Category Archives: Coleoptera

Beetles. The largest order of animals with more than 300,000 species in about 2000 genera.

Elytrimitatrix at my window

Posted on July 26, 2011 by Ted C. MacRae

This evening as I was sitting in my comfy chair, I noticed Stitch (one of the cats) pawing at the window. We live in the woods, so it is common for insects to land on the outsides of the windows … Continue reading →

Posted in Cerambycidae, Coleoptera | Tagged , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Lined Jewel Beetle

Posted on July 20, 2011 by Ted C. MacRae

Here is another of the several wood-boring beetle species that I encountered during my June trips to the sandstone glade complex near Calico Rock in north-central Arkansas.  Shortleaf pines (Pinus echinata), the only native pine in this region, are common on … Continue reading →

Posted in Buprestidae, Coleoptera | Tagged , , , , , , | 3 Comments

More on ‘Conspicuous Crypsis’

Posted on July 18, 2011 by Ted C. MacRae

In my previous post (Oedipodine Rex), I used the term ‘conspicuous crypsis’ to describe the sumptuously beautiful lichen grasshopper, Trimerotropis saxatilis, as an example of an insect that, despite strikingly conspicuous colors/patterns, blends in perfectly with its native surroundings. I don’t … Continue reading →

Posted in Cerambycidae, Coleoptera | Tagged , , , , , , , | 16 Comments

Diminishing Stag Beetle

Posted on July 9, 2011 by Ted C. MacRae

This past June I made a couple of trips to north-central Arkansas. They were my first real efforts to collect insects in Arkansas, despite hundreds (literally) of trips to various localities throughout the Ozark Highlands in adjacent southern Missouri. The … Continue reading →

Posted in Coleoptera, Lucanidae | Tagged , , , , , , , | 14 Comments

Four-humped Longhorned Beetle

Posted on July 7, 2011 by Ted C. MacRae

On a recent collecting trip, I went over to Chalk Bluffs Natural Area in the Mississippi Alluvial Plain of northeastern Arkansas.  My quarry was a population of Cylindera cursitans (ant-like tiger beetle) that has been reported from the site—one of the only … Continue reading →

Posted in Cerambycidae, Coleoptera | Tagged , , , , , , | 8 Comments

Sugarcane Weevil in Brazil

Posted on June 30, 2011 by Ted C. MacRae

Brazil is one of the world’s top producers of sugarcane, and they have the Middle East to thank for it.  While the U.S. was responding to the 1973 OPEC oil embargo by building bigger and bigger SUVs, Brazil aggressively developed … Continue reading →

Posted in Coleoptera, Curculionidae | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Tracking Tetraopes texanus with Terry

Posted on June 27, 2011 by Ted C. MacRae

Last month I traveled to Starkville, Mississippi to meet with an academic cooperator at Mississippi State University.  While arranging the trip, I contacted Terry Schiefer (no, not the fashion jewelry designer, but curator at the Mississippi Entomological Museum) to let him know … Continue reading →

Posted in Cerambycidae, Coleoptera | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 12 Comments

A Missouri hotspot for Cylindera unipunctata

Posted on June 15, 2011 by Ted C. MacRae

Long before I began studying tiger beetles in earnest, I became aware of one of Missouri’s more interesting species—Cylindera unipunctata (one-spotted tiger beetle).  One of my favorite woodboring beetle collecting spots back in the 1980s was Pinewoods Lake Recreation Area near … Continue reading →

Posted in Cicindelidae, Coleoptera | Tagged , , , , , , | 14 Comments