@empress @seedtopia
The same species, hump-backed #beewolf (#Philanthus gibbosus) is common in my garden every summer, July through September. In some years, I've seen them as early as June, and as late as October. They visit a wide variety of flowers, preferring #Asteraceae and #Lamiaceae.
#iNaturalist #InverteFest #InverteFest2022 #Insects #Hymenoptera #Wasps
Also saw a lot of new bee species this year. When I visited family in Alabama my sister and I went out bug hunting and found this shiny flea beetle. Also meant to include the thorn mimic treehopper from CR.
That sums up my year in bugs, added 213 new species of insects to my iNatualist life list. My year in birds was excellent as well. Species life list counts for the year:
Birds: 610, started 515
Insects: 336, started 123
Lepidoptera 162, started 54
#invertefest2022 #InverteFest #bugs #Lepidoptera #inaturalist
Two especially fun ones for me, we saw a few sphinx moths, but got a good look at a titan sphinx moth. And this year I spotted a few Texas wasp moths (a moth that mimics a wasp).
I also tracked the fall Lepidoptera and insect migration this fall fairly closely. Many insects migrate overland (butterflies aren't going to survive a Caribbean flight) and they funnel in Texas, so Austin gets a lot of bug migrants.
Interesting hemiptera, tiger beetles, leaf-cutter ants - so many amazing insects in Costa Rica.
More Costa Rica butterflies.
@MarianneDenton
My peak month this year was June: over 7,000 files, ~3,000 photos.
I have 649 iNat observations from June, many with multiple photos. Most of those are #insects
One delight I discovered this past summer: waking up early to take close ups of bees in my garden while they're still sleepy and slow. So much fun!
#InverteFest2022 #InverteFest #ThrowbackThursday #Photography #Macrophotography #Bees
#InverteFest day 5 brings us to one of my favorite phenonmena: galls.
Galls are essentially novel organs a plant is induced to grow by the galling organism. Many different types of invertebrates induce galls on plants, and often each organism induces specific types of galls only on specific parts of specific species. So much so that you can often determine the inducer by its gall and the host plant!
The biology and ecology of galls is endlessly fascinating but in the spirit of 140 characters I'll stop and leave you with galls of the Spiny Leaf Gall Wasp (Diplolepis polita) on a wild rose. Inside these beauties are the little baby gall wasps...or other baby wasps that are eating the baby gall wasps...or other baby wasps that are eating the baby wasps that are eating the baby gall wasps...it's a wasp eat wasp world out there.
#InverteFest2022 #Cynipidae #Diplolepis #gall #galls #wasp #Hymenoptera #FaunaOfManitoba #parasitoid #hyperparasitoid
Flatbush Gardener 🌈
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