Arizona: Beetles, Bugs, Birds and more


Most of the park is now under water. The Santa Cruz River broke out its bed and is still feeding the new pond. I guess we'll have out very own Salton See soon.

Butterflies are still very active and concentrate on the few plants that are still in bloom. Fatal Metalmark, Dainty Sulphur, Grass Skippers, Bordered Patch, Checkered Skipper, Pygmy Blue, Painted Lady, Western Whites

I thought that these nymphs are Bird Grasshoppers Schistocerca sp., but most Bird Grasshoppers are adult and laying eggs by now. So maybe this is something else?

Coleomegilla maculata (Spotted Lady Beetle) are often found feeding on pollen but they also seem to be drawn to fresh seeds of grasses and desert broom. I'm not sure if they actually feed on seeds though.

Diabrotica undecimpunctata (Spotted Cucumber Beetle) All winter long these guys are active close to any body of water.

Diabrotica balteata (Banded Cucumber Beetle). This species is relatively rare here.

Condylostylus sp. Dolichopodidae (Longlegged Flie) with prey. These pretty flies were all over the velvety Dature leaves.

Polistes aurifer, a lonely male that had not much energy left. Only the young queens will survive the winter

There was also several rare bird sitings - these geese for example. But they were acting like a bonded pair even though they are two different species. These bonds often form in captivity, so I suspect that they escaped from a zoo

The area where the river broke in

Even after the first chilly November nights, when the temps dropped into the low thirties, there is still insect live along places that have water. I walked the dogs along the Santa Cruz River today, from the Wheeler Taft Library to the Ina Rd overpass. 3 dogs, 2 cameras ....

Petrophila jaliscalis, a little Crambid Moth

Brochymena parva, a Stink Bug

Where grasses overhang the river bank, nearly every blade of grass served as a perch for a Ruby Spot. Mostly males, and they flashed their transparent red wing patches at each other to demand space. When females appeared there were wrestling matches. But a few couples did pair up.

How many Ruby Spots can you count?

Hetaerina americana (American Rubyspot) male

Hetaerina americana (American Rubyspot) pair in tandem position

Stagmomantis carolina (Carolina Mantis)

With all those insects around, the shrike is going to get lucky

Together with Robyn Waayers and Eric Eaton, I am administering a Facebook group about local (SW US and NW Mexico) insects. As winter is slowing the stream of submissions down, I suggested weekly themes which will hopefully more posts of interesting older images.
Of course I contribute too, and I tend to write enough of a background story that a friend called those posts juicy 'mini-blogletts'.
In December I am also very busy with my art business, so I have no time to write a cohesive blog post. So here are the minis!

Pselliopus sp

Assassin Bug (Pselliopus sp.) caught a Mason Wasp (Eumenidae) and kletoparasitic Flies (Milichiidae) are sharing the meal.

You can see the beak of the assassin - through it, the venom and the digestive juices are injected into the prey and the liquefied innards of the wasp are sucked up. External digestion is common in arthropods. Their internal digestive organ is a relatively simple tube.
The flies are drawn to any kind of exposed body fluids of other insects. They are comensales - co-eaters

Stink Bug Perillus splendidus feeding on Leaf Beetle Zygogramma opifera

I was surprised to learn that some of the harmless looking stink bugs are also predators. The have no raptorial arms or velcro feet like most Assassin Bugs, they just spear their prey with their elongate mouth parts.
Sycamore Canyon Pajarita Mts, Santa Cruz County, Arizona...
September 5, 2012

Tylospilus acutissimus

A bug not eating anything in the picture, but an obligatory predator, even if he is a Stink Bug (Pentatomidae)
Many pentatomid species with very acute points at their 'shoulders' (pronotum) are predators.

Calosoma sp. Oxygrilius ruginosus

Calosoma sp. overpowering and then eating a dynastine scarab Oxygrilius ruginosus. Ground beetles in the genus Calosoma are often called Caterpillar Hunters, but they prey on anything of the right size and also scavenge. I think they got their common name in Europe (same genus, different species) where they are rare, but their populations can suddenly explode following a wave of gypsy moth caterpillars.
If you see one, don't touch. Their smell i...s much worse than that of the unrelated pinacate beetle (Eleodes sp.) that is actually called 'Stink Beetle'

.
Anax does not often sit for a photo, but with prey this big he had no choice.
Santa Cruz River at Ina Rd

Marana
Pima Co, AZ
10-21-2009

Our local little fire ants, Solenopsis xyloni feeding on Acoma mixta (scarab beetle)
Our little fire ants are indigenous, not an invasive species, and are everywhere on the desert floor. The are predatory as in the photo, but also collect seeds and will invade a kitchen if sweets are out in the open.
The beetle fell off a wall under a porch light and seemed just clumsy, not injured. But the multitude of ants that was waiting under the light for just such an eve...nt (together with a gecko and several Sonoran Desert Toads). The ants just overwhelmed the beetle. Some ants can bite AND sting, but I don't know about these guys. When they get me, it's more a nuisance than painful, but always a concerted action of several.

Picture Rocks, Pima county AZ, USA
6-25-2014

Stagmomantis limbata feeding on Danaus gilippus, Queen

A Stagmomantis limbata female caught a Queen butterfly and ate it without any ill effects. That seemed somewhat surprising because Monarchs and Queens, whose caterpillars feed on milkweed, are supposedly loaded with toxins, even as adults, and their aposematic (warn) colororation should tell predators to avoid them. Nothing without exceptions?
Tohono Chul Park, Tucson, October

Hippodamia convergens (Convergent Lady Beetle) feeding on Uroleucon helianthicola, Sunflower Aphids on Brittlebush

Surprisingly, nobody has posted a Lady Beetle feeding on aphids yet. Adults and larvae of many species of LBs feed on those little morsels. I have noticed that that is actually not the rule. In many species the larvae or nymphs exploit one food source, and the adults eat a different diet. That makes sense, because that way they do not compete with each other. Also, the growing larvae need protein, but to the adults, whose role is to spread the genes and distribute the population, sugars that are used by flight muscles may be more important than proteins. I guess aphids are full of sugar water from their own diet, and of course also offer protein ....
Picture Rocks, Pima Co, AZ, April 2014

Chauliognathus profundus

Soldier Beetle Chauliognathus profundus feeding on a smaller Chauliognathus sp.
Interestingly, according to literature, adults of our local spp. feed on pollen and nectar. This pregnant female definitely has other cravings. There may also be more to it than just protein hunger.
I have tried to feed Chauliognathus to hungry jumping spiders who refused them while tackling bees of the same size. If Chauliognathus has defensive chemicals, the female may be trying to ...augment her supply before laying eggs (Note: Cantharidine is such a chemical, but was named after these Soldier Beetles by mistake. It is instead found in Blister Beetles).

Canelo Pass Rd, St Cruz Co, AZ USA
9-3-2011

Plega sp. eating a mirid (plant bug)

Plega is a genus of Mantispids or Mantisflies. They have raptorial arms but they are neither Mantis nor Fly, they are related to Antlions and belong to the order Neuroptera
The females have a long, flexible ovipositor - its visible as a banded tail between the wings. The larvae are generalist predators of insect larvae, like solitary bees, paper wasps, etc

This blog is another collage of my posts to our Facebook group SW US Insects and Arachnids. Robyn Waayer chose the theme for this week. I was surprised how many very divers contributions I was able to pull out of my files. even leaving Robber Flies, Bee Flies and Syrphids out because they were represented well enough in other posts.

Cuterebra arizonae, Rodent Botfly

Hill-topping Cuterebra arizonae, Rodent Botfly
9-19-9 pima canyon, Catalinas, Pima Co, AZ
Jeff Boetner det.
'Females typically deposit eggs in the burrows and "runs" of rodent or rabbit hosts. A warm body passing by the eggs causes them to hatch almost instantly and the larvae glom onto the host. The larvae are subcutaneous (under the skin) parasites of the host. Their presence is easily detected as a tumor-like bulge, often in the throat or neck or flanks of the host. The larvae breathe by everting the anal spiracles out a hole (so they are oriented head-down inside the host). They feed on the flesh of the host, but only rarely does the host die as a result.' In some populations 80% of all rodents are parasitized. The drone of these big flies is louder than most insects' flying-sounds

Brachylinga sp. Therevidae (Stiletto Flies)

Therevidae (Stiletto Flies) - genus Brachylinga Sabino Canyon, Pima Co, AZ USA 4/4/2012
Related to Robberflies, Stiletto Flies are less well known. But in dry, sandy areas they are probably ecologically rather important. Their larvae live in sandy soils as arthropod-predators
http://wwx.inhs.illinois.edu/research/therevid

Trichopoda indivisa, (Feather-legged Flies), Tachinidae

Trichopoda indivisa, (Feather-legged Flies), Tachinidae
10-1-2012 Buenos Aires National Wildlife Preserve, Pima Co, AZ, USA
Small brightly-colored flies that frequent flowers. Sexes dimorphic (e.g. abdomen orange in males vs dark or dark-tipped in females). Calypters covered with yellow scales. Distinctive fringe on hind tibiae....
Life history of T. pennipes and T. plumipes in Swan & Papp
Mating may occur near nectar sources (P. Coin, pers. observation). Females hover over plants that attract their hosts (e.g., squash). Eggs are typically laid on underside of host. Only one larva per host will survive, though more than one egg may be laid on a given host. Newly hatched maggot bores into body of host and feeds on host's fluids for about two weeks. Eventually, it grows to almost the size of the host's body cavity. Maggot emerges at III instar, killing the host, and pupates in soil. Adult emerges in ~2 weeks. Second instar larva overwinters in the host's body.
Larval hosts are mostly true bugs (Heteroptera: Coreidae, Pentatomidae, Scutelleridae, Largidae), but also Dissosteira pictipennis (Acrididae), and a mantid (frm Bugguide.net info)

Nemomydas sp

Nemomydas sp. - multiple Males and Female
Catalina State Park, Pima County, Arizona, USA
August 13, 2007

Mydas sp.

Mydas Flies are large, often wasp mimics with prominent, clubbed antennae. They move more slowly than many other flies. Larvae in decaying wood, soil, may be predatory

Neorhynchocephalus sackenii,
Nemestrinidae (Tangle-veined Flies)

Neorhynchocephalus sackenii,
Nemestrinidae (Tangle-veined Flies)
Doug Yanega det.
in Copper Canyon south of the Huachucas, Cochise Co, AZ, Aug 2014
I was In Copper Canyon last August with Arthur V. Evans searching for beetles for his next beetle book, but these flies distracted with their constant loud buzz. Their larvae are parasites of grasshoppers, but some spp. also use scarab beetles as hosts. Supposedly rare in NA, but certainly very common then and there.

Odontoloxozus longicornis (Longhorn Cactus Fly)

Odontoloxozus longicornis (Longhorn Cactus Fly)
Picture Rocks, Pima Co, AZ, March
Larvae in demposing cacti, a typical desert insect

Pseudotephritina sp.

Pseudotephritina Picture winged flies.
On mushrooms in Patagonia Creek Preserve (AZ, Santa Cruz Co) in October

Hermetia illucens (Black Soldier Fly)

Hermetia illucens (Black Soldier Fly)
Tucson
University Blv...
8-15-2011

Larvae live in compost, dung, rotting vegetation and are commercially distributed for composting. Therefore: Wide ranging in Western Hemisphere, also in Australasia, Africa, Japan, Europe.
Interesting: Very rarely, accidentally ingested larvae cause intestinal myiasis in humans and domestic animals.

Thecophora sp. Conopidae (Thick-headed Flies)

Thecophora sp. Conopidae (Thick-headed Flies) Martin Hauser det.
Picture Rocks
4-12-2011

Female Conopids ambush bees or wasps. They attack their targets in mid-air, often tumble to the the ground with it, and drive an egg between the bee’s abdominal segments of the victim. The larva that hatches from the egg then feeds as an internal parasite of the host, eventually killing it in about ten to twelve days. The larva then pupates inside the hollow exoskeleton of its host. Eric had a blog about them: http://bugeric.blogspot.com/…/wasp-wednesday-not-wasp-ii.ht…

Clogmia albipunctata (FilterFly)

Fascinating or not, this little bathroom guest with the suggestive scientific name is also a fly: Clogmia albipunctata (FilterFly)
Originally mostly tropical, now found in human habitats in much of North America. Larvae feed in water with decaying organic matter -- tree holes, stagnant ponds, drains, etc.

Flesh Fly (Sarcophagidae) on a dead dove.

We tend to think of flies as those house flies that are a nuisance and can be a health threat even when they just land on our food. In this blog I've tried to show some of the extreme variety in looks and behavior that really makes flies (Diptera) one of the more interesting orders of insects.

They are certainly among the most important ones to human economy. They transfer diseases, but they also sanitize the environment. They are important pollinators for many generalist plants. As parasites, they control other insect groups that compete with humans for food. Having a short generation sequence and few, nice big chromosomes, Drosophila Fruit Flies were among the most important models in genetic research. With big accessible eyes and large ganglia in their brains, Sarcophaga is used in electrophysiology research and teaching. The list goes on ...

Reminding predators that they taste bad or are armed with venom or toxin, many insects sport bright colors and patterns: aposematic or warning colors.

Convergent Lady Beetle (Hippodamia convergens)
on Kitt Peak, Pima Co, AZ in June

Even the beloved Ladybug is toxic and warns birds not to eat it with its brilliant colors. In addition, for the more olfactory-oriented, it exudes foul smelling yellow heamolymph from its joints when caught and handled. My first memory of insects involves that smell: Adalia bipunctata used to overwinter indoors in Germany, and of course we kids could not leave them alone. But th...ose pretty bugs were nothing you put in your mouth - we knew that as toddlers. Ladybugs tend to congregate in summer in the mountains of AZ, enhancing the impact of the warning, I'm sure. The red is not uniform within members of the same species. Tests have shown that the redder ones were the more poisonous ones. Research also showed that better nutrition in the larval stage made the adult beetles both more red and more toxic. I think the two attributes may be correlated but not causally connected.

Nymphs of the Giant Mesquite Bug (Thasus neocalifornicus)

Nymphs of the Giant Mesquite Bug (Thasus neocalifornicus) enhance the effectiveness of their aposematic pattern and coloring by staying together with 'litter mates' until they are grown. Their deterrent is a row of acid producing glands on their backs.

Aztec Spur-throat (Aidemona azteca) nymph

Some insects are great chemists. They have the metabolic pathways to produce toxins and venoms that they then advertise with warning colors to prevent predators from even TRYING to take a bite. Many insects rely on plants, who are even better chemists, to provide them with toxic substances or at least the precursors of those molecules. The insects ingest the plant tissue or nectar and then sequester the substance to parts of their bodies, often after modifying the original substance for their own purpose. Insect nymphs and larvae often feed on different plants than the adults. So juveniles and adults have access to different plant derived chemicals. Some store enough toxins as larvae to keep the adult supplied. Others don’t. Lacking the chemical protection of the nymphs, the adults wear camouflage.

Aztec Spur-throat (Aidemona azteca) adult

We have a grasshopper in AZ that may be an example, but I cannot find any research papers about it. But take a look at the young Aztec Spur-throat (Aidemona azteca) on the left and compare it to the adult. The nymphs feed on Datura in my photos. I have not seen the adults feed.

Taeniopoda eques (Horse Lubber) female

Our horse lubber shows yellow patterns on black, and when really threatened flash their red hind wings in addition. Are these grasshoppers toxic? Or just using a startle tactic on a predator? I often see them cannibalizing corpses of their own kind. But: I kept a ground beetle in a terrarium. I had found the beetle feeding on a dead Plains Lubber. When I offered a dead Horse Lubber the beetle seemed ready to rather starve than eat that one.

Eleodes sp., Stink Beetle, Pinacate Beetle

The only purpose of warning colors targeting potential predators is to be impressive, recognizable and memorable.
Not all aposematic colorations are geared towards day-active, color-seeing birds, lizards or humans. Many insects are most active during dusk and dawn, the time when 'all cats are gray', meaning that colors become rather invisible. The crepuscular Pinacate or Stink Beetle is solid black. But its habitat has lots of open space with light colored sand. So its black shape stands out very well. The beetle adds an aposematic behavioral signal by standing on its head when threatened. This also allows the content of two big glands that eject at its rear to run down over its whole body. And the collector's hands. The signal of 'big black beetle walking intermittently and tending to stand on its head' is so successful that it is imitated by several non-smelly darkling beetles, a very smelly, but rarer ground beetle, and by big black, flight-less, harmless Cactus Longhorns.

Yellow Jackets and other Vespidae

The copyright holders for the most well known, most feared and most often mimicked aposematic color-pattern are doubtlessly the Vespids. Their trade mark are yellow bands on a darker ground. Their weapon is a modified ovipositor loaded with a cocktail of painful venom. Social wasps are part of this group, so the enforcers of this warning are not just single stingers, but often enraged armies with a nest full of off-spring toprotect. Most of the solitary species can sting, but not with the same vengeance as the social ones. But they are part of the band-wagon of a Muellerian mimicry system. They are armed as well, but the strength of their warning colors is derived from the perceived dangerousness of the entire group. Of course only the females can sting. The males are just protected by looking so similar - they are Batesian mimics of their Amazon-partners

Iron Cross Beetles Tegrodera aloga

At Saguaro National Park West and other places where Wooly Star (Eriastrum diffusum) grows, you may come across aggregations of the Iron Cross Beetles Tegrodera aloga.
A very impressive blister beetles, it seems to be clearly advertising that it is loaded with cantharidin. Horse owners are often alarmed when they see these beetles. But the Ironcross beetle is big and obvious and does not live in meadows where hay is grown. It's the smaller striped Epicauta sp. that sometimes get caught in great numbers in Alfalfa bails and can cause severe poisoning in horses. Harvesting methods that don't allow the beetles to escape are partly to blame.

Rhodobaenus tredecimpunctatus

Rhodobaenus tredecimpunctatus, A weevil on Annual Sunflowers from Benson, AZ. I have never found one, so this is from the Uof A collection. Question: does anyone know of chemical deterrents to predators that the weevil might contain? Or is it a mimicry case? It never reminded me of ladybugs, but all my non-bug-enthusiastic friends immediately called it that.

Tylosis maculatus

Tylosis maculatus, a longhorn beetle (Cerambycidae)
Yavapai County, AZ, July

...

The color is suggestive, so if I had an inexperienced Blue Jay, I would try if the bird would eat the beetle or not. That's how the late Thomas Eisner, the pioneer in the field of chemical ecology, tested many insects before he brought in his colleagues from biochemistry to isolate potentially bad tasting or toxic chemicals.
The beetle lives on Mallows with mostly orange flowers, so the coloration could also be cryptic. But Mallows are also full of phytotoxins, some used in herbal medicine, some outright poisonous to grazing cattle (central nervous system). So the beetles may sequester those chemicals to become impalatable.

Tetraopes spp., the four-eyed milkweed longhorns

Since Tetraopes, the four-eyed milkweed longhorn, has been mentioned here a couple of times, here are some AZ species. They are rather host specific, picky even among different milkweed species. Thin MW vines host the smaller beetle species, juicy big-leafed ones the bigger T. femorata. There are still new small ones to be described.
One of my beetle collages photographed from living specimens

Lycus sanguineus

Lycus sanguineus, June, Florida Canyon, Pima Co, AZ
Quoting EOL: The lycids, or net-winged beetles, are soft-bodied beetles, presenting aposematic colors and high levels of toxins, known as center models in mimetic rings (Marshall and Poulton 1902; Shelford 1902; Guenther 1931; Darlington 1938; Linsley et al. 1961; Moore and Brown 1981). BTW, their close relatives, the fireflies, are just as toxic. Many keepers of lizards found this out. Inexperienced tropical lizards will ingest them and die!
Lycids often aggregate in great numbers to mate. In Madera Canyon you can find them swarming around oaks, and in the desert a different species often covers certain blooming mesquite trees. As the neighboring trees usually have no visitors at all, I assume that clouds of pheromones are bringing the beetles together.

The Tarantula Hawks, a common name that describes several Pompilid species in the genera Pepsis and Hemipepsis, carries the most painful sting in Justin Schmidt's book. So it's not surprising that this wasp comes with a warning. Or does it? The top one is a Hemipepsis (I think) with orange wings. The next one is a Pepsis grossa, but this is the all black version. Others in the same species have orange wings and the 2 morphs mate and live in the same areas. The third one is a Sphecid, Sphex tepanecus. It's as big as a small tarantula hawk and might also sting, that's why I have included it here. The last one is the Robber Fly Wyliea mydas. It has no sting but a very painful bite. So these huge orange-winged, black-bodied insects are all able to defend themselves. Giving the same kind of warning, they enhance each others effectiveness: Muellerian mimicry. There are many harmless species that also mimic these, but that will be the theme for another week.

Automeris cecrops pamina

When I look through my photos of caterpillar I am tempted to believe that the majority of lepidoptera larvae has aposematic colorations. But most likely I just prefer to photograph the colorful ones.
In this group, we already had a Queen caterpillar that is toxic because its host, milkweed, is full of toxins. Its aposematic colors warn predators not to eat it.
The Io moth caterpillar in this image can inflict harm simply through skin contact, ad it advertises that danger with lively patterns and colors.
'As is true of most species in the Hemileucinae, the caterpillars of this species can produce a nettle-like sting from their spines. Some people show little or no reaction, while others may develop an itchy rash or welts that last for up to a few days, especially on areas of more tender skin. These caterpillars are not considered dangerous, but should be handled with care.' BugGuide info page

Panther-spotted Grasshopper (Poecilotettix pantherinus) subsp. santaclausi

So I wanted to start our new theme with a little bit of holiday cheer (to the SW Insect facebook group but my Grasshopper Santa looks an awful lot like the Grinch. I wonder: did he inspire Dr. Seuss? Anyway, I’m sure that you all have a cricket chirping in some dark corner, some summer grasshopper photos in the sock drawer – let’s see them! Also, grasshoppers, tree crickets and katydids are actually among the few insects that are still out there right now.

Trimerotropis cyaneipennis

Mt Lemmon, 8000 feet elev. Pima Co,, AZ, August

Many Bandwing Grasshoppers are very cryptic while they are sitting quietly. When they fly up, many flash colorful hindwings. This certainly is used as a mating display, but I am sure it also causes a startling response in many predators. Of course it is very difficult to photograph this and I am showing a pinned specimen instead. Those underwing colors are usually part of the species description so it is useful to note them down with your observations, even if you can't get a photo

Our 3 Arizona species of Insara: Insara covilleae on Creosote, Insara on Mesquite, Insara tesselata on Juniper

I am always amazed how many of the caterpillars, stink bugs, beetles, leafhoppers on juniper and mesquite are using a similar shape dissolving technique: they are green with white or silver markings. That coloration hides them amazingly well among those small leaves and leaflets where one would expect to see insects of any color to stand out as big dark blobs

Bootettix argentatus (Creosote Bush Grasshopper)

Also well hidden by those white markings that look just like the glossy spots of the creosote leaves or the space between the leaves.
Its range is basically the same as Creosote Bush (Larrea) in North America from western Texas and New Mexico to California, and southward. A vegetarian that CAN digest all the toxic ingredients of Creosote might as well be completely specialized on it.

Prorocorypha snowi (Snow's toothpick grasshopper)
Montosa Canyon, Santa Cruz County

Known only from "sky island" mountans west of the Continental Divide in southeastern Arizona and Sonora. It lives in tall bunch grasses in moist pockets in the lower elevations of those mountains There is a similar, not quite as elongate species, Paropomala wyomingensis that occurs more widely. Apparently overwinters as eggs, hatching in spring, with adults in summer and into autumn.

Paratettix aztecus (Aztec Pygmy Grasshopper) Sabino Canyon

Paratettix mexicanus, Marana

Close to water I often find the smallest of adult grasshoppers, Pygmy Grasshoppers. The characte r to recognize them by is the very elongated pronotum that is tapered and usually covers abdomen. They overwinter as adults, so you may find them at Sabino Creek on warm winter days. They are extremely variable, but we seem to have just 2 species here in AZ.

