Otros Insectos Mexicanos

Dunas de Cansaburro, San Ysidro, Veracruz

I've been poring over the roughly 750 photos that I took on my Mexican trip. I saw and was able to identify 76 species of butterflies on the trip. I have reasonable photos of 58 species.

The organic farm Cañada el Equimite near Coatepec

I took far fewer photos of dragonflies. That's partly because we saw far fewer species, but also because Celeste did most of the dragonfly photography. She was using the Xerces Society's camera (much better than mine) to take macro photos of hand-held specimens for later identification. We did take a few shots of dragonflies in environmental settings- but that was not our main goal.

B52? Nope, it's an enormous mosquito
Photo: Celeste M.

I did see (and photograph) other types of insects. I also felt a lot of critters. The mosquitoes and biting midges were ferocious. Celeste quipped that they viewed the Off that we were dousing ourselves with more as salsa than as insect repellent. She took a great photo of a huge mosquito that I stunned.

I did get to photograph three groups that I have particular affinity for. We saw a couple of cool band-winged grasshoppers. One with orange wings showed up in a bunch of dry spots with sparse vegetation. One particularly windy day in the dunes, they looked totally sandblasted. I think they might have been Lactista punctatus.

Sandblasted grasshopper at the Cansaburro Dunes

Lactista punctulatus?

At the organic farm up in the highlands we saw numerous examples of Macherocera mexicana, with beautiful bright blue hindwings. This species has recently been found in the US with the discovery of a population at the base of the Rincon Mountains just east of Tucson.

Macherocera mexicana
Photo: Celeste M.

Aren't my blue hindwings beautiful?
Photo: Celeste M.

We saw a couple of cool longhorn beetles. Most notable was this enormous, brightly colored Lissonotus flavocinctus from the Cansaburro Dunes. Thanks to Ted and Mike for help with the ID. There was also a very pretty (not yet identified) species that turned up at the botanical gardens in Coatepec.

Lissonotus flavocinctus

Cerambycid beetle at the botanical gardens outside of Coatepec

We spent quite a bit of time in the coastal dunes near San Ysidro, including the Pronatura reserve called Dunas Cansaburro. It's a beautiful reserve, and many readers have already figured out that this means tiger beetles. Unfortunately I did not get good photos at the dunes. When we were in tiger beetle habitat we were faced with a howling wind and stinging sand. I was able to get a (not very good) photo of Cicindela curvata. We also saw a species that may be C. sedecimpunctata. That turned up in a number of spots that we visited, and I was able to get some better pictures.

A terrible photo of Cicindela curvata

Possibly Cicindela sedecimpunctata

Somewhat unexpectedly were the numerous tigers that I encountered in the ruts of a two-track at the organic farm. They look a lot like C. punctulata. If that ID is correct, they are likely subspecies catherinae.

Possibly Cicindela punctulata catherinae
ID awaiting confirmation

Overall, the butterflies were the stars of this trip, but I was happy with some of the other biological diversity that I managed to see. There were even a few cool critters with backbones!

What’s more difficult to see…

than a Trimerotropis latifasciata (broad-banded grasshopper) adult on lichen-encrusted clay exposures?

This question was recently posed by Ted at his blog Beetles in the Bush. Ever up for a challenge, I'd argue that a Leuronotina ritensis (Lichen Grasshopper) adult on a lichen-encrusted rock is a pretty good contender.


This species is narrowly endemic to the sky island mountains of southeast Arizona and adjacent Mexico. I photographed this individual in the Atascosas Mountains west of Nogales during my trip last week.

Dispatch From the Spice Islands

I’ve been in Penang for a little less than 36 hours. I’m here for ICBES, the International Congress of Butterfly Exhibitors and Suppliers.

It has been an exciting visit so far. Above is the view from my hotel room. Most of yesterday until mid-afternoon was taken up with various meetings related tot he butterfly display industry. I sneaked out for a few minutes at lunch and walked across the street to the beach. My first-ever view of the Indian Ocean was not terribly inspiring (from our location, you see mostly a blank expanse of sea) but I got a few photos of shorebirds on rocks. Nancy’s field guide to birds of southeast Asia says that this one is a common sandpiper. On the way back in to the meeting, I photographed a huge metallic bee. This species makes the huge carpenter bees that I see around Tucson look like sweat bees.

