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Spring beetles on Coreopsis flowers
The WGNSS Entomology Group takes in the view of rhyolite glades from atop Hughes Mountain. Each spring the Entomology Group of the Webster Groves Nature Study Society takes a field trip to one of the...
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Redux: Now you see me…
Chalcophora virginiensis (Drury, 1770) | vic. Calico Rock, Arkansas …now you don’t! Chalcophora virginiensis (Drury, 1770) | vic. Calico Rock, Arkansas Chalcophora virginiensis (Drury, 1770) is the...
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Crypsis? Mimicry? Crypsimicry?
Continuing with the previous post’s theme on crypsis, here is an interesting insect that I photographed in north-central Oklahoma in late June 2014. I was checking standing and fallen trunks of large,...
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A flower visiting jewel beetle that is not an Acmaeodera
Agrilus muticus LeConte, 1858 | Alabaster Caverns State Park, Woodward Co., Oklahoma In North America, jewel beetles (family Buprestidae) routinely associated with flowers usually belong to the genus...
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Summer Insect Collecting iRecap
At the beginning of the season I was planning to spend the first week of June collecting insects in southeastern New Mexico. Family issues intervened, however, and left me with a week of vacation time...
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The best species name ever!
Entomoderes satanicus | Ruta Nacional 20 @ km 367, San Luis Province, Argentina This past February while traveling to see research plots in Argentina, I had the pleasure of accompanying colleague and...
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A suitable ode to Warren Knaus
Last June Jeff Huether and I made a trip out to a system of sand the dunes just south of Medora, Kansas. These dunes have been a popular historical collecting site since the late 1800s, when Warren...
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North America’s most “extreme” jewel beetle
When Chuck Bellamy passed away two years ago, he left behind a remarkable legacy of study on the family Buprestidae (jewel beetles) that includes not only his insect collection—surely one of the best...
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Beetle Collecting 101: Fermenting bait traps for collecting longhorned beetles
One of the most useful collecting techniques for those interested in longhorned beetles (families Cerambycidae and Disteniidae) is fermenting bait traps. I was first clued into the use of such traps...
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North America’s most recognizable longhorned beetle
One of the more impressive insects that we found during our visit to Sand Hills State Park in south-central Kansas last June was Plectrodera scalator, the cottonwood borer. Large and robust (in fact,...
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Super duper June bugs
Last June, after spending the day collecting insects at Sand Hills State Park in south-central Kansas with Mary Liz Jameson, Jeff Huether and I setup our blacklights at the edge of the dunes. We were...
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2015 Texas Collecting Trip iReport—Fall Tiger Beetles
This is the fourth in a series of “Collecting Trip iReports”—so named because I’ve illustrated them exclusively with iPhone photographs. As I’ve mentioned in previous articles in this series (2013...
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Fun with eucraniines!
During my February/March 2015 visit to Argentina, I had the opportunity to travel to west-central provinces of San Juan and San Luis with Federico Ocampo for a weekend of insect collecting. Up to that...
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Cicindela scutellaris rugata (the “wrinkled tiger beetle”)
During last year’s Fall Tiger Beetle Collecting Trip, I visited several rural cemeteries in northeastern Texas. No, this was not a diversion from my beetle collecting—cemeteries in rural areas can be...
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Cicindela formosa pigmentosignata (the “reddish-green sand tiger beetle”)
In my last post, I discussed Cicindela scutellaris rugata, the so-called “wrinkled fetiger beetle” (Erwin & Pearson 2008)—one of several geographically restricted subspecies of a more widespread...
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New paper: Buprestidae from El Limón de Cuauchichinola, Mexico
A new paper (of which I am a co-author), published in the latest issue of The Pan-Pacific Entomologist, gives the results of a systematic survey of Buprestidae in a tropical deciduous forest at El...
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Cicindela scutellaris flavoviridis (chartreuse tiger beetle)
In previous posts I have discussed some Texas subspecies of Cicindela scutellaris (festive tiger beetle) and C. formosa (big sand tiger beetle)—two widespread and geographically variable species that...
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Ellipsoptera lepida – ghost tiger beetle
In the early 2000s, Chris Brown and I were beginning our general survey of Missouri tiger beetles. Our goal was to characterize the occurrence and distribution of all species within the state. At the...
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Cover Photo—The Coleopterists Bulletin 71(4)
The December 2017 issue of The Coleopterists Bulletin (vol. 71, no. 4) is hitting mailboxes now, and once again I have the honor of providing the cover photo. This one features an adult of the cactus...
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New Publications on Buprestidae and Cerambycidae
Crossidius hirtipes allgewahri LeConte, 1878 I’ve been busy processing photos and a preparing a write-up of an insect collecting trip to New Mexico this past June—look for a series of posts about the...
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