A Dead End, Fine Additions, and Macro Photography.

Wow! It is hard to believe that it has been almost two months since my last post.
As might be expected with the advent of spring, I have photographed a lot of cool insects and spiders. However, there's also been a lot of death. So I've decided to take Kurt Vonnegut's approach and follow every death with "so it goes."
I've also begun to investigate a few mysterious behaviors...and reached a dead end. So it goes. Not, however, as dead as this Lytta sp. blister beetle I found half-buried in a wasp nest.

So it goes...or does it?

I am not entirely certain that the wasp I caught was the instigator. She was walking away from the hole approximately seven inches away from the opening, while the blister beetle sat motionless inside. At first, I couldn't tell what kind of beetle it was, so I picked it up. It made no response. Upon recognizing it as a blister beetle, I quickly put it into a vial--they get their name from the irritating substance they secret that can cause blisters and hurt the eye.

The wasp was far too quick and small for me to get a good photo, and I have not had time to look at it under my school's high-tech stereoscope, so these are the best photos I've got. It is either an Ichneumon or a Braconid wasp; I cannot differentiate well enough between the two families to know which it is.

However, the beetle seemed to recover after a few minutes; it walked around for a few days, and I fed it lettuce. Then it died. So it goes. I kept the corpse in a jar in my room to see if a wasp would hatch out, but one never did. So it goes.

In addition to the grotesque mystery of the parasitic wasp, I have observed some other interesting interactions, one between the beautiful groundsel bush beetle larvae, Trirhabda bacharidis and the groundsel bush, Baccharis halimifolia.

The iridescent larvae shimmer red, purple, blue, green, and even gold in the spring sun, while they cheerfully munch away on the groundsel bushes lining the Natchez Trace walking trail I regularly traverse. However, with as many as twelve of the ravenous larvae on each branch, there was little left of most of the groundsel bushes. So it goes. I decided to help the bushes out, add to the school collection, and clean trash from the Trace all in one. I had left my vials at home, so I adroitly located an old, crumpled soda can and began popping the little larvae into the can.

I was not the only one out to protect the bush while grabbing a beetle or two. This anchor stink bug (Stiretrus anchorago) had seized a hapless larvae and was now sucking up its liquefied internal organs with its straw-like mouth. So it goes. I had never seen a stink bug so colorful, and would have loved to have collected it, but, alas, the soda can was missing the flap that closed the drinking hole. It would have been able to climb out with ease. The larvae I collected, contrariwise, had such a large body-size-to-leg-strength ratio that they could not possibly climb out of the smooth can, and soon they were resting peacefully in ethanol.

When I saw this fella, though, I was prepared. Although not as stunningly beautiful as the anchor stink bug, this Aradus robustus flatbug was an awesome find. Although fairly common, very little is known of their life habits--scientists aren't even exactly sure what they eat. 

A few days later, I found a pair of flatbugs (family Aradidae) under a piece of bark. The only way I was able to catch them was to try to scare them into moving; when they were still, they were so well camouflaged I could not locate them. 

Although very little is known about flatbugs, the camouflaging abilities of the family are being researched for their incredible designs. See this paper about how the microscopic structure and chemical composition of certain flatbugs makes them "almost superhydrophilic," allowing them to blend seamlessly with their environment when the whether conditions suddenly change: http://bio.biologists.org/content/biolopen/6/8/1209.full.pdf 

 On the subject of cool insects, look what my Fairy God-Mother got me! A Diapherodes gigantea from Skopje, North Macedonia. This is my first insect to have gotten in the mail, and will make a fine addition to my collection! So it goes. In the few months that I have not had enough time to post, I have also not had enough time to go through the fairly time-intensive process of rehydrating it; hopefully, that will change with the onset of summer!

I got another pretty addition to my collection when this Io moth I found at school emerged from its cocoon. 

Immediately after its wings had straightened, I went to show my parents and put it in the freezer. As I opened the freezer door, my mom called out something to the effect of, "don't hurt the poor thing!" To which I replied, "Don't worry, Mom, it will be fine." And it was! The next day, it was perfectly fine, and let me pin and spread it with no resistance whatsoever. So it goes.

With one fewer pet to care for, I just had to acquire another one. A tan jumping spider (Plattycriptus undatus) was more or less forced upon me when I accidentally maimed it while trying to feed it a cockroach in the wild. With its front legs and pedipalps removed, I knew there was no way it could survive in the wild--so I brought it inside and have been caring for it ever since. 

A closeup of the little fella as he eats a bug I hand-fed to him on the tip of a insect pin.

Speaking of pets, my one surviving mantis is doing great! I released a bunch of the other ones, and some others died of starvation (whoops!) or food poisoning (*cough cough* lawnservice) or cannibalism (OK--so you can't put more than one in the same container). He/she is already in the third instar, and is tackling larger and larger prey every day.

I have been using my macro lens for my iPhone more and more, recently. Not all of them are great (like the one above, where the clip-on part is visible in the photo). However, some of them are pretty good, I think. Here are a few:

Unidentified weevil

Same weevil.

Plecia neartica, lovebugs, mating. 

Echanacia purpurea, purple coneflower, with snail slime.

Toxomerus marginatus, margined hover fly, on Tradescantia ohiensis, bluejacket.

Hydrangea querifolia, Oakleaf Hydrangea, flower.

A few days ago, I gained a new member of my family: a baby praying mantis, freshly hatched outside our back porch. I've been watching the ootheca for months now, and was delighted to see this guy crawling up our screen. Hopefully, I'll be able to catch a few more of these guys over the next few weeks. 

Thanks for reading!