Common Sandpiper

Big-ass Bee

Just how packed our time is going to be was hinted at by the fact that we did not start doing anything outside the meeting room until nearly 3 in the afternoon. We bundled up into a couple of buses and headed up the road to a spice farm. It was interesting to see the nutmeg and clove trees, but much more interesting was the diverse insect life that we began to encounter almost immediately. There is a stream running through the spice farm, and there were dragonflies everywhere.

A couple of the colorful dragonflies from the spice farm

There were some fascinating grasshoppers.

Another bird grasshopper (Schistocerca)
Similar to what I saw in Florida, only bigger and more colorful

I love the tropics!!!

I could have stayed longer, but the group was loaded back on the bus to visit a batik factory. Then we visited the butterfly farm that is hosting this year’s conference. We saw both the public display area and the area devoted to butterfly production. The host farm is one of our suppliers of butterflies, so it was pleasant to be able to see the facility.

Breeding Room at the Tropical Entomological House (TEH) Butterfly Farm


Lacewing Butterfly (Cethosia) at the TEH butterfly exhibit


Lacewing Butterfly Larvae at the TEH Butterfly Farm

Dinner was at a seafood restaurant that featured a floor show of regional dance. Between the jet lag and a late night I’m pretty shot right now- yet later this afternoon brings the promise of more of Malaysia’s natural beauty. First, it’s downstairs for some more meetings.

Semi-traditional dance (the music was Bollywood soundtrack)

Adventures in the Wilds of Pure Florida

My long-planned travel has begun. Getting ready for the travel has taken me away from a lot of blogging activities. I've been directly chastised by UrSpo for my lack of posts. Mea culpa. I won't be lacking for interesting subject material in the coming weeks.

Greetings from Gainesville Florida. One segment of my regular readers should find this picture of the red Jeep and black Lab to be an instant giveaway regarding how I spent my day yesterday. Before I came down to Florida, I emailed FC and asked him if he'd be amenable to showing me a bit of his part of the world. We made plans to meet at Cedar Key Scrub and look for insects.

Cedar Key Scrub is a beautiful place, with lots of interesting plants and animals. We even got to see the rare Florida Scrub Jay. FC's photo came out much better than mine, so you can go see a good shot of it there. FC said that we were just a bit past the peak for fall wildflowers, but there was still lots to see.

Blazing Star (Liatris sp.)

Coontie

I was especially impressed with the blazing stars. There looked to be a couple of different species, and they were completely different from the ones that we have at home in Illinois. I also wanted to make sure that I got a photo of the Coontie, Florida's native cycad for Leon. FC has promised seeds and instructions. Great, now we can have seedlings from a second species of cycad all over the house.

Band-winged Grasshopper awaiting identification.

Bird grasshopper (Schistocerca) I'm pretty sure this is S. rubiginosa.

Eastern Lubber (Romalea microptera)

Our walk began with the temperature cool and dew still in the grass. We didn't see many insects at first, but eventually tings warmed up. There were tons of grasshoppers. I had hoped to see beetles- and they too put in appearances.

A flower longhorn beetle (Typocerus sp.)
Actually Strangalia sexnotata.  Thanks, Ted.

One of the Dynastine scarabs

Of course, the beetles that I wanted most to see were tiger beetles. It was fairly late in the walk before they showed, but I was not disappointed. This form of the Festive Tiger Beetle is a new subspecies for me. Sadly, my images are only so-so.

Festive Tiger Beetle (Cicindela scutellaris scutellaris)

As good as the insect viewing was during the trip, the herps were the truly memorable wildlife of the day. I guess that's not surprising, I was getting the full Pure Florida treatment here. I got a great photo of a toad.

Toad!

Late in the walk, FC leat Bear trail his leash and run up ahead a few feet to wait in the shade for us to catch up. At one point Bear was about 20 feet ahead of me, with FC close behind. I let out a yelp. Bear had walked just inches from a diamondback rattlesnake, with FC passing not much further away from it. FC restrained Bear to keep him out of harm's way, and we both got some photos of the snake.

Florida Diamondback (Crotalus adamanteus)

I'll get you- and your big moose of a dog, too!

We kind of got lost during our hike. At least that's what FC said. I did at one point wonder if the hike was just more appealing than the honey-do list that Mrs. FC might have had waiting for him back home. We agreed to hike for a couple of hours and were out for over twice that. FC is a great guy, and I couldn't have asked for a better guide to this little slice of Floridian wonder.

Arizona Before the Conference

Flame Skimmer (Libellula saturata) in Tanque Verde Canyon

I've been back from the annual Bug Conference in Arizona for nearly a week now. The trip was fun, and I'm just now feeling like life is getting back to normal. I wanted to concentrate a lot on my insect photography. Later I realized that I had done so almost to the exclusion of other photography. For example, on my first day in Arizona, Homer and I went down to Bisbee to visit Cobban and Ray. I took a couple of photos of a tiger beetle by their pool, but none of any of them nor of Cobban and Ray's beautiful house. Ah, well.

Filagree Skimmer (Pseudoleon superbus )

Mexican Amberwing (Perithemis intensa)

It has been unusually hot and dry this year, so the insects were not what they have been in previous years. The Sunday before last, I went out to Tanque Verde Canyon and photographed dragonflies. It was brutally hot, and I did not stay terribly long. I brought my usual amount of water, and it was inadequate for the extreme heat. I saw some cool species and collected a couple of interesting Buprestid beetles.

Willcox Playa

On Monday I went back to Willcox Playa to photograph tiger beetles. It was difficult for a variety of reasons. Due to the dry conditions, there were not that many beetles, and very poor species diversity. I had my new, better camera with me, and wanted to get better shots of both the Aridlands Tiger Beetle (Cicindela marutha) and the Black Sky Tiger Beetle (Cicindela nigrocoerulea). I succeeded from the standpoint that I now have better pictures of both of these species, but I'm still not entirely satisfied. There's always next year.

Aridlands Tiger Beetle (Cicindela marutha)


Black Sky Tiger Beetle (Cicindela nigrocoerulea)

On Tuesday of last week, I headed down to Rio Rico, but not before detouring west to Kitt Peak. I wanted to see and try to photograph gorgeous longhorn beetles in the genus Tragidion. I've seen them there before. Alas, the habitat where I had previously seen them had burned recently and was still looking pretty scorched.

Scorched vegetation at Kitt Peak

There was not a lot to see at Kitt Peak this year. I collected a couple of buprestid beetles (Agrilus pulchellus) at the roadside picnic area below the mountain. Part way up the mountain, I got another very pretty Agrilus, black with a bright metallic red head, on mesquite. There were some nice grasshoppers to photograph at the picnic area at the summit.

Slant-faced Grasshopper (Psoloessa texana) at the summit of Kitt Peak

So the insect viewing, photography, and collecting were not as good this year as they have been the past few times I have visited. Still, it was southeast Arizona during the monsoon season, and I can think of nowhere else I would have rather been.

Memorial Day Weekend

I really enjoyed the long weekend. I got in a lot of my favorite things: gardening, Fen and time with friends. Saturday we did a fair bit of work around the yard. On Sunday, we went out to the Fen. It was hazy, but otherwise beautiful. The oak leaves are just expanding and still a fairly yellowish green. I wanted to take a picture of a columbine. Walt posted a picture of a garden columbine (Aquilegia vulgaris) on his blog recently and I wanted to post our wild columbine (Aquilegia canadensis) as a comparison.

Wild Columbine (Aquilegia canadensis)

The six-spotted tiger beetles are having a very good year this year. They are everywhere (no complaints here).

Six-spotted Tiger Beetle (Cicindela sexguttata)

Each spring, we see Sulphur-winged Arphia grasshoppers on our hill prairies. These belong to the band-winged grasshoppers, a group that is more common out west. Members of this family typically have brightly-colored wings that flash when they fly up. True to it's name, the Sulphur-winged Arphia flashes vivid yellow when it flies. I have never been able to get a good photo. On Sunday, one posed for me.

Sulphur-winged Arphia (Arphia sulphurea)

On Monday, Elgin hosted the annual Fox-Trot Race. Part of the race is along the banks of the Fox Rive. Leon ran again this year, and I had my traditional brunch.

Go Leon!

I made fontina-bacon foccaccia, sour cream coffee cake, and jam cake. The jam cake is a new recipe acquired from Ur-Spo. I used home made Blackberry jam in mine. I have a lot of jam at the moment , this is a great way to use it up.

Ur-Spo's Blackberry Jan Cake

Serving suggestion from Ur-Spo: "Frost with jam, whiped cream, or fluffy frosting. Or have it withoug any topping like my men."

I prefer mine lightly dusted with powdered sugar.