California,part of Claire Kremen's 10 years study of hedgerows as bee repositories in industrial ag lands. Pollen-wise it leans towards composites, and, this is also a bee that can be found all the way to the East Coast... Georgia and North Carolina even. Small so likely often overlooked.

From Santa Rosa Island , one of the Channel Islands off the coast of Southern California and part of the Channel Islands National Park come this tiny Ashmeadiella.

From Santa Rosa Island , one of the Channel Islands off the coast of Southern California and part of the Channel Islands National Park come this tiny Ashmeadiella. 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.

Laphria posticata. A lot going on here, at least for me, first there is a wonderful aesthetic contrast between the mounds of black clay and the robber fly; the crispness of the angled wings and the just imperfectness of the bilateral symmetry combined with the mirroring of the yellow hairs on the thorax in opposition to those of the abdomen.

Laphria saffrana, a fly, a robberfly to be exact, but a lovely mimic of Yellowjackets. Collected at Hitchiti Experimental Forest, Georgia, in Glycol trap