2 May 2010
3 bugs + 1 lizard
Posted by Callan Bentley
Yesterday, Lily and I embraced my first day of no-more-classes by taking a hike. We drove out to Massanutten Mountain and hiked up to Signal Knob, a ten-mile (roundtrip) jaunt with about 1500 feet of elevation gain. Along the way, we saw a lot of Massanutten Formation quartz sandstone (Silurian), a few trace fossils, a few good birds (eastern towhee male + female, some warblers), and some good wildlife, by which I mean more insects and reptiles.
Here’s a young bug (literally, from the order Hemiptera). Sorry for the lack of scale; this guy is like 2-3 mm long:
Fat, juicy caterpillar:
Beetle of some sort, with a lovely golden iridescence: 
And a lizard:
Enjoy. Happy May!
Callan Bentley is Associate Professor of Geology at Piedmont Virginia Community College in Charlottesville, Virginia. He is a Fellow of the Geological Society of America. For his work on this blog, the National Association of Geoscience Teachers recognized him with the James Shea Award. He has also won the Outstanding Faculty Award from the State Council on Higher Education in Virginia, and the Biggs Award for Excellence in Geoscience Teaching from the Geoscience Education Division of the Geological Society of America. In previous years, Callan served as a contributing editor at EARTH magazine, President of the Geological Society of Washington and President the Geo2YC division of NAGT.
I think the lizard may be an eastern fence lizard
i was actually planning on taking this hike on saturday as well! but i’ve got a whole nother week til no-more-classes (im a geology major at jmu). What kind of trace fossils were you seeing in the masanutten?
DB –
I saw lots of horizontal burrows at the interface between beds — Arthophycus, I think. Also, on the final spur leading out to signal knob, there are some good examples of Skolithos.
-CB
interesting! hopefully i can finish my petrology final in time to do this hike on thursday…i will keep an eye out for skolithos i’ve never seen them in the massanutten