Mystery Revelaed

OK – nokkrar Apologies fyrir að hafa ekki fullt af myndum * enn * lirfanna ræðir (Ég mun á næstu dögum!). Um helgina var ég út með hóp af Berkeley nemenda á Mount Hamilton og doktorsnemi Meghan Culpepper safnað nokkrum tegundir Scaphinotus og sumir lirfur! So the specimen from Monday was indeed the larvae of a Scaphinotus beetle feasting inside the shell of a native terrestrial snail. This challenge was a hard one since these predatory Scaphinotus larvae are rarely encountered and there are zero images of out there – and none of them feeding. Better luck next time!

For now, here is an undetermined Scaphinotus species. In the coming weeks I will have 4-5 species photographed and identified (by Meghan) – and the larvae will have to be sequenced for species ID. Dvöl lag.