Syrbula montezuma (Montezuma's Grasshopper), male

Syrbula montezuma (Montezuma's Grasshopper),female

Garden Canyon, Huachuca Mt, Cochise Co, AZ
a species of Slantface Grasshopper,
Southwestern United States: Arizona east to Texas, north to Colorado, and south through much of Mexico. Areas of tall grass in arid grasslands

Melanoplus thomasi (Thomas's Two-striped Grasshopper)

Not all GHs are cryptic and camouflaged: everybody knows the fantastic Rainbow GH, but even some Spurthroats are amazingly colorful, at least out here, in the Southwest.
M. thomasi can be abundant in late autumn in relatively moist, lush, weedy meadows. Wide spread: Coast to coast across southern Canada and most of the US except Florida, south Atlantic and Gulf coastal plain, and southwestern arid regions. Perhaps into northernmost Sonora and Chihuahua, Mexico.
Melanoplus thomasi in the southwest is usually bright blue-green with brilliant red on inner hind femur and brilliant red hind tibiae. Other populations just yellowish and brown (sometimes greenish or blackish) but always with two distinct pale yellowish stripes along sides of top

Capnobotes fuliginosus (Sooty Longwing)

Capnobotes fuliginosus (Sooty Longwing) nymph

Florida Canyon. Santa Rita Mts, Santa Cruz Co, AZ, USA
This is a very big katydid that is more carnivorous than other Orthopterans in AZ. While most of them will add protein to their diet when they can, these big guys are active nightly hunters as even the nymph on the right proves. The adults can bite defensively too and, when threatened, do an impressive startle display with their big dark hind-wings.

Stilpnochlora, azteca or S. thoracica Piotr Naskrecki det.

an enormous katydid from Sonora Mexico, May 2014, but also found north of the border. It is much larger than our big Anglewings. The spikes along the hind legs could be a formidable defensive weapon

Arethaea gracilipes Thread-legged Katydid

Canelo Hill, Santa Cruz Co, AZ August
Here is another orthopteran superbly adapted to living in the thin summer grasses. Hiding in plain sight. I have better macro shots, but I like this one because it shows the insect in its 'element'

Gryllus personatus, Badlands Cricket

These are bigger than most other field crickets I have seen...
Picture Rocks
Pima Co, AZ, USA

Dave Ferguson on BugGuide: One of few species usually easily recognized by coloration and pattern. It has a distinctive pattern of dark on tan that varies a bit, but is always basically the same. Individuals may be long-winged or short-winged. They often come to lights, particularly long-winged individuals which can fly. Adults will shed hind wings (not tegmina) when molested, and thus long-winged individuals may become non-winged individuals
The song is a typical Cricket-like chirping, but the frequency and rate of beats make it sound less musical and a bit more "metallic" than most other species of Gryllus.
Habitat :
Mostly open clay, silt, or calcareus areas with light-colored dusty soil. Mostly in desert and dry grassland. Often in "badland" type areas on the Great Plains. They tend to be most often seen living in cracks in the gound, and pouring water into the cracks where you hear them singing is often the easiest way to find them; they often rush out of the cracks.
Season:
Adults are usually seen late spring through summer. Earlier in the south than in the north. Late specimens indicate that there may be a second brood in some regions..

Pristoceuthophilus arizonae Ted Cohn det.,
a Camel Cricket from Mt. Graham, AZ

I know that in many states, especially where there are basements under houses, camel crickets are common and considered undesirable, but here in dry Arizona I see them really rarely and we are usually excited to find one.

Many Orthopterans use songs to claim territories and attract mates. Some are still active at this time of the year. Here is the Christmas song of a Tree Cricket at the Santa Cruz River in Marana

Swaison's Hawks over the grasshopper meadows of Sulfur Springs Valley. Photo Lois Manowitz

Orthoptera are probably one of the most successful groups of animals in the wide grasslands of Southern Arizona, at least considering the biomass that they produce. So it is not surprising that many reptiles, mammals and birds rely on the abundant supply of nutritious prey. Especially impressive are the huge congregations of migrating birds of prey that can be seen feasting in Sulfur Springs Valley in Autumn.

The new year is starting out cold here in Arizona. On the last day of 2014 a storm blew in from the northwest and it rained nearly all day.

On New Year's day we woke up to sunshine and snow on all the mountains around us. So I jumped into the car and headed towards the Sonora Desert Museum that sits just a few hundred feet higher than we in the Tucson Mountains. Before getting there, I turned off Kinney Rd into the Bajada Loop. This is the backdrop of many John Wayne westerns and the series High Chaparral (much of which was actually filmed on land that we now own.) Anyway, this morning it did not look like any Western backdrop.

While I was slowly driving through this winter wonderland, the sun disappeared and fog-banks rolled up the canyons. I could feel the temperature drop. When I got home, we covered some smaller Mexican cacti and aloes with boxes and blankets, but most of our plants are too big to be protected. Anyway, they have already survived the biting frost nights of 2010 and 2012, so it has to get very cold for them to be harmed.

However, I discovered today that a big barrel cactus is collapsing. It grew fast and furiously in the run-off from the roof and I'd always wondered how it could survive repeated flooding - so after this wet year its finally giving up.

Happy 2015!

In 2014 I developed a fondness for shots with diffuse, non-flash lighting. I also moved away from field guide like documentation of local species to more interesting shots.

Diffuse lighting is especially suited to show the true colors of reflective surfaces, and most beetles are shiny.

I try to get images that show some typical behavior, like this predatory stink bug spearing a leaf beetle on its beak

This photo has deep emotional value. My beloved Cody followed me on a pre-sunrise search for blooming Queen of the Night Cacti and happened to walk into the picture. It was our the last walk together and the last photo before he died.

Some delicate little insects are still better photographed under controlled studio conditions

I am breeding big scarabs and the larvae get quite enormous. This Dynastes granti still had to grow for at least another year

A shot that took a lot of patients and many failed attempts: a Leaf-cutter Bee is cutting a perfect circle from a Bell Pepper leaf to use as tapestry in her nest

Simply beautiful: the eggs of a Green Lacewing on a Milkweed flower. Practical too: the hatching larvae may feed on the aphids in the background

Also on Milkweed, Oncopeltus sanguineolentus (Blood-colored Milkweed Bug) a relative of the more common Oncopeltus fasciatus (Large Milkweed Bug)

Some photos might inspire interesting blog stories, like this little wasp in Ichneumonidae Diplazontinae who's host are aphidophagous Syrphidae

Most land insects get around by walking and many by flying. Active flying is usually long-distance and more or less direction controlled and it depends on specialized extremities, with aerodynamic structures and powerful, aerobic muscles that need suitable operating temperatures to function (parachuting spiders are a different story).
Many arthropods have an efficient, simpler way of locomotion: they jump or hop. Jumping is often less directional than flying and may be used as a startling, sudden way to escape from danger, even in insects that are able to fly. But flightless arthropods like spiders may also jump in attacks with great precision. To jump, arthropods may employ their specialized hind-legs, usually elongate and muscular, but there are many other structures that are also used – don’t forget click beetles and spring tails ….. So let’s see where this new theme will get us (this was another week's topic for our Facebook group) – and, by the way, I hope you had a pleasant jump into the New Year 2015!

Lepidocyrtus sp., Slender Springtail

Springtails (Collembola) are no longer considered insects. But they are Hexapoda (have 6 legs) and (probably) closer to insects than Arachnids which our group does include, and they certainly are 'jumping bugs'.
I had never photographed any, so yesterday I grabbed one of our hedgehog cacti that died last year and shook it over a white basin. sure enough, hundreds of 'slender springtails' fell out. They are too small for my camera but I'm showing a shot anyway.
M...ost species of springtails have an abdominal, tail-like appendage, the furcula, that is folded beneath the body to be used for jumping when the animal is threatened. It is held under tension by a small structure called the retinaculum and when released, snaps against the substrate, flinging the springtail into the air. All of this takes place in as little as 18 milliseconds.

Systena sp. Rock Disk Park, Marana, Pima co, AZ November

Within the beetle family of the Chrysomelidae (Leaf Beetles) is a tribe called Alticini (Flea Beetles). The hind-femur of most beetles in this group is enlarged to accommodate big muscles and they can get away with considerable leaps. Some are metallic, some are striped some have spots, but they are all leaf eaters and rather small.

Acanthoscelidius utahensis, Photo by Won Gun Kim

There are not many families of beetles that can jump in the traditional sense, using their legs: D.G. Furth and K. Suzuki. 1992. The independent evolution of the metafemoral spring in Coleoptera. Systematic Entomology 17, 341 -349: “The metafemoral spring jumping organ was known previously only from all Alticinae (Chrysomelidae), one genus of Bruchidae, and two species of Rhynchaeninae (Curculionidae).”""In the Bruchidae the metafemoral spring has been found in one genus Eubaptus. ... The extent to which the metafemoral spring was discovered in the Ceutorhynchinae was unexpected, particularly because only three genera Hypocoeliodes, Aulentes and Acanthoscelidius have been observed to jump." Thank you to Henry Hespenheide for finding the quotation and to Won Gun Kim for the permission to use his weevil photo!

Platycotis vittata (Oak Treehopper)
Molino Basin, Catalina Mts, April

One of my favorite hoppers. They often occur in big groups, and that must look really spectacular. But I have only found single ones in my beating sheet. Maybe most of them are not easily knocked off their branches. They are wide-spread: much of US and Canada / Mex. to Brazil

Antianthe expansa, Keeled Tree Hopper
on Datura, Sabino Canyon, Pima Co, AZ
December

Treehoppers (Membracidae) in the order Hemiptera differ from related families in having a large pronotum that extends back over the abdomen and (often) covers the head; many species appear humpbacked or thorn-like; others have spines, horns or keels

Members of the genus Antianthe are subsocial, you'll find maternal egg guarding and ant-attended nymphal aggregations. They, like all hemiptera, are hemimetabolic. This means that they are undergoing an incomplete metamorphosis without a pupal state. Instead they develop over several instars of nymphs. Adults on the left, nymphs on the right.


Scolopsella reticulata, Alphina glauca, Poblicia fuliginosa, Rhabdocephala brunnea, Acanalonia sp., Poblicia fuliginosa nymph

Very typical jumpers are in several families of the order Hemiptera. My collage shows actually members of a superfamily, Fulgoroidae, the Planthoppers. They can look quite bizarre, especially in the tropics, like the alligator look-a-like, the Lantern Bug. Some of our Arizona ones (my picture) also have moderately fancy head gear and some nymphs can produce fluffy waxy tails ... they are all able to hop, they have piercing sucking mouthparts
and are vegetarians (although the story of the biting Lantern Bug will not die....) I like them very much because they are the life-long specialty of my octogenarian close friend Lois O'Brien who just sent me the most hilarious year-end letter about her ongoing research.

Cat Flea

One of the most well known and athletic jumpers, a circus star, but usually very much despised is the flea.
Siphonaptera (Fleas) » Pulicidae are wingless insects with sucking mouth parts and strong jumping legs.
Living with 5 dogs and 2 cats In Arizona, we had one infestation in 12 years. It meant disinfecting all carpets and dog beds repeatedly and washing 8 animals every second day with flea shampoo. We got rid of that pest and afterwards I have only once seen a single flea - strangely on a white surface, not even on an animal. We were expecting the worst again, but no further signs. Arizona's dry climate and sandy soils are not the 'best' conditions for fleas it seems. Constant vigilance and cleaning also keeps any larvae from growing up because they rely on the excrement of adult fleas for food.

Alaus zunianus (Zuni Click Beetle)
Upper Madera Cny, 8/8/2013

Click Beetles (Elateridae) have no specialized extremities that allow them to jump. Instead, the joint at the union of the prothorax and mesothorax is much more flexible than in most beetles, allowing up-and-down movement of the head/prothorax against the rest of the body. On the underside of that junction, a prosternal spine fits barely into a groove on the mesosternum. Whenever the beetle lies on its back (it often lands like that when threatened and playing dead), it begins to press the thorn against the grove (which has a restricting rim at its entrance), building up potential energy like a coiled spring. When the thorn eventually snaps into the grove, the two jointed body parts perform a sudden movement (click) that catapults the beetle off the ground (hopefully landing right side up) or out of and attackers grasp. If you see one of the large species like this 2 in long Alaus perform the trick, you will agree that this can qualify as jumping.

