By the Book

Because of awkward timing, I did two partial bug walks today, and both times I covered basically the same parts of the backyard. So some places I didn't visit at all, and others I covered twice. The reason I did the second bug walk is because the first one was pretty unsuccessful, or so I thought at the time. Even adding both walks together I didn't find a lot of bugs, but I did find some pretty cool ones, including a couple of new ones, so altogether I guess I would have to say it was worthwhile, even though I felt really discouraged while I was out there. I even told my husband, "Sometimes I don't enjoy insect macrophotography." I was frustrated by the number of bugs that flew away before I could get a picture of them, or the pictures I couldn't take because it was too windy to focus on things. It took looking at the pictures on the computer to think it wasn't so bad.

Okay, enough rambling about nothing...

Backyard Bug of the Day:

 From looking it up in the Kaufman Field Guide to Insects of North America, it looks a lot like a fungus beetle, but from others posted in the insect group I follow on facebook I think it is actually a sap beetle/picnic beetle (those might be different names for the same thing - or some sap beetles are picnic beetles, something like that?) - there are many species of those, apparently. Anyway, this being on a tree sprout that appears to be oozing sap makes it more likely to be a sap beetle than a fungus beetle, I think. So I looked up sap beetles in the book, and it only showed one, and it did not look like this. This, by the way, is why I find insect identification so frustrating, and why I seldom bother to do it. But we're just going to consider this a sap beetle, of the Genus Glischrochilus, which are the picnic beetles. Another thing to note about this picture is that you can see my ring flash reflected quite well on its prontum (that black part behind its head), even seeing individual LEDs.

 I think this is a new one for me.

Random Bugs:

 Lace bug

 Can you spot the photobomber?

 Side view of the lace bug. It's a peculiar insect.

 This looper caterpillar hardly looks real - it looks like a caterpillar in a children's book. But it is real. And really, really tiny - maybe an eight of an inch long?

 A taste of my day - this is one of the better chances I got, and this moth flew away before I could get a closer shot.

Arachnid Appreciation:
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 Note all the fuzz in the web.