First post from AZ

I'm ashamed it has taken me this long to update my bug blog.  Hopefully I'll be more on top of things in days to come.

First and foremost, Ashley and I finished our stay in Iowa and because living in New York or Missouri didn't sound all that enticing, we decided to relocate to Arizona for a while.

Of course, I was eager to visit the southwest again for the chance of some new and exciting bugs.  Granted, I'm well behind in updating this blog so I can't post them all at once.  I'll start off slowly with things we were seeing in Arizona at first:

Anyone that has looked at bflies around Madera Canyon in the Santa Ritas know that GOLDEN-HEADED SCALLOPWINGS can be very common.  Our visits proved no exception:

I snapped a picture of this roadside-skipper in Madera Canyon and didn't really expect to be able to ID it.  A check of my books though and I decided it was probably an ELISSA ROADSIDE-SKIPPER.  Because this roadside-skipper has a small dot (not an hourglass-shaped dot) in the forewing cell (the dot nearest the bug's head), I believe that narrowed it down to either Elissa Roadside-Skipper or Texas Roadside-Skipper.  I didn't think the spots looked "creamy" enough to be Texas so I settled with Elissa.  Any thoughts?  Here's the only photo:

The BORDERED PATCHES were easy to identify as usual.  Here is a chewed-up individual:

Brees, you got an ID for me on this tiger beetle???

In terms of blues, CERAUNUS BLUES were pretty common:

However, the most common blue (and maybe most common butterfly) was the ubiquitous MARINE BLUE.  The identification of these was really simplified in Arizona where Cassius Blues don't occur (Cassius Blues are by far the most similar to Marine Blues).  Here is a typical Marine Blue at Proctor Rd:

I was surprised to see a fritillary at the Proctor Road area but alas, VARIEGATED FRITILLARIES ended up being somewhat common:

I spied this sootywing and for a moment or two, I tried desperately to make it into any other kind of sootywing other than COMMON SOOTYWING which I reluctantly settled on:

Another common species around Madera Canyon was the GOLDEN BANDED-SKIPPER.  They're really easy to identify!

I wasn't sure how easy the identification of this roadside-skipper was going to be but thankfully, it was straightforward.  These CASSUS ROADSIDE-SKIPPERS were actually quite different looking from other roadside-skippers:

Hey hey, this wasn't a butterfly.  Seeing tarantulas on roadways ended up being almost a daily occurrence.  I don't know what species this is and I was told that there are over a dozen species in Arizona so I gave up:

Missouri

I was recently in northeast Missouri for a day or two.  Here are some insect pictures from a morning I spent out near Hannibal.

First up are several pictures of female ZABULON SKIPPERS which was a species I had only seen once before (in Virginia):

... and here are some photos of males:

I found this skipper and decided it must be a SACHEM:

This SILVER-SPOTTED SKIPPER was pretty tame: 

I was happy to finally find a photogenic SILVERY CHECKERSPOT:

This TAWNY EMPEROR might have been my first of the summer, strangely enough:

This robber fly was pretty serious looking.  I haven't dealt with identifying these things yet, however:

I haven't done much digging yet in my books for what species this is but I'm pretty sure it's a type of CRUISER:

That's all for now.  Stay tuned for some pictures from the southwest....

Polk City WA

There was a lot of activity at Polk City WA midday today.

I ended with 20 species of butterflies.

First, here are some pictures of a HACKBERRY EMPEROR:

Alongside the emperors were many RED-SPOTTED PURPLES:

Anglewings were out in force; here is a QUESTION MARK:

... and an EASTERN COMMA:

I was surprised to find some CHECKERED WHITES, not a species I see very often:

Besides the abundant Least Skippers, the only other skipper I saw was this FIERY SKIPPER:

My list of butterflies from the visit:

Eastern Tiger Swallowtail

Giant Swallowtail - 2

Cabbage White

Checkered White - 3

Clouded Sulphur

Orange Sulphur

Bronze Copper

Eastern Tailed-Blue

Summer Azure

Great Spangled Fritillary

Question Mark

Eastern Comma

Red Admiral

Common Buckeye

Red-spotted Purple

Viceroy

Hackberry Emperor

Monarch

Fiery Skipper

Least Skipper

There was also a lot of dragonfly activity and I ended up with 13 species.  First up are the always-airborne PRINCE BASKETTAILS:

