Finding Coleoptera

Lately in my backyard I have seen a lot of Lepidoptera, as adult butterflies and moths, and as caterpillars. I have seen a lot of hoppers. I have seen a LOT of bees. But I haven't been seeing very many beetles (well, a few lady beetles, and a few Japanese beetles). I have had a few quick glimpses of flower beetles on milkweed, but for some reason they have been very shy of the camera, and I am not able to get close to them. So today's very cooperative beetle deserves Backyard Bug of the Day status purely for cooperation.

Backyard Bug of the Day:

 There are several species of longhorn flower beetles that look very similar, but I was able to find the name of this species anyway: Strangalia luteicornis. I do so appreciate a lack of ambiguity in insect identification.

The beetle posed quite serenely for me until this came along and bonked into it:

 

 I often wonder... When flowers are crowded with insects, often an insect will fly in and bump into another insect, which may or may not give way. Is this what the interloper is trying to achieve, or are they just clumsy? This happens even when there are plenty of flowers to go around.

 

It looks kind of smug, doesn't it? Sweat bee

 

 I found this little beetle, too, on the storm door of the back door. On the inside.

 Skipper

 Grass sticking out of the bee house.

 Leaf hopper

 Leaf hopper and buffalo tree hopper. On neither a leaf nor a tree.

 The chrysalis doesn't have the bend in it today. Such a strange thing...

 Sawfly?

 Katydid nymph

 Sawfly larva

 Bee resting and bee working

 Assassin bug nymph

 

 Today you can definitely see two little birds' gaping mouths in the robin's nest.

 Arachnid Appreciation:
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 This seems like a pretty smart place to build a web, across leaves right in front of the flowers. It's probably even better when the flowers bloom. Insects heading for the flowers would end up right in the web. Of course, that is a hopper this arrow-shaped micrathena spider has caught, and it is probably more interested in the leaves and stem of the plant. Or it was, before it got eaten by a spider.

Daddy-long-legs/harvestman. I didn't notice the weevil when I took the picture.