Bristletail from Peppersauce Canyon, Catalinas, Pima County, Arizona, USA
July 14, 2011

Microcoryphia (Bristletails)
are 'wingless (insects); body cylindrical, brownish or yellowish with darker mottling or irregular pattern; thorax arched dorsally; tip of abdomen with 1 long medial filament and 2 shorter lateral cerci; long thread-like antennae with many segments; eyes large and meet in middle; mandibles articulate at one point only; short lateral styli (rudimentary appendages) on abdominal segments 2-9; able to jump up to 10 cm by snapping abdomenagainst ground' quote from Bugguide.net

Salticus palpalis, the Metallic Clown Jumper, Tucson Mountain Park, February

When arthropods are cute enough for the general public to care, they actually have memorable common names! Meet
Salticus palpalis, the Metallic Clown Jumper
Jumping spiders have typically 3 pairs of eyes. The anterior median eyes (the pair of eyes in the center front) are comparatively very large and give these spiders excellent color vision and a high degree of resolution. The shape of the retinae indicates that these eyes function like tele lenses. Obviously they also provide binocular vision, meaning that the spider can judge distances accurately - a must for a jumping predator. The spiders behave like they are more intelligent than other bugs. I think this impression is partly based on the fact that humans and salticids both are very much vision-oriented and thus seem to understand each others reactions quite well.

Cydia latiferreana (Filbertworm Moth)

You are probably surprised to find a moth under this heading. And our Arizona species Cydia latiferreana (Filbertworm Moth) is really no jumper in any way I know of.
BUT:
Its mexican genus-mate is Cydia deshaisiana, the Jumping Bean Moth. The adult moth of that species does not jump either. But the caterpillar does, sort of: It develops in the bean shaped fruit of a shrub (Sebastiania). When the ripened fruit falls to the ground, it may land in an exposed locatio...n where it gets much too hot for the caterpillar inside. So the caterpillar begins to spasm and buck inside the 'bean'. Since the caterpillar has attached itself firmly to the inside of the bean with silken threads, it is able to move the whole fruit, to make it actually jump. So the bean may eventually end up in a micro climate more suited to the needs of the inhabitant. Or not. But what is there to lose if the stimulus for action is sudden overheating?

Most insects are small and delicious. So their constant problem is how not to be eaten. In our SW Facebook group we already explored aposematic colors in this context. This week it's the opposite strategy: Hiding from predators. We won't be purists. I will include insects that pretend to be parts of plants or other natural structures, even if those are sticking out like thorns. Some people may want to call that mimicry, but I will include them here.

Platycentrus acuticornis Montezuma Wells, Yavapai County, Arizona, USA
May 30, 2010...

Enchenopa sp. (undescribed)
Florida Canyon, Pima County, Arizona, USA
November 19, 2010

If a bug 'pretends to be' a thorn among thorns, is that mimicry or camouflage? Anyway, a number of Membracidae (Treehoppers) avoids predation that way.

Santa Rita Lichen Grasshopper, Leuronotina ritensis, Ruby Rd, AZ

This is Bob Behrstock's photo that he allowed me to use for the d_UAIC on flickr, so I guess this use here is fair.
Anyway, all observations I know of are from AZ, so I'd be curious to see any from other areas - Sonora Mexico probably has them, too....
The grasshoppers seem to be confined to rocks with those specific encrusting lichens, so I assume they also feed on them,
By the way, the hind wings are bright orange

Sphingicampa montana (Syssphinx)

By themselves, and illuminated by flash at night the caterpillars of our small silk moths, the Sphingicampa (Syssphinx) species, seem outrageously colorful and showy. the little slivers on the back are actually reflective like mirrors, reminding of sparkling Turkish dancing dresses.
All of them live in leguminous trees or bushes with leaves broken down into little leaflets, like mimosa and mesquite. I had no good daytime photo (I borrowed this one from Ken Cave)... I usually don't see the caterpillars during the day because they are so well camouflaged. All the white markings and even more so the reflective bits break down the shape of the big caterpillar among those tiny leaflets, even seen against the light. You will find white or silver markings on almost all insects that live among Mesquite leaves, Creosote leaves, and Tamarix and Juniper twigs. There are stink bugs, geometrid caterpillars, leaf hoppers, katydids, grasshoppers - I'd even count the silver striped Glorious Scarab here (it feeds on juniper)

Synchlora frondaria, a green geometrid
on Acacia, Molino Basin, Pima Co, AZ June,

David L. Wagner says, "A Mardi Gras caterpillar that is out of costume only after a molt. The larva fashions its disguise by attaching plant bits (usually flower petals which it has chewed free of its food plant) to its back.

Mecaphesa (?) sp. and Misumenoides formosipes (middle and right) from AZ desert and sky islands

Many ambush predators have evolved to be masters of camouflage. This one is especially impressive:
"Crab Spiders in the genus Misumenoides formosipes are a sit-and-wait predators that do not use a web for prey capture. Instead, they sit perched atop flowers with their front pairs of legs spread open wide in preparation for capturing whatever unlucky insect comes near. These spiders are actually capable of actively changing their body color from yellow to white, or vice versa, depending on the flower they are perched on. They do this by transferring a liquid, pigmented material to the cuticle. The color change is not instantaneous; it can take anywhere from three to nine days to complete (G. N. Dodson, personal communication, June 2014)." Adapted from http://www.spiders.us/species/misumenoides-formosipes/

Hamataliwa grisea, a Lynx Spider. Molino Basin, Pima County

Good camouflage requires more than just the right colors or textures. Behavior is a big factor, too. First of all, the bug has to stay on the surface it is adapted to. Then it has to sit still. But there remains the problem of the cast shadow, as illustrated in the toad bugs that had more important things in mind. This spider gets it right, though. The legs are pulled towards the body to form one inconspicuous, continuous shape. Bristles form a soft connection without overhangs or abrupt angles to the surface it is sitting on. The result: No sharp cast shadow.
Hamataliwa grisea, a Lynx Spider. Molino Basin, Pima County

Tetragnatha (Longjawed Orbweaver) Santa Cruz River bank,Marana
Pima Co AZ,

The problem with macro photographs for this topic is that we usually blow the bug's cover when we have finally found him. Imagine this Tetragnatha (Longjawed Orbweaver) in a tangle of twigs and grasses : she'd be quite hard to spot.
These spiders are often close to water where they spin circular (orb) webs, mostly in the horizontal plane, often just inches above the surface of water where they can intercept emerging insects like midges, mayflies, and stoneflies.

Arizona Unicorn Mantis Nymph (Pseudovates Arizonae)
Molino Basin, Catalina Mts, Pima Co, AZ

This girl was already big, over 2 inches, when I found her and molted twice before becoming a green-winged adult. The nymph seems more cryptic than the adult, but I must admit that I personally have found several nymphs (I raised this one) an no grown-up ever. The nymph has all the right patterns, colors and the shape to blend in with dry branches. It also moves in slow motion and hides its directed movement towards prey by simultaneously swaying from side to side as if the whole motion was wind induced. I'd call that camouflage of intent..

Gratiana pallidula (Eggplant Tortoise beetle)

Many Leaf Beetles (chrysomelidae) are toxic and announce that fact with warning colors, but a good number survives by being cryptic - larva to adult. Tortoise beetles have successfully eliminated the cast-shadow problem. The seamless contour with the surface is combined in some species with extreme strength holding the beetle to that surface - nearly impossible for ants to grasp or dislodge.
Gratiana pallidula (Eggplant Tortoise beetle)
can be found on several solanaceae

Gerstaeckeria sp. on Cholla, Blue Sky Rd, Willcox, Cochise Co. AZ

Cactus weevils in the genus Gerstaeckeria are hiding by lining up with the tufts of glochids in the areoles of a cholla cactus. The weevils are night active and come out at dusk when they blend in with those structures of the cactus surface even better. Experienced entomologists like Charlie O'Brien are not fooled. They look for tell-tale little circular feeding marks rather than for the weevils themselves. So right now, Charlie is describing a new species of the genus that lives exclusively in one of the rare and protected pineapple cacti. Obviously, the bugs are oblivious of the endangered species laws. On the other hand, that weevil is probably more endangered than its host.

Gelastocoris oculatus, Big-Eyed Toad Bugs.

These pea-sized True Bugs live along muddy freshwater shorelines and are often overlooked. Their locomotion is described as walking, sometimes hopping. When we had 'hopping' as a weekly theme, I could not find any Heteroptera that hop - well, here is one. If that makes them look (if you see them at all) even more like baby toads, I don't think that would be a great mimicry protection, because those, too, get eaten. I think toad bugs and baby toads are both profiting from being nearly invisible. But: Motion draws attention. Occasional hops are of shorter duration than continued crawling along and thus would betray them less - so hopping may be a behavioral aspect of their camouflage.

Schinia miniama Kitt Peak, AZ, March

Some day active noctuids spend their time on spring time asteraceae. They feed, mate and lay their eggs on the flower disks and the caterpillars develop eating the maturing fruits. Some species are colored like the multi colored Indian Blanket and they usually even sit in the right position to fir the pattern. Maybe someone has a photo of that

Chrysoecia thoracica, Lochiel, Cochise County, AZ

In September I saw a number of 'flowers' that I did not recognize. Then I realized that the 'petals' were actually sleeping noctuid moths. They were all oriented with their wings sticking out, heads towards the center.There were groups of them around many of the flowers (Cosmos parviflorus) When I got very close to photograph this group, 3 got upset and flew away, but you can still see the deception that all five together would have produced.

These were my contributions to this weeks topic of the Facebook Group SW U.S. Insects & Arachnids. While many aspects of camouflage and hiding in plain sight were covered, many more could have been mentioned, or were posted by other members. Robyn Waayers had a particularly nice Bag Worm cocoon.
Amy Jaecker-Jones posted trichoptera larvae masquerading as leaf litter at the bottom of a creek

This blog is the sum of my contributions to our SW Insect group on Facebook for the week-long theme 'Mantodea'
As usual, we looked at species diversity, biological cycle, physiology, behavior, and popular myths.

One story that is NOT a myth to be debunked: Female Mantids tend to bite their mates heads off. Obviously, it's not the rule as this happy couple demonstrates, but it does happen quite often. Research has shown that decapitation in no way interferes with the successful completion of the mating. Actually, it showed that the headless males were more eager than ever. Making the most of their last chance ..

With his permission, I am posting this great photo by Amit Mahajan, Mumbai, India, August 2014 because I cannot find mine of an ovipositing Manits.
He writes: When the female mantis is ready to lay eggs, a protective covering called "ootheca" will be extruded and this will serve as the housing of the eggs. The eggs will then be deposited into the folds of this ootheca.
The shape of the one produced here is similar to that of a Chinese Mantis. That species is sold by and for gardeners for biocontrol. Please do not buy (release) them. They will interfere with the balance of our natural system that already has a number of Mantids that are superbly adapted to the Southwest. So far I have not found any Chinese Mantis in Arizona, but Iris oratoria, a European import can be found.

The oothecae of mantids are species specific in shape, coloration (?) and probably size. Here are a few, Stagmomantis sp. are the most commonly seen ones in Arizona. Ground Mantids, Litaneutria minor should also be common, but I don't know where and for what to look. Top right and bottom left may both be Iris oratoria, but I'm not sure. The Pseudovates arizonae ootheca, bottom right, is cropped from Tony Palmer's excellent shot that he posted a while ago on FB

Stagmomantis ootheca with hatching nymphs. Mantids are hemimetabolic insects. The nymphs will go through several molts while growing up, but the basic shape will not change. Stages of nymph between molts = instars. Wing buds will be apparent in the late instars. There is no pupation in hemimetabolic development. The adults will have sexual organs and, in this species, wings. After that stage is reached, there will be no further growth or molt.

Podagrion sp. male

Most oothecas of mantids have little round holes. These are not the exit holes of the mantid nymphs - the nymphs emerge through the gaps in the zipper-like structure that the mother has built into the egg mass cover. But like most large accumulations of eggs and embryos, the ootheca attracts parasites, mostly little specialized Chalcidoidea (Chalcid Wasps) in the genus Podagrion.

Arizona Unicorn Mantis nymph molting between instars 4 and 5: this is the last molt before adulthood and the 4 budding green wings are recognizable

Adult Arizona Unicorn just after her last molt, winged and ready to find a mate.

Ground Mantids, Litaneutria minor, winged male
Picture Rocks, Pima County, AZ, USA, 5-20-2014

The males of this little mantis are very common at porch lights around our house. The females are flightless and seen more rarely.

Yersiniops sophronicum (Yersin's ground mantis)
Brown Canyon, Buenos Aires Preserve, Pima Co, AZ, September

Stagmomantis limbata female, French Joe Canyon
Cochise County, AZ

Here is my favorite mantis photo:
Raptorial arms and binocular vision make them formidable predators.
Mantids are characterized by binocular vision and the ability to move their heads relative to the rest of the body. This feature that endears them to many human observers is of course vitally important to a hunter who needs to judge whether prey is within striking distance.

