Mecoptera of North America

Merope tuber

New to the web this week is an excellent resource on the Mecoptera of North America. Dr. Norm Penny has put together an illustrated guide to all the North American species with habitus and genitalia images. While not very diverse, the Mecoptera prove to be an enigmatic and fascinating . . . → Read More: Mecoptera of North America

Blue Oak Ranch Reserve

A few weeks ago I was invited to join a Berkeley entomology class out in the field for the weekend. Our destination was the Blue Oak Ranch Reserve; one of the newest reserves to the University of California system located just outside of San Jose on Mount Hamilton (map below). It was a . . . → Read More: Blue Oak Ranch Reserve

Mystery Revelaed

OK – a few apologies for not having full images *yet* of the larvae in question (I will in a few days!). Over the weekend I was out with a group of Berkeley students on Mount Hamilton and PhD candidate Meghan Culpepper collected a few species of Scaphinotus and a some larvae! So the specimen . . . → Read More: Mystery Revelaed

Monday mystery

 

Came across this guy while out in the field the other day, what’s going on here? Points awarded for Order/Family/Genus – but even experts in this group can’t figure out the species quite yet.

 

(everyone in the field with me should hold . . . → Read More: Monday mystery

Flies can be (really) cool

Lasia klettii: Photos by April Nobile, CAS

For the most part flies are not an insect I get overly excited about. However, the enigmatic family Acroceridae are the exception. I’ll start sharing some interesting genera from time to time – the morphology of the family is amazingly diverse. Most of my days . . . → Read More: Flies can be (really) cool

Genius of the Press XVII

Usually I come across horrible entomology articles regularly enough that I save a backlog for future series. This hasn’t been the case over the last few weeks, I haven’t come across the normal array of terrible media crud. Maybe I just get jaded and stop looking as carefully – but this week I even came . . . → Read More: Genius of the Press XVII

The Moth is off to Catalina

[cetsEmbedGmap src=http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=33.393039,-118.416824&spn=0.359452,0.715485&t=h&z=11 width=600 height=330 marginwidth=0 marginheight=0 frameborder=0 scrolling=auto]

Tomorrow morning I’m off for a 10 day collecting trip down to Catalina Island. I’ve been lucky enough to be invited to join Dr. Jerry Powell of UC Berkeley on a moth survey, and this will be my first time to any of the islands. . . . → Read More: The Moth is off to Catalina

The tiniest of moths

The family Nepticulidae hold some of the smallest moths known, ranging from 3-8mm wing-tip to wing-tip. For a comparison I have imaged two moths above: the largest known – Coscinocera hercules that tips the scales at nearly 9 inches, and one of the smallest (yes that tiny little speck . . . → Read More: The tiniest of moths

A Year in Review

Oops, looks like I missed my first ‘blogoversary’! Monday the 21st was the one year turning point for my blog; and I’m incredibly happy to have spent the last year sharing some of my ramblings with all of you. I’ve somewhat lost track of how many hits I’ve had since I moved everything . . . → Read More: A Year in Review

Genius of the Press XVI

A softball for this GOP challenge. This image comes care of the Victoria Advocate (TX paper) – with a poorly written article about butterflies. This image flop is pretty easy, but for extra points who can tell me what else is incorrect in the text?

 

. . . → Read More: Genius of the Press XVI