Tag Archives: insects

Oversized, double-concave diffuser for MT-24EX twin flash

This jewel beetle is, of course, Megaloxantha bicolor palawanica me beetle on several occasions while testing out different diffuser designs for my Canon MT-24EX twin flash unit. In the most recent one, I had tried combining SoftBoxes with my oversized concave … Continue reading

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

Giving me the weevil eye!

The order Coleoptera (beetles) is, of course, the largest single group of animals on earth, and by most accounts the Curculionidae (weevils) and their close relatives are the largest family-level group within the order. At 60,000 species and counting, weevils account … Continue reading

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

Group mimicry in Cerambycidae… and more

During last year’s extended visit to Argentina, I had the chance to spend the early part of April in the northern province of Chaco. Though much of this hot, arid plain has been converted to agriculture, remnants of thorn forest remain along … Continue reading

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

Battle of the Bug Blogs

Something tells me that one of our bug blogging professors has charged this semester’s crop of students to go out and figure out what makes a good bug blog. My, how classwork assignments have changed since I was in grad … Continue reading

Posted in [No taxon] | Tagged , , , , | 3 Comments

Ceti Eel offspring?

If this creature was a tad bit slimier, you might think it had just been plucked from underneath the armor of an adult Ceti Eel and was looking to slip inside the ear of Chekov or some other human to wrap … Continue reading

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

Bollworms rising!

One of the most pernicious pests that U.S. farmers have battled is the larval stage of Helicoverpa zea (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae). This insect is destructive enough to have earned not just one official common name, but four (corn earworm, cotton bollworm, soybean podworm, … Continue reading

Posted in Lepidoptera, Noctuidae | Tagged , , , , , | 9 Comments

These bugs rock!

These stones were given to me recently by a local insect enthusiast who is an admitted collector of all things natural history. According to him, the stones were among numerous items that he was allowed to “salvage” many decades earlier from … Continue reading

Posted in [No taxon] | Tagged , , , , | 3 Comments

The “little soybean weevil”

Lepidopteran caterpillars are without question the most important pests affecting soybean in South America, while stink bugs run a close second in terms of economic impact and as the targets of insecticide applications. There are, however, a number of weevil … Continue reading

Posted in Coleoptera, Curculionidae | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments