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14 January 2013
Monday macrobug: Orange wasp
Saw this one on the Neoacadian Inner Piedmont field trip before GSA in the fall… I guess it’s something of a break from tradition to show you a bug from any place other than my yard, but this one’s pretty enough to justify the excursion… Yes, that’s the Walker Top Granite that it’s resting on.
7 January 2013
Monday macrobug: Leafhopper from below
This leafhopper, seen through my sliding doors to the deck, is about 6 mm long. Basically, this critter is a miniature cicada!
31 December 2012
Monday macrobug: Katydid
Happy New Year’s Eve! Here’s a katydid seen on my porch back before it got really cold: Can you tell if it’s a male or a female? (Hint: look for the ovipositor!) This one’s out of focus, but I like it anyhow because of the character lurking in the background: Happy New Year!
17 December 2012
Monday macrobug: Lovecraftian larva
This maggot, with his prominent segmentation and his contrasting armor plates, reminded me of something in an H.P. Lovecraft story: Cool. And “ewww.”
13 December 2012
When a batfly is really a deer ked
Monday I posted photos of what I had thought was a batfly, but I was wrong. A skeptical reader forwarded a link to the post to an actual entomologist, and he said “Nope, that’s no batfly.” I was right about it being parasitic, but the host is more likely deer (which we have in abundance in the tall grass on our land) rather than bats. It’s called a “deer ked.” …
10 December 2012
Monday macrobug: Batfly!!
UPDATE: This isn’t really a bat fly. It’s a deer ked. Back in October, I was weed-whacking in the yard, cutting down some 1-meter-tall grass and then picking up bundles of the fallen grass to put on our compost pile. I was out in the yard doing this for about an hour, then I came inside to have dinner with Lily and Baxter. Halfway through dinner, I felt something crawling …
3 December 2012
Monday macrobug: Delicate little wasp
We had several of these guys come inside in October, only to find themselves trapped and spend days flying around the window screens, trying to find a way back outside. This one is dead: Look at those stripey antennae! That thread-like waist! That extended stinger(?) or is it an ovipositor?
26 November 2012
Monday macrobug: Wheel bug
This is a wheel bug, so called because of that protuberance on its back… Here’s another one – but this “wheel” has a flat tire…
19 November 2012
Monday macrobug: Brown marmorated stinkbug
These guys were all over the exterior of our house in October, trying to get into the interior. Here’s the view from the outside, looking down on the back of stinkbug: Nasty species – invasive, destructive to plants, persistent in its desire to be indoors, and most pointedly, downright smelly.
12 November 2012
Monday macrobug: big green worm
Found this caterpillar in the dirt the other day outside my house… Here it is (in the palm of my leather work gloves – the width of a finger may be seen blurrily in the background): I spent some time looking for matches on Bug Guide and in Garden Insects of North America by Whitney Cranshaw. The book wasn’t as helpful as the website this time. Looks a lot like …
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.