Insect Picture of the Day

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Andrew Lin sent in this picture of a moth, this time not on his oregano, but on his thyme.

What is the deal with those jaw thingies on the front of its head? Those aren’t antennae! I assume they’re extra fiddly bits that insects seem to have stuck on, but I keep looking at it and thinking that this is when we first knew the moths were starting to become carnivorous….

On the plus side, however, it is clearly drinking nectar from the flower with its proboscis. We can only assume that it is going fweeeet while doing so.

Extra thanks to Andrew for supplying me with extra pictures for the backfill.

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Oooh, pretty eyes. Andrew Lin caught a much more respectable-looking Calliopsis bee this time. He sent in this picture noting that, though it’s slightly soft-focused, the reflections of the oregano in her eye were really striking. I agree.

And so does the biology community. Are you ready for some serious name calling? Yesterday I joked about the Latin meaning of the name. If you break Calliopsis into its root parts, you end up with the roots callum, meaning “rough or hardened” (the English word “callus” is a direct transplant from Latin), and ops, meaning “power” or “riches”.

Hmm. “Rough Power Bee” sounds more like an Anime superhero than a bug. And “Hardened Riches Bee” sounds more like an investment portfolio. What gives?

It’s not actually Latin. It’s Greek.

Look again at that bee. What do you notice about it first?

Calli is Greek for “more beautiful”, and opsis is Greek for “A sight / vision / outward appearance / eyesight”. Put them together, and what do you get?

Oooh, pretty eyes.

P.S. I love the color and patterning of the oregano. Andrew sent in a bonus picture, if you’re interested. It’s gorgeous, and it has a great butt-shot of a Calliopsis if you’re into that sort of thing:

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Andrew Lin sends in this great photo of a bee from genus Calliposis, which is Latin for “drunken frat bee”. Here it can be seen doing a kegstand, facefirst into the oregano blossoms.

(Of course this is rubbish. Worker bees are all sterile females. But let’s be honest: “drunken sorority bee” is not nearly as funny. Maybe if a few more sororities lit couches on fire and threw them off the dorm roof.)

Seriously, people. This post needs to be lolbugged. Head on over to SayWhat or ROFLbot and get to work. Feel free to use the portrait image or the larger size.

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Here’s another one of those pictures where I don’t know the bug, and it’s not really a remarkable specimen, but some aspect of the photo was really neat.

Check out the larger version. Why on earth does this moth have gr’opperlike spines on its leg? The way the foot is turned forward to hold onto the ceiling is also interesting to me; I would have expected it to be turned backwards like wasp feet. Finally, it’s a bit blurry, but check out that schnoz. It’s like a party favor all coiled up and ready for New Year’s.

Wouldn’t it be awesome if moths made a fweeeet! sound every time they unfurled their proboscis?

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Andrew Lin can make even Polistes dominulus look good.

No seriously. Here’s the wallpaper to prove it.

Andrew says that oregano grows like a weed in Sacramento. I must admit, it’s a very pretty weed.

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Sometimes the best identification you can make is “it’s a bug!”… but sometimes you can expand very slightly on this. Mahala Johnson sends in this picture of a mystery bug that I am upgrading to “it’s a cool looking bug!”

She suggests perhaps that it might be an aphid, but online research turns up no such beastie that would wear striped socks like this one.

Any takers on an ID?

Thanks, Mahala!

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Sometimes the best identification you can make is “bugs!”

This picture isn’t as sharply focused as I’d like but after I took it I realized that it does capture the feeling of the shot nicely. About ten centimeters above the top of this photo is where I took the picture of the ceiling spider just moments earlier.

These are the bugs that the ceiling spider was noshing on. The average size of the bugs in this picture is about 3mm long.

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Last night I was up late, with a single light on in the living room. It’s Summer now, so we had all the windows open, and even though there are screens a good number of bugs find their way into the house. At one point I noticed this small beetle (about 5mm long) trundling across the carpet. When I got down close and took some pictures, I noticed a small gnatlike bug walking across the carpet. Suddenly I became aware of tiny movements all around me: in the square meter of carpet around this beetle, there were perhaps two dozen gnats, beetles, and assorted other bugs. Yikes!

Then something plopped on my head. It bounced immediately to the carpet: another tiny beetle! What on Earth…?

I looked up. I was directly under the only light still burning in the house, and it was aswarm with tiny flying bugs. Every once in a while one would hit the glass cover with a solid tik sound and fall, stunned, to the carpet below.

The other day tceisele mentioned that he planned to do a “square foot” project, and count all the bugs he can find in a square foot of his yard. I think this is a fascinating project idea. Is it cheating if I bait them like this?

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Here’s a mystery moth for your identification pleasure.

I was intrigued by the fringes on its wings, and when I got the pictures out of the camera I was surprised to see such long antennae.

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Some of you may have noticed that I’ve run a lot of pictures from Jeremiah Fargo lately. There’s a very good reason for you to notice this. It’s because I’ve been running a lot of pictures from Jeremiah Fargo lately.

This is our good friend¹ Polistes dominulus, the European Paper Wasp. This is a queen tending her first brood of the year. You can see the eggs have changed to a milky color compared to the eggs I photographed a few days ago. It also looks like she’s provided some nectar or other form of nutrient goo for the larvae when they hatch. Hey, she may not be a great neighbor, but at least she’s a decent mom.

Thanks, Jer!

¹ If by “good” you understand me to mean “not so great, actually”