Male Stagmomantis with light-adapted compound eyes above and dark adapted eyes below.

As visually oriented predators that are day and night active, Mantids also have eyes that function well under extreme lighting conditions.

Their eyes, like most insect eyes, are compound aggregations of multiple vision-units, Ommatidia, that each consist of a lens, a cristalline cone and a receptor cell. These units are isolated from each other by pigment in pigment cells, allowing for focused, separate light reception of each unit.
In species that, like Mantids, are both, day and night active, the pigment enclosed cylinder tends to be especially long. You can see the clean separation of the ommatidia - a small, dark pseudopupilla seems to stare at you from the otherwise light-colored eye. The pseudopupilla is formed by those ommatidia whose angle is such as to allow you to look all the way down through the pigment enclosed cylinder into the depth of the eye. The light areas of the eye are ommatidia that don't look directly at you, so all you see is the reflection form their pigment cells.
But at night, the same mantis eye is dark all over and has no clear pseudopupilla. What happened? Most of the pigment in the pigment cells has moved towards the center of the eye, leaving the outer part of the ommatidium without focusing shield, but open to more incoming light. The reception is less clear this way, but brighter. The same principles that work on our own dark-dilated eye are at work.

This year we finally had winter rains as they used to be: dreary 2 day stretches of cloudy skies, continuous gentle rain and foggy mornings. Mostly this seemed to happen on the weekends of out-door art shows so my tent is now nearly clean and white again.

Frodo, our Coydog, enjoying his backyard

The desert is responding. It looks like one big golf course with soft green turf. But most of the little plants are no grasses. Many are in the Boraginaceae, the borage or forget-me-not family and have tiny white flowers. Not many showy big wildflowers yet.

omessor pergandei (Messor pergandei)

Curious crop circles appear - at closer investigation they turn out to be old mounds of Veromessor Pergandei Ants, a small Harvester Ant that piles refuse heaps around its entrances. In that thrash pile were obviously left-over seeds but also probably a lot of nitrogen, always a limiting factor in the desert sand.

Microrhopala rubrolineata , Leaf-mining beetle

Scaphytopius sp. Leafhopper

Corythucha sp. Lace Bug

The perennial Brittle Bushes are showing only the first traces of flower buds, but their foliage is now a beautiful silvery green. Leafmining beetles, Leafhoppers and Lacebugs are getting a head-start.

Scytodes sp., Spitting Spider with Roach nymph

Young Salticidae

Under bark and fallen logs hidden activity may go on throughout the winter. A Spitting Spider paralized a nymph of a roach, Young Jumping Spiders are leaving the webbing that has protected them as eggs.

Armadillidium vulgare (Woodlouse)?

Pillbugs are ready to roll. They need the humidity that the rains brought more than other desert creatures: as crustaceans, they take up oxygen through external gills. Those are protected in a cavity on the underside of the body and need to be kept moist.

Trichoton sordidum

Tenebrionid beetles are much better adapted to the arid climate, they reach their highest diversity in desert areas all over the world, but this species also prefers the cover of bark and mois places when those are available

Scolopocerus uhleri

Some Coreid True Bugs are active throughout the winter in Arizona. Living on barrel cactus, the Narnia mother can rely on the juicy fruit year-round to raise her ant-look-alike offspring.

Narnia sp.

Schistocerca nitens

Some adult Schistocerca nitens Bird Grasshoppers are still hanging on from last year, but the new nymphs are already waiting in the Creosote Bushes. Not sure that's their food plant, though.

Campsomeris sp., Polistes sp., Anthophora sp.

Warmer temperatures and the first flowers on the wolf berry bush brought out some big chunky wasps and bees, and identification-wise I can't get any further than the genus.

Sara Orange Tip, American Snout, Texas Crescent, Mourning Cloak, Pipevine Swallowtail

We have butterflies all winter long if we are not hit with a very hard freeze. Also, waves of migrating butterflies can always arrive from even warmer areas of Mexico. The first Orange Tips that I saw yesterday are definitely heralding the arrival of spring.

Photos taken in our backyard in Picture Rocks, at Sweetwater Wetlands West of Tucson and Sabino Canyon east of Tucson. All Pima County, Arizona

Some defenseless arthropods that would make great prey have evolved to resemble other species that are toxic, bad tasting or heavily armed. One precondition must be that the models are not just foul tasting or aggressive, but memorably so: So the mimicked models are announcing their in-edibility with warning colors and patterns (aposematic) and the imitators share in the protection. This is the Batesian mimicry that is often explained using toxic Monarch Butterflies and their harmless look-alikes, the Viceroys as an example. Also similar looking is the Queen Butterfly. Queen and Monarch caterpillars both grow up incorporating toxins from their mutual host, the milkweed plant. In the case of Monarchs and Queens the warning function of colors and patterns is enhanced because they are so similar. A predator who has learned to avoid one will also leave the other one alone. Strength that grows with numbers. This kind of mimicry is called Muellerian.

Vespula pensylvanica, Western Yellow Jacket (social), Ancistrocerus tuberculocephalus (solitary), Mischocyttarus navajo (social), Polistes comanchus (social)

A striking and well known Muellerian mimicry group is that of the yellow/black banded, stinging wasps, who share a pattern of warning colors that stayed evolutionary stable even as wasps spread over nearly all continents and formed many different species, genera and tribes. (I am assuming here that this phenotype relies on an ancient gene (group of ). Did the pattern evolve before social hives appeared? The threat of the social group that attacks together certainly gave the warning pattern its power. Solitary wasps that share it are profiting from the fierceness of their social sisters.

Climaciella brunnea (Wasp Mantidfly), and Polistes comanchus

Batesian mimicry:
Social wasps are probably among the most aggressive defenders of their hive area, so they have many very close mimics. Previously I showed an examples for Muellerian mimicry. Here are some of many examples of Batesian imitators: The Wasp Mantisfly (Neuroptera) is shown with one of its models Polistes comanchus. But other individual in the same mantispid species strikingly imitates solid brown and more strongly banded Polistes species.

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A moth in the family Sesiidae (Clearwing Moths) and a Syrphid Fly. The moth was so convincing that I watched an experienced entomologist hesitate to take it out of his net by hand. The fly goes the extra mile to camouflage a feature that partly gives away the wolf to Red Riding Hood: Grandma, what big eyes you have! (Wasp eyes are much smaller than fly eyes). You may also notice another obvious difference: the wasp has much larger antennae. So several species of syrphids compensate by flying with their front-legs stretched forward like antennae
Also note the locations (on the individual images): all occur together at higher elevations..

Longhorned Beetle Strophiona tigrina

Several Acmaeodera species in the family of the Metallic Wood-boring Beetles

Even many beetles are using the 'yellow jacket' color pattern, especially many flower visiting species. But when beetles want to take off, most (like Strophiona tigrina, above) have to open their hard front wings (elytra) to make room for the membranous hind-wings that are used to fly. So there goes the nice imitation of a wasp. Or does it? Most Buprestides in the genus Acmaeodera have nicely banded elytra and they keep them closed during their frequent flights. The side margins of the elytra are bend upwards and the hind-wings can be stretched out from underneath. The beetles fly with closed elytra and the illusion of a wasp stays intact. There is also a group of scarabs that flies like that (Euphoria) and they very much resemble bumblebees or carpenter bees when flying, they even hit the right buzz. Silberglied, R.E. and T. Eisner. 1969. Mimicry of Hymenoptera by beetles with unconventional flight. Science 163:486-488. DOI: 10.1126/science.163.3866.486

Longhorn Beetle Tragidion decipiens, Tarantula Hawk, Hemipepsis ustulata, and Mydas Fly Mydas xanthopterus, Photo Bob Barber

One of the most painful stings according to Justin Schmidt's Pain index is delivered by one of our big, solitary wasps, the Tarantula Hawk (female only) Of course, there are several Muellerian mimicry 'gang members' like painfully biting Robber Flies and other wasps like a big Sphecid species. But there are also harmless mimics like several Cerambycids (Longhorn Beetles) in the genus Tragidion. These beetles also visit some of the places where the big wasps lick up sweet tree juices. After landing, the beetles often keep their elytra open for a while - very unlike other beetles but in striking similarity with the wasp.

Phidippus apacheanus and Dasymutilla sp.

I am not sure whether the connection between Phidippus apacheanus (probably including several other Phidippus species) and the very painfully stinging mutillids, the orange and red species of Dasymutilla should be called Muellerian or Batesian. Are jumping spiders dangerous prey to a bird or lizard? Probably not, so Batesian. Anyway, the spiders and wingless wasp females don't only look alike, they also frequently crawl around together on the branches of Desert Broom. The spiders are hunting for insects that get attracted by the sweet juices and the wasp is a sweets-lover herself.

Dasymutilla male

Dasymutilla males are also often sleeping close by. They sport the same colors as the females and their wings are folded and hardly visible. Like ALL males of stinging Hymenopterans, they are also just sharing the protection that the aposematic coloration of their females provides. In that sense, most brightly colored male wasps and bees are Batesian mimics of their female counterparts, because NO male hymenopteran has a stinger.

Here is a little Coreid (Leaf-footed Bug) nymph in the genus Narnia and her mom. The little ones were all over the juicy fruit of a Barrel Cactus and its extra-floral nectaries while the adult was hiding among the thorns, very much out of reach. Where the little ones just naively taking a risk or were they protected? The barrel cactus fruit and nectaries are often visited (and owned) by the very defensive local fireants Solenopsis xyloni. The bug nymphs resemble the ants in size, color and preferred location. Not so much in shape. But the resemblance really does not have to confuse the human eye as long as it repels a predator

To dispel the idea that only the very painful stingers among hymenoptera can be mimicry models: Here is a peaceful, flightless, dusk-active darkling beetle, Eleodes armatus on the right. A stink beetle, like all of his genus and many in his family). There are 2 huge glands in his abdomen that douse him and the prospective predator's nose with very obnoxious chemicals. To get good coverage, he lift his hind end where the glands open, high into the air and lets gravity do some of the work. The same-sized Cactus Longhorn Beetles here Moneilema appressum is also dark, flightless, and has to move between cacti across the light desert sand at dusk. So it does a stop-and-go walk, just like Eleodes and even lifts its behind when disturbed. The big dark Calosoma species (Ground Beetle, Carabidae) also joins in the behavioral mimicry, but those guys can release a nice stink by themselves ....

Pipvine Swallowtail, Battus philenor

Red-spotted Purple, Limentis arthemis

In AZ (and elsewhere in the southern US) where riparian areas interface with desert habitats, we find two butterflies that can be easily mixed up: One is the Pipvine Swallowtail whose caterpillar picks up enough toxins from its foodplant, the pipevine, to make not only the caterpillar but also the adult inedible for many predators, the other one is the Red-spotted Purple. Interestingly, that same species, Limentis arthemis, has northern color forms that look quite different. Check them out on bugguide
So where the model is not around in sufficient numbers, the similarity provided no advantage and did not evolve.

Lycus simulans and Elytroleptus ignitus

A final twist: Netwing Beetles in the genus Lycus are highly toxic and announce that fact with bright red warning colors. They also often congregate in great numbers to mate and are hard to overlook. Not surprisingly, several species of Lycus are similarly colored and patterned, forming a tight Muellerian mimicry group. There are several moths and beetles of unrelated families that mimic them as Batesian groupies.
Were there enough mimics to endanger the whole system? Did naive predators get lucky too often so they did not learn to avoid the insects?
Anyway, there is something very interesting going on in SE Arizona: Several species of the Longhorn Beetle genus Elytroleptus usually associate with the toxic Lycids around oak trees (extra floral nectaries) and on flowers. In those mixed groups, many Lycids looked like they had been chewed on. Holes in the elytra, leaking heamolymph ... Normally we think of all Longhorn Beetles as strictly vegetarian. But it turned out that Elytroleptus were chewing on Lycus, and chemical analyses revealed that the Longhorns were actually incorporating (sequestering) the toxins of the Lycids. A Batesian mimic becoming Muellerian at the cost of its model!

Leptoglossus brevirostris

Well, not really new. Leptoglossus brevirostris was described by Barber in 1918. But new to me, and there was only one BugGuide entry so far, and that one was from Texas.