A highlight for me was finding this SPOT-WINGED GLIDER:

In summary, here are the dragonflies I tallied:

Jade Clubtail

Prince Baskettail

Common Whitetail

Twelve-spotted Skimmer

Widow Skimmer

Eastern Amberwing

Halloween Pennant

Eastern Pondhawk

Meadowhawk species

Red Saddlebags

Black Saddlebags

Wandering Glider

Spot-winged Glider

I never could stir up a BLUE DASHER until I got home and found some along the trail.

c.

July update

It's hard to believe that it's been more than a week since my last update on this blog!  Here is a July update.

First focusing on butterflies, a trip to Ledges State Park or two and other odds-and-ends around town have yielded about 26 species of butterflies this week.

Starting with skippers, DUN SKIPPERS are the most common plain-brown skipper in these parts:

Perhaps the easiest skipper to ID as well as one of the most eye-catching is the SILVER-SPOTTED SKIPPER.  These seem to be fairly common at this point in the season:

I hadn't seen a FIERY SKIPPER for quite a while this summer.  I finally broke that streak and spotted this one down the trail from my apartment here in Ames:

This dark and rather bland butterfly is a type of "spread-wing skipper".  More specifically, it's called a WILD INDIGO DUSKYWING:

Switching to sulphurs, I saw my first DAINTY SULPHUR of the summer:

As typical for these parts, SUMMER AZURES continue to be common.  Note the lack of orange tones which you would find on Eastern Tailed-Blues:

I was happy to spot this COMMON SNOUT sitting on a road.  This is typically a southern species that makes it up into Iowa in late-summer but as far as I know, is never abundant.  It uses Hackberry trees (Celtis sp) as the larval foodplant:

One of my favorite butterflies that I've learned here in Iowa is the bright BRONZE COPPER (see also the header at the top of this blog).  This one was down in Polk County:

You can't forget the swallowtails.  This EASTERN TIGER SWALLOWTAIL was down the trail from my apartment:

I also stumbled on some skippers that I can't ID, might it be a Crossline Skipper?  Or maybe a Northern Broken-Dash:

I don't even know where to begin with this one; it looks like it might be rather worn out or bleached:

So as far as I can remember, here is the list of butterflies from this week:

Eastern Tiger Swallowtail

Black Swallowtail

Cabbage White

Clouded Sulphur

Orange Sulphur

Dainty Sulphur

Bronze Copper

Eastern Tailed-Blue

Summer Azure

Great Spangled Fritillary

Meadow Fritillary

Eastern Comma

Mourning Cloak

Red Admiral

Common Buckeye

Red-spotted Purple

Viceroy

American Snout

Monarch

Silver-spotted Skipper

Wild Indigo Duskywing

Common Sootywing

Fiery Skipper

Least Skipper

Dun Skipper

Northern Broken-Dash/Crossline Skipper

Now on to dragonflies....

I haven't seen much diversity this week mainly due to a lack of effort.  I still snapped some pictures here and there though.

WIDOW SKIMMERS continue as one of the most abundant species, sometimes even showing up in my yard:

This JADE CLUBTAIL only represents the second time I've found one of these on my own.  They are said to be the most common of the pond clubtails here in Iowa, however.

I'm still having a surprisingly difficult time with some of these meadowhawks; I'm thinking this is a RUBY MEADOWHAWK?  I don't see much color on the inner-wing, however.  Either way, it posed nicely: 

Believe it or not, this following species has a worldwide distribution!  It is appropriately named the WANDERING GLIDER.  I finally found my over-due lifer at Ledges State Park:

What do you do when you take a very crappy picture of a dragonfly?  Edit it (screw it up) until it looks artistic!  That's what I did with this PRINCE BASKETTAIL flying over my house:

This behemoth of a thing flew past me at Ledges.  I was hesitant even approaching it for photos.  Whatever it is, I'm glad I don't see them more often: