Madera Canyon

The conference has really kept me hopping. I've had no time to blog at all. I haven't been reading or commenting on blogs that I regularly read, either. For much of Sunday and Monday I was without internet access. I'm writing this post from Rio Rico, AZ and having awonderful time. Wish you were all here!

Sandy and Me

Sunday was a transition day. I had to pick up fellow entomologist john at the airport in mid afternoon. Fortunately, I was able to have a very pleasant noon time having lunch with Sandy. He's only the fourth blogger that I've met in person, and was a really great guy. We had good food and better conversation at Rosa's.

After I picked john up, we headed off towards Kitt Peak to do some collecting. This was a bit of a bust, because I didn't know that the road up the mountain closed at 4 PM. We got there at about 3:30. We did a bit of collecting just outside the gate and then headed down to Madera Canyon, where we had rented a cabin. This turned out to be a better situation than I had expected. Madera Canyon is well known as a birding hotspot. It also has great insects. Our plan was to check in, go down the moountain for dinner, and return to blacklight. By the time we got checked in, we realized that it would be dark when we returned. We were too hungry to set up the blacklight before eating, so as a compromise we left the back porch light on. Wow. When we returned, the back door was covered with amazing moths and beetles, including a half dozen Chrysina.

Chrysina lecontei

Chrysina are are amazing green scarab beetles. (Bug Girl: "Ooh! Shiny!") There are three species in Arizona, and we namaged to get all 3 black lighting. There were beautiful scarabs, huge fierce looking longhorn beetles and colorful underwing moths. We put the sheet and black light up, and things got even better. It was the finesst blacklighting experience I have had to date.

Chrysina beyeri. Not the best photo, but it shows off the apple green elytra and blue legs.

The aptly named Chrysina gloriosa. The stripes are metallic chrome colored.

On Monday, we spent the day higking up Mt. Wrightson. We did not get anywhere near the summit, mainly because the collecting was so good. I saw my first ever Arizona hairstreak (sorry, no photo), a bunch of beetles and some cool grasshoppers. My favorite was the blue winged grasshopper.

Blue-winged grasshopper (Trimerotropis cyanipennis)

A peek at the blue wings

It was an amazing day of insects and plants surrounded by gorgeous views. We even saw a feb birds (Painted Redstart, anyone?) Folks on the trail were intrigued by our butterfly nets, and very friendly. Later, when we got to the conference, two colleagues were snickering at us. they were in Madera the same day we were. They ran into some hikers who said they had seen two other entomologists, one from Denver and one from Chicago. Our colleagues knew that we were just up the hill from them.

More adventures to come (heck, more adventures still happening).