Yesterday I walked around with camera and Frodo to shoot some backyard birds (I finally want to put together a complete photo documentation for our backyard). I found that the desert mistletoe Phoradendron californicum - Mesquite Mistletoe is still blooming, attracting bees, flies and butterflies, but it also already offers enough berries for a number of birds to hang around.
There was also a true bug, a Leptoglossus sp. As 'true bugs' is this weeks theme for our Facebook group 'SW US Arthropods' I spent time photographing it from different angles, took dorsal shots and feeding portraits .... and then let it fly off into the clear blue Arizona sky. I thought I knew the species.

Notice the relatively short rostrum (not the thin filament, the thick kneed beak that just touches the berry)

At home, enlarging the photos, I realized that I did NOT know the species. I should have collected it.
Recorde from AZ are Leptoglossus brevirostris Barber, 1918
Leptoglossus clypealis Heidemann, 1910
Leptoglossus occidentalis Heidemann, 1910
Leptoglossus oppositus (Say, 1832)
Leptoglossus zonatus (Dallas, 1852)
It did not have even a trace of the two yellow pronotal dots that characterize L. zonatus and that it did not look like L.clypealis, L. oppositus, or L. ocidentalis. There was a close likeness in a photo on bugguide from Texas, but the poster had also identified hers by excluding other possibles. L. brevirostris?

So I e-mailed a photo to coreid expert Harry Brailovsky in Mexico City and also posted it on my personal Facebook page.

This morning I had a Facebook message from Laurence Livermore from the Natural History Museum in London with a specimen photo of L. brevirostris from their collection and an email from Harry - both confirming that it is Leptoglossus brevirostris. My photo will now be added to the NHM's Coreoidea Species File profile. And of course it also goes into my own personal coreid collection on flickr. Isn't the internet great?

Of course, arid Arizona does not seem to be the very best place to look for aquatic life in any form. But we do have a few riparian areas left, some permanent creeks and cienegas, some artificial lakes, artesian ponds, rivers that carry mostly treated waste-water and of course many temporarily flooded areas during a good monsoon season. But where there is water even temporarily, there are always many interesting creatures.

Laccophilus pictus coccinelloides, Sabino Creek, Pima Co, AZ 4-4-2012

Predaceous Diving Beetles (Dytiscidae) were always among my favorite aquatic insects. As a kid in Germany, I used to raise the huge, fiercely predatory larvae of Dytiscus marginalis, one of our largest beetles. But here in AZ I came to appreciate also the beauty of some of the smallest members of this family. Although so prettily patterned, these 4 mm long, fast swimmers are nearly invisible in the tannin-colored water and against the mica glittering sand of Sabino Creek.
Note the air bubble that is held under the elytra. When the beetle has used up oxygen from the original air, fresh oxygen diffuses from the water into the bubble. It's a physical gill. From time to time fresh air needs to be collected at the surface because the bubble constantly looses nitrogen to the water, which cannot be recovered, so it keeps shrinking. The beetle does not need the nitrogen per se, but it needs to keep up the volume of the bubble to allow for the exchange of O2 and CO2 with the water. So occasionally, it comes to the surface for refills.

Thermonectus marmoratus, Sunburst Beetle

Here is another beauty, the Sunburst Beetle. It's larger than a penny and catches the sunlight very nicely when it swims in flat water, propelled by strokes of its modified hindlegs.

Agabus disintegratus, adult and pupa

Most Water beetles like Hydrophilidae and Dytiscidae lay their eggs under water, their larvae are aquatic, but to pupate, they have to come on land. I collected pupae under drift wood at Watson Lake in Prescott and let them hatch.

Large whirligig beetle, Dineutus sublineatus

Gyrinidae are primarily surface swimmers. They often form large aggregations and when disturbed swim in erratic circles (name!) . they have horizontally divided eyes and corresponding brain areas are devoted to seeing above and below the water surface respectively.

Many true bugs lead aquatic lives, and all states of their life-cycle are water-bound, even though the adults of most species are good fliers. All I can think of a predatory and administer venom and digestive juices through their pointed 'beaks', some have raptorial arms, most have legs that are adapted to swimming and diving.

Graptocorixa (Water Boatman) Nymph

Water boatmen were in the news some time ago. A species in Great Britain was found to be the loudest animal on the planet, relative to its body size. It can create mating calls as loud as 99.2 decibels. The male water boatman produces this noise by rubbing his penis (or “genitalia appendage”) against the ridged surface of his abdomen.

Gerridae, Water Striders

Water Striders, Gerridae skate, using the surface tension of the water as their only support. They are predators and use their tactile sense to locate drowning, struggling insects that cause characteristic wave patterns. Getting close to the source, they switch to chemical prey recognition. A long time study subject of sensory and electro physiologists.

Water Scorpion Ranatra quadridentata, Madera Canyon, Sta Cruz Co, AZ

This photo, borrowed from Historic Rivers Chapter, shows the bug breathing through a snorkel at its hind-end. So thisis NOT a stinger! Instead the bug catches prey with its raptorial arms and injects venom and digestive juices through its 'beak'

Larvae of Archilestes grandis (Great Spreadwing), Libellula sp. (probable Flame Skimmer), and Paltothemis lineatipes (Red Rock Skimmer) photo Bob Barber

While beetles and true bugs are good fliers and can easily find new ponds and meet mates during their nightly excursions they spend most of their adult live ponds and streams.
Other insects that spread more delicate wings once they have outgrown their aquatic larval phase, do not return to the water as adults, except to deposit their eggs.
This great photo of Odonata (Dragonflies and Damselflies) was taken in New Mexico, but all three species can be found in Arizona as well.

Camelobaetidius larva, Sycamore Canyon, Santa Cruz County, Arizona, USA,
March, 13 2012

Mayflies (Ephemeroptera) spend the longer part of their lives as aquatic larvae. Note the external gills along the abdomen. Mayflies are famous for the mass emergence of the short-lived adults. Unlike most insects, Mayflies go through a winged subadult state that is followed by one final molt to the imago.

Petrophila jaliscalis, Santa Cruz River, Between Wheeler Taft Library and Ina Bridge, 11-24-2014

Even some Lepidoptera have aquatic larvae: During the day these little crambid moths can be found sleeping in the vegetation close to creeks and streams. They are night active and come to lights in late summer to fall..
Adult females enter the water to oviposit, carrying a plastron-like layer of air as a source of oxygen
The larvae are aquatic, living within a silken web in fast-flowing streams;
they scrape diatoms and other algae from rocks in streams.

Trichoptera or Caddisflies,, those hairy cousins of the scaly Lepidoptera, are obligatory aquatic breeders. Their larvae build tubes out of detritus and anker themselves on the bottom of slow moving creeks.

Corydalus texanus (Dobsonfly), Clear Creek, Yavapai Co, AZ

This is a female Dobson Fly, about the size of a wooden cloth pin. The males have amazingly long mandibles. Order Megaloptera: The female lays thousands of eggs in a single mass, placing them on vegetation overhanging water. Megaloptera undergo the most rudimentary form of complete metamorphosis among the insects. There are fewer differences between the larval and adult forms of Megaloptera than in any other order of holometabolous insects, The aquatic larvae are carnivorous, possessing strong jaws that they use to capture other aquatic insects. They have large heads and elongated bodies. The abdomen bears a number of fine tactile filaments, which, in some species, may include gills. The final segment of the abdomen bears either a pair of prolegs, or a single, tail-like appendage. The larvae grow slowly, taking several years to reach the last larval stage. When they reach maturity, the larvae crawl out onto land to pupate in damp soil or under logs. The pupa is fully motile, with large mandibles that it can use to defend itself against predators. The short-lived adults emerge from the pupa to mate and oviposit - many species never feed as adults, living only a few days or hours.

These are just a few examples of the rich diversity that can be found even in Arizona's creeks and ponds. More than any other habitat, these ecosystems are delicate and threatened by pollution, grazing, mining and continuous droughts.

While sorting the slides for my first ever public talk, a presentation about insects in our local forest in Westphalia, Germany, I found that about 75% of my more interesting photos showed insects in some kind of sexual activity. I was 17, my audience mostly older gentlemen from the local zoological society, and I felt somewhat embarrassed. I got over it and the talk was a success. And think about it: Adult insects, stuck in their stiff exoskeleton...s, aren’t exhibiting too many visually impressive behaviors. They eat or get eaten, or try very hard not to, and they mate and lay eggs. But mating may involve calling, scenting, lekking, courtship and pursuit, dancing and rejection, rape, gift giving, copulating, decapitating, mate guarding …. There is plenty to observe and photograph. And even the most flighty Tiger Beetles tend to slow down for a while …

Lucaina marginata and Lucaina discoidalis, two species of net-winged beetles

For animals that do not live in social groups, finding an appropriate partner is the most important part of mating. Pheromones released by one partner may stimulate extremely sensitive olfactory organs of the other gender - and matches are made.
When the Mesquite trees are blooming in the Tucson Mountains I sometimes find the catkins of single trees covered in net-wing beetles. They are nearly all mating pairs. They probably attract each other through pheromones. But there are usually beetles of 2 different species present. Pheromones of closely related species can be similar or identical, so there must be an additional process of mate recognition to match up the correct partners. Lycids are loaded with toxins, so these aggregations may not only allow the beetles to find mates but also protect them against predation.

Collops sp., Melyridae (Soft-winged Flower Beetles), Montosa Canyon, October

Antennae of most insects are the site of incredibly sensitive chemoreceptors but in Melyridae (Soft-winged Flower Beetles), the male's antennae carry big, lumpy extensions. You can see them on the right beetle. Those are not receptors, but producers of stimulating chemicals. On this occasion he was waving them at her, stroking her antennae, doing a whole dance of seduction with them, but she still rejected his advances in the end.

Leaf Beetles Deloyala lecontii

Most biologists define a species as a group of genetically similar individuals that can produce viable offspring by mating under natural conditions. Several beetles in Arizona appear in drastically different color morphs. But they are definitely conspecific because they mate and produce offspring indiscriminately of their color morph.

Trichodes ornatus (Ornate Checkered Beetle)

Trichodes ornatus (Ornate Checkered Beetle) can sport contrasting black bands on bright yellow or deep red elytra.. Yellow/black may be wasp mimicry while the red/black ones closely resemble a species of blister beetles that occurs on the same flowers where the checkered beetles find their mates. The threesome in the picture shows a female on the right and 2 males on the left, so the color is by no means gender specific.

Approaching a female can be risky for males of aggressive predatory species that are used to taking prey that is hardly smaller than they themselves. Several groups of diptera (flies) have developed ritualized gift-giving which appeases the female. I am not aware that these big Robberflies actually do that, but this male did successfully grab his chance while the female was busy feeding on a Yellow Jacket.

Desert Firetail pair mating in wheel position

Dragons and Damsel males have secondary sexual organs.
Prior to mating, the male moves sperm from his primary genitalia at the end of his abdomen to the middle of his body where he stores it in a secondary genital location. When he finds a female he grabs her neck/head/eyes with his claspers. Tandem position. She then reaches forward to position her cloaca against his secondary genital opening to receive the sperm. Their bodies now form the mating wheel.

Hetaerina americana (American Rubyspot)

Afterwards the two may stay together in the tandem position while she lays her eggs. This is mate guarding (against other males) but also allows the female to submerse herself to position the eggs under water while the male hovers above to pull he up.

Leafcutter bee males waiting for females to hatch

When I saw the bees swarming a fence post at the ASDM I thought at first that I had found the hive of a social species. But they seemed too frenzied for worker bees. They turned out to be male Leaf-cutter bees waiting for females.
Leaf-cutter bees are solitary, but a good nesting site with many deep tunnels (beetle holes) may attract many females. Each lays multiple eggs in those tunnels, eggs that will become females are placed deeper inside, prospective males more towards the tunnel entrance. The males hatch first. Then they hang around the entrance, waiting for the females to hatch. No matter that some will be their sisters. On thing is certain: no female will run this gauntlet and leave a virgin.

Swarming Honey Bees

Among social bees, only the young queens and few lucky drones mate. A young queen mates only once. She takes off with a part of the old hive's workers to start a new hive. There she will produce thousands of eggs from this one mating.
While the bees are swarming and traveling to a new location they often rest in the open, all clustered tightly around the queen. At this stage the crops of the workers are full of stored honey and they lack aggression. The swarm I found was very small, which might indicate that these were Africanized bees, but I could approach closely without problems.
Drones (males) are recognizable by their large size and their big eyes - I have focused in on one in the right photo. Drones do not forage and don't get fed after the mating flight, so at times they can be found dying under the hive. This is no indication that anything is wrong with the hive in general.

