I love encountering entirely new species! I had never heard of an acrobat ant before I got a photo of this little (3mm!) lady. Acrobat ants get their name from their ability to raise their abdomen over their thorax and head when disturbed (you can kind of see this one lifting her butt at me…
Tag: black
Calligrapha Beetle
Why is there not more written about this family of darling little beetles? Something like 80 species and subspecies of leaf beetles in the genus Calligrapha roam from Canada to Argentina, each one uniquely striped, splashed, or spotted black against a vividly colored, often red, green, or gold, background. They are sometimes pestiferous and their…
Striated Lichen Moth
You’d think there’d be pages and pages written on this glorious little orange and black fellow, but no: Wikipedia has three whole sentences on the striated lichen moth (Cisthene striata). They’re about 10mm long, and differentiated from a number of similarly patterned species by the light gray stripes on the forewings. The Peterson Field Guide…
Cotton Stainer
This brilliant red and black insect looks a lot like a red stink bug. It is in fact a “cotton stainer”, Dysdercus suturellus. These insects used to be great pests of cotton (they were named for their habit of staining cotton an indelible yellow brown), but now, due in part to improved pest control and…
Root Maggot Fly
This is one of those species where the scientific web sites say almost nothing, other than to argue over semantics and exactly who named the insect last, and the pest control sites have a lot to say. (What can I say, nobody seems to want to write a PhD thesis on small, feces-eating flies.) As…
Black Horse Fly
Anyone who has owned livestock will know this inch-long black fighter jet of a fly. Black horse flies (Tabanus atratus) are huge, loud, and persistent attackers of mammals in the females’ quest to get a blood meal in order to reproduce. They fear no swatter. A million years ago, I worked at a wolf sanctuary,…
Punctured Tiger Beetle
The punctured tiger beetle, Cicindela punctulata, is common throughout North America and is primarily recognized by the twin lines of indentations on either side of its midline. It is also known as the sidewalk tiger beetle. Tiger beetles are a group of more than 2,600 known species and subspecies living all over the world. They…
Saltmarsh Moth Caterpillar
This little fellow is (very probably) a Saltmarsh Moth caterpillar (Estigmene acrea), but again this is one of those “identifications” wherein this could also be any one of a number of closely related species. Below, an earlier instar salt marsh moth caterpillar does an amazing yoga pose: The just-hatched caterpillars are mostly yellow, with little…
Milkweed Assassin Bug
A handsome milkweed assassin bug (Zelus longipes), wandering along one of the tombs in St. Louis Cemetery No 1 in New Orleans. These brightly-colored, long-legged insects are ambush hunters, believe it or not, which stroll idly along foliage, reaching out to grasp prey with their front legs. Most species of Zelus seem to be cryptically…
Dark Flower Scarab
A plain little beetle with a beautiful name — meet Euphoria sepulcralis, the dark flower scarab beetle. Common throughout Florida and the east coast; an occasional pest if enough of them get together. This one is about 14mm long.