Images

The Cranefly Orchid - Pollinated by night flying moths who come for a snack and instead get an orchid pollinia (sack of pollen) glued to their eye. Tricky. A relatively common orchid and one that seems ok with relatively recent forests emerging from some man made disturbance.

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...

Another view of the lovely golden tortoise beetle. Upper Marlboro, Maryland. 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, link to a .pdf of our set up is located in our profile

Ah, how lovely small things can be. Here is a Torymus species (thanks Matt Buffington for the looky id while you were in the lab). Often parasitizing gall forming wasps, you can see from its ovipositer that something interesting is happening out there in nature land.

Ah, how lovely small things can be. Here is a Torymus species (thanks Matt Buffington for the looky id while you were in the lab). Often parasitizing gall forming wasps, you can see from its ovipositer that something interesting is happening out there in nature land.

Upper Marlboro, MD, May 2012This species has a common name:Dimorphic Tosale Mothbut it also has been named by the Doug InkleyThe George Washington Moth

Here you go. A member of a small group of bees that live on the U.S./Mexico border. They have been there for years, moving back and forth parasitizing Hersperapis and Conanthalictus bees in the area. Small things, usually with reddish backends. Collected by Tim McMahon or Don Harvey on one of their expeditions to Arizona.

Trachelipus rathkii, sowbug, woodlice, Beltsville, Maryland, taken in a cuvette filled with hand sanitizer

Who doestn't love a nicely striped bee? Truchusa dorsalis on display here with stripes made on Fort A.P. Hill in Virginia and later picked up by the Virginia Heritage Group in their surveys. This is a new state record, somewhat bridging records in the Pine Barrens of NJ and those of the North Carolina.

Who doestn't love a nicely striped bee? Truchusa dorsalis on display here with stripes made on Fort A.P. Hill in Virginia and later picked up by the Virginia Heritage Group in their surveys. This is a new state record, somewhat bridging records in the Pine Barrens of NJ and those of the North Carolina.

Who doestn't love a nicely striped bee? Truchusa dorsalis on display here with stripes made on Fort A.P. Hill in Virginia and later picked up by the Virginia Heritage Group in their surveys. This is a new state record, somewhat bridging records in the Pine Barrens of NJ and those of the North Carolina.

This is one special bee. We did a paper a few years ago and went through the 800 or so bees found east of the Mississippi River and looked for those that had not been found in the last 20 years. This was one of them! So Sabrie Breland collected this special bee in South Georgia near the border with Florida.

This is one special bee. We did a paper a few years ago and went through the 800 or so bees found east of the Mississippi River and looked for those that had not been found in the last 20 years. This was one of them! So Sabrie Breland collected this special bee in South Georgia near the border with Florida.

This is one special bee. We did a paper a few years ago and went through the 800 or so bees found east of the Mississippi River and looked for those that had not been found in the last 20 years. This was one of them! So Sabrie Breland collected this special bee in South Georgia near the border with Florida.

Sandhills National Wildlife Refuge, South Carolina

If you find a Trachusa in the East, and probably if you find it anywhere, you are a good keeper of the land. These species and T. ridingsii in particular have just disappeared from much of our landscape. Unlike many other bees they don't integrate well with urban, suburban, agricultural interfaces as currently wrought.

If you find a Trachusa in the East, and probably if you find it anywhere, you are a good keeper of the land. These species and T. ridingsii in particular have just disappeared from much of our landscape. Unlike many other bees they don't integrate well with urban, suburban, agricultural interfaces as currently wrought.

If you find a Trachusa in the East, and probably if you find it anywhere, you are a good keeper of the land. These species and T. ridingsii in particular have just disappeared from much of our landscape. Unlike many other bees they don't integrate well with urban, suburban, agricultural interfaces as currently wrought.

Sexy Cerambycid beetles from Kruger National Park Genus: Tragocephala. Check how the eye wraps around the antennae and peeks out atop the head. Makes those plain old round vertebrate eyes seem limiting. Photograph by Anders Croft.

Sexy Cerambycid beetles from Kruger National Park Genus: Tragocephala. Check how the eye wraps around the antennae and peeks out atop the head. Makes those plain old round vertebrate eyes seem limiting. Photograph by Anders Croft.

Cast skin, Maryland, collected by Richard Orr