Acromyrmex versicolor pair

Leafcutter Ant colonies release swarms of winged males and females after generous monsoon rains in late summer. Clouds of alates hover like smoke columns over the nest exits. Young Acromyrmex versicolor queens mate with small-headed males in the air and tumble to the ground together. They lose their wings and the males die soon after. The queens are carrying the beginning of a new fungal garden in their crops with them. Several of them may start a new colony together.

While scouting in preparation for the BugGuide Gathering in 2013, I was caught in a July thunderstorm in Florida Canyon, Pima Co, AZ. Suddenly many insects were flying in the soft warm rain, most of them tumbling to the ground. There they quickly shed their wings and began running around in pairs. Soon predators like ants an birds began picking them up. But many couples escaped to find new underground nesting sites to begin a new huge family of Termites. Different from ants, wasps and bees, they will have a long fertile life as a couple ahead of them.

Colliuris pensylvanica, carabids, and Anomola delicate, scarabs

And what do bugs do instead of on-line dating? Black light dating! Always available during the monsoon months in Arizona and highly recommended ....

You may think that insects are not really good at it while many arachnids are better. But, as long as the offspring survives it’s probably just exactly the amount of care that’s necessary. In many cases the short-lived parental generation is not around to see the eggs hatch anyway. So the care may all be in the careful placement of the eggs on exactly the right food plant or in the protective microclimate of a nest or at the best spot to hitch a ride with the best foster parents …. Or the care may involve tackling a scary giant as a host or a smelly pile of dung rolled into appetizing portions …

Canthon imitator, Rio Rico, Santa Cruz Co, AZ

Some dung beetles are 'tumble bugs'. Using their shovel-shaped heads a pair cuts a round ball out of a fresh pile of dung. Then they roll their prize a considerable distance from its origin, bury it, and the female lays eggs inside it. In some species, the parents stay around to protect and feed the offspring while the larvae grow in their dung ball. Why don't the beetles just drop eggs into the fresh dung and leave? Some flies do it that way? That's just it: dung of big vertebrates still contains many nutrients in a very accessible form, so the competition is great. Beetles, flies, worms, all claim their share. Large dung beetles develop more slowly than many smaller competitors. Also, dung attracts predators. So these parents grab there share and then set up house as far away from the source as possible.

Oncideres rhodosticta (Mesquite Girdler)

Many wood-boring insects have to deal with the trees self-defense mechanisms. If the larvae are feeding in living parts of the tree they are likely to be gummed up by an avalanche of sticky tree sap. That is the reason why bark beetles are so dangerous during droughts: the tree does not have enough sap to spare to fight back.
In Arizona, we have several longhorn beetles whose larvae grow up in twigs. They are rather host specific, so one uses oaks, another species specializes on mesquite and close relatives. To guarantee the safety of the larvae, the female chews a grove around the twig, all the way through the cambium to interrupt sugar and water transporting vessels. Often a big glob of accumulated sap can be seen on the tree-side of the cut. But the apical part of the twig is now wilting and dying and defenseless. That's where the beetle is placing her eggs and where the larvae will grow up. Several other species of insects that are usually drawn to freshly dead wood also find those dying branches. So if you collect those dead branches in a raising box you will usually find a number of different insects emerging.

Melanophila consputa

Freshly dead wood is at a premium for the larvae of wood-boring beetles. Adults of a number of species can be found at wood cuttings or wind breaks where they mate and deposit their eggs. A special situation are trees killed by forest fires. Buprestids in the genus Melanophila have pits on the mesosternum that actually detect fires. The females are so drawn to this wood that they may come too close to the fire and burn off their tarsi (feet) while ovipositing.

Neuroctenus sp. with offspring, Santa Rita Mts.

Many true bugs stay with their brood and take care of them.. I still remember hearing recordings of acoustic communication between stink bug mothers and their offspring at the University of Ljubljana when I visited the physiology department there in 1981. It was a squeaking sound that she seemed to generate by stridulating her proboscis in its grove. The kids were quite obedient, they dispersed at one signal and clustered under mom at another. My photo shows a bug from a different family, a Flat Bug (Aradidae) with very young nymphs and eggs

Our Uloborus spiders live indoors with us. They are pretty safe from most predators and, I must admit, from my dusting as well. But they multiply! They build starshaped eggsacks that hang in their cribellate webs until they suddenly burst into fluffy cotton balls, releasing dozens of miniature spiders. Mom allows them to live in her web for a while and then they build their own ones close to hers. So eventually I will have to oust them ..

Spiders often guard eggs and hatchlings in their webs. But few wolf spiders have webs to call home and they need to get around to hunt. These ambulant species have a characteristic way of lugging their egg-sack around under their abdomen. When the young hatch they climb on mom's back for a wile. I would love to see the mother catch prey. I assume the kids get to eat then, too.
By the way, wolf spiders have a good reason to be vigilant. Wasp Mantisflies are waiting to get their own eggs into that egg-sac ...

Brood parasites wait for every tasty clutch of eggs and even more so for eggs that come provisioned with food. So many eggs are deposited deep within nests which are hidden and sealed. Here a Leafcutter Bee is choosing the wall paper for her nursery. Her nest is in a pre-existing hole, maybe a hole from which a wood-boring beetle has hatched. She covers the walls with her circular cut-outs and she uses them to separate the tunnel into several cells. Each will hold provisions (pollen) and an egg. Males develop faster, so those eggs are placed closer to the exit than those that will become females. Leaves may provide moisture and insulation, but most importantly they have some antifungal and antiseptic qualities that may protect the pollen and the egg.

Polistes major castaneicolor, Queen with 2 workers

More sophisticated than most other care systems is that of the social hymenoptera. A queen (or several) starts the nest in spring. After she's raised a few new workers, she's got help and can concentrate on her main role: to lay more eggs. The larvae will be tended by the workers, who are their sisters. These females need not reproduce themselves because they share at least as many genes with these larvae as they would with their own offspring.
In Arizona I have always seen dark brown Polistes major castaneicolor. But in early spring I found some solitary wasps that I could not fit into any of our Polistes species. Now I see one of them on each of the new nests, in this case accompanied by 2 of the 'castanaeicolor' individuals. I'm guessing that those are the first daughters of the young queen and hatched from the two cells in the center that contain no eggs. New cells are added on the periphery, so those are younger. You can see the eggs inside. If only the overwintered queen is banded in yellow and rust, it's no wonder that I thought that ALL P. major castaneicolor are brown.

Construction projects of the arthropod world: They may be shelters, nurseries, traps for prey, or 'greenhouses' for farming, storage facilities, even floating devices - Arthropods can produce the most amazingly complex and functional structures. To complete those, they may work alone or together with hive members, building with hard labor or by chemically stimulating a host organism to do the work. Structures may be built for duration or destroyed and rebuilt every 24 hours. They may be built for a special event in a life cycle of the insect or for everyday needs.

Many ants build nest mounds. In Germany I often saw huge piles of material containing chambers that contained different stages of larval and pupal development - nurseries that would be moved around within by workers when the temperature changed (Rote Waldameise (Formica rufa)). In other species, piles of soil seem to be just material that is moved out from underground chambers, or refuse that is piled around the entrance of a nest. But the structures that our local leafcutter ant Acromyrmex versicolor builds seem much too well designed to be just piles of refuse. They are perfectly round cones with a crater-like opening when they are new. They erode later, but are often restored. Most colonies have several of these structures. These ants are fungus growers. Their activity level varies very much with season and weather. I assume that they have ways to regulate the growth rate of their fungus gardens in correlation to their own activity level, and I believe that those cones are actually chimneys that control the ventilation of those underground gardens. Either they need more ventilation during high growing seasons, or the ants can even promote faster growth by building higher (or more) chimneys.

Termites in Africa and Australia build long lasting tall structures, but our Desert Encrusters only work on their adobe structures when the weather is just right after the monsoon rains. They completely cloak dead wood with a layer of mud under which they are protected from the sun while they are slowly rasping away the top layer of dead plant material. Even scar tissue on saguaros gets this treatment. Living tissues are not harmed. Their relatives, the feared subterranean termites, are constructing tell-tale mud tubes to get safely to their deconstruction sites - a thing to be aware of. Some of our termites also build mud turrets as launching platforms for their alates. Every summer, those winged, sexual specimens are waiting within the colony, ready to swarm under just the right weather conditions. When those are perfect, the workers literally push the alates out of those turrets to take flight.

Other mud tubes are the nests of Organ Pipe Mud Daubers. These sphecid Wasps catch and paralyze spiders as provision for eggs that are placed in rows of chambers covered in mud. These are from Sonora Mexico and were located in a protected spot under an overhanging rock formation.

Anthidiellum sp., Resin bee, nests, Megachilidae

Flowers need to seduce insects to visit and pollinate, and the reward is not always nectar. Some flowers offer building materials to their pollinators, for example resin to some species in the family Megachilidae. Female Resin Bees attach single cell nurseries to twigs, some even work little pebbles into the structure.

Wasps and Hornets developed paper long before even the Chinese knew about it. Chewing cellulose and lignin rich plant material, the insects produce an extremely light and durable building material. Series of hexagonal cells can be tightly packed, forming structurally sound and expandable mass nurseries and storage chambers. In many cases a thin stylus supports hundreds of cells. The wax honey combs of bees are much heavier, so their builders usually fit them into preexisting niches and cavities.

Here in AZ a little Eurasian weevil Coniatus spendidulus is taking on the rapidly spreading tamarisk bush, also from Eurasia. It is not clear whether it was released on purpose or not and it seems to be far less destructive to this botanical pest than some leaf beetles that were introduced. But the tiny guys are interesting in that they have larvae and pupae on the plant surface and do not go into the ground to metamorphose. Instead the last instar larva builds this cage-like cocoon and pupates inside. The whole fragile thing is barely 2 mm long, so I do not know how it protects the pupa, except from falling off the twig.

Leaf-rolling Weevils (family Attelabidae) lay their eggs on oak or Hazel, Alder etc. leaves. The female then cuts the leaf and rolls it very tightly, preserving the mid-rib. The larva lives and develops in the 'nidus' that is formed. But when I collected some, a different, related weevil, the Thief Weevil, hatched. This beetle crawl carefully into the fresh nidus and replace the original egg with her own. So the brown weevil Himatolabus pubescens is the constructor and the blue one, Pterocolus ovatus. is the thief. Did I mention that the thief is a cousin in the same family Attelabidae?
Madera Canyon, April when the oak leaves are fresh

Many caterpillars use their silk glands to spin protective tubes or pull leaves together as a shelter. But the communal nests of some Tent Caterpillars (Malacosoma) stand out for their in size and strength. In the image you see that the caterpillars enlarged the nest repeatedly as they grew from tiny hatchlings to 2 in caterpillars. They spend nights and periods of cold weather inside. The metabolism of the caterpillars and their accumulated droppings produce heat. The toughness of the silk walls and shed urticating hairs keep many predators out. But some warblers learn to pick up any caterpillars that venture to the outside. And they need to come out to feed. When they do so, they leave silk strands along their path to guide them back to safety later. Scouts seem to lead the way. The caterpillars can defoliate young wild cherry trees, aspen or willows, but usually the trees will not be harmed permanently. I have collected tent caterpillars for a project and 80% yielded parasitic tachinid flies instead of moths.

:The tiger moth Euchaetes elegans lays her eggs on host milkweeds and covers them with the bright white scales from her belly. I presume this helps protect them from parasites, predation and perhaps the weather, but does nothing to hide them. The mature larva also incorporates hairs into its cocoon. The larva, however, is covered in black, orange and a few white hairs so the cocoon looks nothing like the egg mass. Here in Tucson you can find all stages of this insect during the monsoons, when climbing milkweeds are abundant. Images and text contributed by Randy Hardy

We have moths but also beetles that are called 'case bearer' because their larvae build little covers that they carry around. Our Warty Leaf Beetles look like caterpillar droppings as adults, but their larvae carry these little magician hats. The material is probably feces as in the protective shields of many leaf beetle larvae, plus plant fibers it seems.

Snailcase Bagworm (Apterona helicoidella) and Oiketicus sp.

Psychidae (Bagworm Moths) Larvae (bagworms) construct snailcase or spindle-shaped bags covered with pieces of twigs, leaves, etc., and remain in them enlarging the bags as they grow -- until they pupate (also in the bag). Adult females remain in the bag even then, emitting pheromones which attract adult males to mate with them. The wingless female then lays her eggs in the protection of the bag.

