Can you tell yet that Arizona is my favorite place to be in the heat
of summer? It is! For a second year in a row my lovely assistant
(and wife) Roxanne joined me in the desert Southwest to collect some
of the world's most impressive bugs. How many women would do that for
their guy? I'm a lucky man and not to mention we found just about
everything I had hoped to find.
Our trip began in attendance of
the American Tarantula Society's conference. This annual event is held in
Rio Rico, Arizona at the Esplendor Resort. When we arrived, the
employees at the front
desk, upon hearing my name, informed me that I had MANY packages
waiting for me. I'd shipped my nice little Honda generator, some new
4 ft. blacklight bulbs and a bunch of other equipment down. I also
had a new carton of fresh deli cups from Superior Enterprises
waiting for me. I was completely prepared for this trip, aside from
leaving my cell phone at home...oops!
A few minutes later in our room we
were just beginning to relax when the phone rang. My old buddy Aaron
Chambers had tracked me down. He had stopped in at the resort (but
not for the conference) and two minutes later was knocking on my
door! He got to meet Roxanne for the first time and gave us some
excellent and up to the moment tips on a few target species we'd
made the trip for. His advice paid off great, but it would mean we'd
have to excuse ourselves before the first real conference event
began (the cockroach races).
Rio Rico, AZ
This hairstreak butterfly was feeding on mesquite
flowers on one of the trails behind the Esplendor Resort. The
mercury must have been in the triple digits because we didn't last
more than about 15 minutes on the hike. Back in my hotel room (shhh),
I photographed this gravid female windscorpion.
2009 American
Tarantula Society Conference
A few photos Roxanne snapped at
the conference. Jon and Katie Skierski at the famous ATS raffle. Jon
likes to win and it shows in the way he hoppity-skips up to claim
his prize. Orin McMonigle and I, bugged-up and underslept. I would
like to have spent more time in the field with fellow bug-generalist
Francisco Torres. The last photo is with Bob Duff, a legend among
beetle collectors. With all his history and experience, he's like
the Ben Kenobi of the Sonoran Desert. Here we are at Pena Blanca
campground. In the background is Paul from Florida, Trace from the
Henry Doorly Zoo in Omaha and Orin.
Madera Canyon by
Day
Some of
these are out of focus, but sometimes I only get one chance to
photograph an insect before it is gone. The first photo is Roxanne
sitting by the creek running through the backyard of the cabin we
were staying in, right in the heart of the canyon at Madera Kubo
B&B, followed by a lizard, a robberfly and two photos of a fuzzy,
giant antlion.
A small tiger beetle was hunting
along the creekside, while a fly and pair of moths settled nearby. A
yellow crabspider fed on what appears to be a species of skipper
butterfly and a green lynx spider made a meal of a ladybug.
Two different damselflies darted
about. A medium sized scarab makes a day appearance and another
skipper butterfly flutters near the water.
An unknown butterfly and a larva
were found up the hill behind the cabin. The bark and wood of an oak
tree had been recently fed upon by some kind of bug. Some true bugs
appear on prickly pear in various instars. The red hatchlings are
likely displaying warning colors to indicate their distastefulness
to predators.
Pleasing fungus beetles are a
common sight in Southern Arizona, particularly in areas where water
occurs in amounts large enough to facilitate the growth of fungus.
The first two photos were taken on the banks of the creek. A fungus
was growing amongst the exposed roots of a tree under the shade of a
large rock. The orange fungus in the last three photos was growing
at the base of an oak tree. These beetles are active during the day
and consume quite a bit of fungus. This is the most common color
form, but they also occur in attractive lavender and pale
yellow-white colors.
Netwing beetles feed and mate on
these flowers near places with water and these robberflies like the
same riparian habitats.
Madera Canyon by
Night
Harvestman with red mites on back
legs, followed by two photos of one of the eight or so US fulgorids
(relative of cicadas). An assassin bugs displays its impressive
ability to take down larger prey. A short tribute to dipterists
rounds out this section.
A male Arenivaga species
roach blends in nicely to granite rock, while a stink bug is
attracted to the nearby light. A robberfly looks for an evening
snack and I'm not immediately certain whether the last photo is a
moth or a caddisfly.
I'll be contacting my friend John
Palting for help identifying these mostly common moths of Arizona.
He shared names of most of this stuff with me while in the field,
but I was on information overload a few moments later. The flash
didn't go off on the second photo so you can actually see the gold
foil wings on this small moth reflecting some of the blue light from
the blacklight bulbs (while many of the other photos were taken at
night and the flash causes many to appear whiter than they are). The
third photo was my favorite moth of the trip. It looks like a fuzzy
little Teddy bear! The gray and white patterned moth is a tiger moth
of some kind and quite common throughout the state. The first and
fifth photos are unknown to me, but appear to be Saturniids of some
kind. I know well enough from experience not to make assumptions
about bugs in areas I'm generally unfamiliar with. Appearances mean
little when it comes to taxonomy and can be downright misleading.
I believe the first photo is
Hemihyalea edwardsii, a clear-winged tiger moth (Arctiidae).
The second photo is one of the hornworm sphinx moths. The 3rd and
4th are quite unknown to me and the final one is as well, though I
saw this moth the previous year and recall its apparent
lichen-mimicking qualities.
No idea on the first moth. The
second moth appears to be a small example of a Sphingicampa
saturniid, but I'm probably wrong and misspelling it ;-)
A medium sized click beetle comes
to visit. A Plusiotis gloriosa mistakes my white shirt for
the bug sheet. A Plusiotis beyeri lands on an oak tree above
one of the blacklight bulbs. And yes, I'm still calling the genus
Plusiotis even though it has been formally changed to
Chrysina. I'm not entertaining arguments on this point until the
year 2015. Why? Because I can.
(more text coming
soon)
Patagonia Lake
A short, but steep bridge crosses
the lake at one point. As with the rest of the trip it was extremely
warm this evening. Quite a few fisherman were out braving the heat.
I imagine this is a very popular Arizona destination in the cooler
months...but summertime is when the bugs come out! We did get nailed
by a few mosquitoes, but it was well worth it. Guess I struck a
little bit of a pose in that first photo. There was a hummingbird feeder near one of the facility
buildings. Nearby, a plant attracted one of the insect world's
hummers. Finally, female and male lynx spiders blend in well with
their prickly pear residences.
Yuma, AZ
We drove West to Yuma, Arizona for
the last two nights of the trip. I wanted to spend some time
checking out the Algodones Dunes. In Yuma, we
spent an evening dining and collecting with Mantidforum Member Phil
(PhilinYuma). It's always amazing to visit a hobbyist that has a
collection devoted to one single insect group. Thanks for dinner, Phil and entertaining us for the evening! The
following day we made our way into the dunes. Scenic place, but life
waits for the cover of darkness before it emerges. Roxanne found
them first--neat little, hairy darkling beetles. With our blacklight
flashlights, the dune scorpions lit up brighter than stars in the desert sky.
Part I (of II...coming
soon)
Video From the Trip
Click HQ to see it in "high quality". Most of this is filmed in Madera Canyon, Arizona.
