More Bugs

A few more bugs from our trip.

A very shiny greeen (cuckoo?) wasp.

We saw a number of hairstreak (and elfin) butterflies.

I was taking a picture of a flower when I noticed this Mormon Cricket at the base. They're actually not crickets, they're a kind of katydid. The "Mormon" name comes from the "miracle of the gulls". The long ovipositer makes this one a female.

The orange color caught my eye on this Bumblebee-like Digger Bee. (It's on Showy Milkweed which attracts lots of bees and wasps.) It mimics more dangerous bumblebees.

I think this is a Cactus Chimney bee. It's on a Prickly Pear cactus flower.

I'm not sure what type of wasp this is. The interesting part was that it was robbing nectar from the flower. The implicit trade between flowers and pollinators is that pollinators get nectar and pollen, and the flowers in turn get pollinated. But in this case the wasp is biting into the base of the larkspur flower to get the nectar, without any chance of pollinating the flower.

I love the shiny metallic color of these Cobalt Milkweed Beetles (also on Showy Milkweed).

This Spotted Tree Borer flew over and landed on our picnic table. It stayed long enough for me to run to the car and get my camera and take a few shots, then it flew away. (It may have been disappointed to find the picnic table was made of plastic, not wood!

There are about 10,000 species of mammals and 350,000 species of beetles. As J.B.S. Haldane is known as saying, God seems to have an inordinate fondness for beetles.

See all the photos in this batch