Plant gall inducers:
Insects of several different orders like hymenoptera and diptera and hemiptera have developed the ability to induce host plants to generate extra tissues especially for their use: plant galls. Unlike tumors, they grow into a very specific shape in a specific place. On the same oak you can find stem and leaf galls, round ones that are smooth and woody and others patterned like marbles or fuzzy like little animals. Most contain a developing insect but some, like the stem galls on Cottonwood, contain a whole colony of aphids.

My friend Jim Zimmermann devoted decades of his retirement to the collection of oak galls in Arizona. He cataloged the host plant and the insects that hatched - often not just the insect that induced the gall to grow (mostly wasps), but also parasites that also used the gall tissue and others that used the larva of the gall wasp as their host. Secondary parasites of those made the system even more complex. He donated the whole incredible collection to the U of A insect collection and still spends many hours every week working on it and other hymenoptera groups.

Froth produced by a spittlebug nymph, lower right.

Not a yet a permanent, hard construction (but some relatives of spittlebugs build something similar that calcifies)...
Spittlebug nymphs, like all hemipterans, suck plant juices. Like other plant suckers, they take up much more sap than they need and have to get rid of the excess. While aphids just excrete honey dew and sharp shooters eliminate it in sudden bursts (shots) Spittlebug larvae produce a blob of foam. It protects the tender larva from dehydration and overheating, and hides it from parasites and predators.
I always assumed that the froth is very distasteful, wikipedia says acrid ... until one day I noticed that on certain Seepwillows (Baccharis salcilifolia) every blob of spittle had a guest: Paper wasps, flies, and even a teneb beetle were peacefully licking up fluid under the spittle. But they did not attack the nymph inside.

Most of the constructions mentioned so far have been shelters, but some of the most amazing achievements of all seem to me the webs of spiders. Structures that often combine the functions of shelter and trap. From trip lines to funnel shapes, to wheel like webs with regular spokes, to huge communal hammocks - many different types of web can be produced. The material is released by spinnerets under the spiders's abdomen. The strands can be made for strength or stickiness or even extra light, to allow the spider to float through the air with it. Pictured is the web of a Cribellate Orb Weavers genus Uloborus. The cribellate threads are electro-static, but not sticky.

Build in sand:
Certain antlion larvae dig pits in loose sand to use as traps to catch their prey. They sit buried to their mandibles at the bottom. When ants walk across the pit they lose traction and slide down into the center where the hunter awaits them. If an ant seems likely to escape, the lion tosses sand at it to cause an avalanche that will bring it down.

Construction was a topic that Robyn Waayers proposed as the weekly theme for our insect group on FB. I was going to simply collect my contributions here, but then it just kept growing .... I still have many more ideas, but this blog is too long already

Insects, like all of us, live in a world of limited resources and try to claim their share. If another organism tries to also use the same, already claimed and often processed resource, we call it parasitism. Parasites can be thieves of provisions (klepto-parasites), invade a host's body (endo-parasites) or just suck its heamolymph (ectoparasites) share the meal of a predator (commensals), smuggle their offspring into a nest (brood parasite), hitch a ride to food .... Parasite host interactions are always interesting and full of complex strategies and behaviors because of course the host tries to prevent the parasite from reaching its goal. But in several cases, surprising symbiotic relationships have evolved over time. As usual, I tackle the topic in its broadest possible form.

It seems that wherever there are insect eggs or larvae, there are also parasitic wasps around. Here a Platygastrid inspects the eggs of Chelinidea, a cactus bug.

The ichneumon Rhyssa persuasoria is able to find wood boring larvae under inches of wood and determine if they are suited as hosts. She then pushes her incredibly long, thin ovipositor through the wood to place her egg in the wood borer. Some ichneumonids pupate within the host, so the pupa appears draped in the skin of the larva that the wasp larva parasitized.

When I was trying to raise a big caterpillars in Germany as a kid, hundreds of parasitic wasp larvae emerged from it and pupated on the outside of the dying caterpillar. I was so shocked that I did not try raising any butterflies from caterpillars for a very long time. Nowadays, having worked with Dave Wagner, I know a save way to get healthy caterpillars: catch a pregnant female, wait for her to oviposit and raise clean caterpillars from those eggs. Of course, that does not help if you need to solve the mystery of an unidentified caterpillar found in the wild.

I collected fat green caterpillars from my winter lettuce here in Arizona, and trying to raise them, I invested a lot of extra lettuce leaves, but got only tachinid flies for my efforts. One or rarely two flies hatched per caterpillar and they emerged only after the lepidoptera pupa was formed. The typical barrel shaped fly pupa was found next to the lep pupa which had a big hole at one end.

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Tachinid eggs can often be seen firmly attached to adult beetles. The development of the fly has to be quite fast to be completed within the lifespan of this relatively short-lived host.

The big scoliid Campsomeris ephippium seems to be a recent arrival from Mexico. We have been seeing them only since about 2012 in SE AZ. Their hosts are the grubs of our big scarab beetles like Dynastes. Likely scenario: wasp locates a grub, digs down to it, stabs it to paralyze it, and lays an egg on it: Idiobiont parasitoids.

Many wasps provide paralyzed hosts for their off-spring, the most well known is probably the Tarantula Hawk. But many species in several different families of wasps follow the same pattern, all very host-specific and often with extreme athleticism and surprising orientation capacities. They dig their nests, then go out to find prey, bring it back, lay their egg and close the nest entrance, patting the sand back into place with a rock held between their mandibles.

But even these parasitic wasps have to worry about super-parasites themselves:
while Ammophila is stashing her big caterpillar into the prepared hole, a little cuckoo is watching. When Ammophila drops her guard for a second, the little Argochrysis wasp slips in and lays her own egg. The egg of the small cuckoo wasp hatches first and probably eats the ammophila egg as well as the caterpillar.

Brood parasitism is extremely common in hymenoptera that provide for their offspring but do not stay around to guard the eggs and larvae. Solitary bee nests produce any number of Bee Flies, Blister Beetles, Wedge-shaped Beetles and Velvet Ants. But may parasites or cuckoos are actually closely related cousins in the same family of bees, for example Megachilidae.

But even ants, who care for their offspring in the most devoted altruistic way have uninvited guests: Several beetle families like weevils, carabids, Bess Beetles and scarabs have members that are adapted to living with ants as nest parasites. They somehow get around the ants' vigilant guards and then feed on the ants' food stores or even their brood.
This anteater scarab, Cremastocheilus mexicanus was flying around some ant hills on Kitt Peak road. In typical fashion, it crash landed and played dead, with legs sticking up ... Now the ants should have come out, ca...rried her into the colony like prey... but once in there, the beetle somehow avoids getting eaten by the ants. I have noticed that she can fold all extremities and even her head very tightly against her body, with no attack point for the ants sticking out. My theory is that this protects her initially against what the ants usually do to beetles: they tear them apart, pulling from all sides. After some time in the ant nest, the beetle might have absorbed enough of the nest-perfume to blend in and for the ants to ignore her, at which point she lays eggs that produce larvae that feed on the rich food supplies and also on the brood of the ants.

There may be more parasitic wasp species than any other group of parasites, but wasps are also hosts for a very interesting order of obligatory parasites the Strepsiptera (Twisted-winged Insects): As I understand it, Taxonomists were not quite sure where the order of Strepsiptera would fit into the phylogenetic tree, but the current understanding is that they are closest to coleoptera (beetles). Their bodies seem highly modified for their lifestyle as endoparasites. At least larvae and females live for the most part of their lives inside the bodies of other arthropods, often in hymenoptera. The short lived winged males fly and find females to mate top left photo). The eggs hatch within the female, who never left the host, and the young larvae move out from her body cavity to find new hosts.

Many arachnids are exoparasites, like ticks and many mites. Those often switch from parasitism as larvae to a predatory life style when mature. Even those darned chiggers fall into this category. In the picture a Cobweb spider Euryopis sp. carries a trombidioid larva while a trombidioid adult mite is striking out on its own.

Mites on a carrion beetle are NOT parasitic as in feeding on the beetle or even stealing his food when he carries them to a delectable little corpse. This is an example of phoresy (one animal attached to another exclusively for transport). But the story is interesting, if disgusting to some: The beetle and his mate will bury the dead bird or mouse and masticate it into a ball of food for their larvae. They'll actually stay with their brood and care for them. But before the beetles got a hold of that prize, other insects have already laid eggs on it, for example flies. Supposedly, those phoretic mites, deutonymphs in the genus Poecilochirus, will destroy that competition, feeding on eggs and small larvae of flies. But being predators, the mites are also a threat to the beetles' own offspring, maybe that's why the beetle parents keep such close watch?
Similar mutualism exists between mites and dung beetles.

Here are more phoretic hitchhikers: Peudoscorpions, being flightless arachnids and very small, use big strong flighing beetles as public transportation. Trichocnemis spiculatus neomexicanus is over 2 in long and the pseudoscorpions were hidden under its elytra. But I have also found them clinging to feet and even antennae of beetles, and that probably slows smaller longhorns down considerably.

Avery special case of cohabitation and phoresis was just posted by Alex Wild on Face Book: Attaphila, a tiny cockroach living in Atta (Leafcutter Ant) nests and travelling with young alate queens to their new colonies. See the link here

When predators cannot enjoy their meal in peace, but are joined by flies that are drawn to the smell of the slaughter we call that comensalism - those flies are co-eaters. Here an Assassin Bug (Pselliopus sp.) killed a Mason Wasp (Eumenidae) and a number of Milichiid flies invited themselves to the feast.

These are only a few examples of the many types of parasitism that can be observed in the insect (or spider world). It is a very complicated and fascinating field.

Madera creek is gurgling, Canyon Tree Frogs are croaking, dusky capped Flycatchers are adding their soft whistle and the Cottonwood trees at Proctor Road at Madera Canyon are lush with fresh leaves. The scene rinds me of our excursion to a sky island in Sonora Mexico last spring. There I learned about aphids in leaf-stem galls of cottonwoods, so now I'm actively looking for them. Sure enough, there they are.

Many galls that I find on oaks contain only a single eggs/larvae of a wasp or fly. These galls on cottonwood leaf-stems (petiole) contain a big group of petiolegall aphids, and maybe more than one generation.

A forest service web page helps to understand what my photo shows. the following is a mix of quotations and my own interpretation:
Eggs are laid in fall in bark cracks on Aspen and Cottonwoods. In spring,when new, young leaves appear, eggs hatch into nymphs. The nymphs feed on developing leaf petioles through their tubular, sucking mouthparts. Feeding induces the host plant to produce a swollen growth, called a gall. The gall completely envelops the developing aphid ( should this be plural or does every nymph get her own?).

'The aphids are pale green with a dark thorax, and covered with a waxy substance'. (Actually, the cavity was nearly filled with that stuff, I removed some to make the aphids visible. They have
short, thread-like antennae and lack the terminal abdominal tubules, the characteristic aphid cornicles. Usually excess sugary fluid is expelled through the cornicles: Honey dew. Inside a gall, this seems not possible. So are the aphids producing the waxy substance instead? It seemed attached to/expelled by those cornicles.
Judging by their size of the aphids I found yesterday I'd say they were still nymphs. They will grow into wingless, asexually reproducing females. These will produce a new generation that will stay within the gall until full-grown. Those new females will have wings. During late June and July the galls will split open, and the winged adults will fly to their summer hosts:
Plants in the cabbage family. They settle underground on the roots of those herbaceous plants. Several asexual female generations may be produced on the summer host, all living in wax covered colonies. At the end of summer, winged adults emerge and fly back to their winter hosts, the Cottonwood trees, where they give birth to small, mouthless males and females that mate, and then the males die. After mating, each female, which is less than 1/25 inch (1 mm) long, lays one egg that is almost as large as she is into the bark of the host tree and now the cycle is ready to start over.

Back at Rock Disk Park in Marana

November morning at the Santa Cruz River in Marana, Arizona

Bug eats Bug

Fascinating Flies

Aposematic colors

Grasshoppers and relations

Desert Snow 2015

Happy 2015!

Photos of the year 2014

Jumping Bugs

Camouflage and Hiding in plain sight

All about Mantids

Spring is coming early to Arizona

Batesian and Muellerian Mimicry

A new True Bug species for our back yard

Aquatic Arthropods in Arizona

Mating behaviors among bugs

Parental Care among Arthropods

Arthropods as builders

Parasitism among arthropods

Cottonwood Gall Aphids (Pemphigus populitranversus)