Here is a zoom presentation you should not miss! It includes these women, Geyata Ajilvsgi, Connie Taylor, Agnes Chase, and our very own Shirley Lusk!
A little help… (This was my original title to the blog, but it got pushed off the front for Shirley. 🙂 She was my botany mentor as she was to many!
Ok, I usually require a lot of help on a lot of the bugs. However, over the course of years consulting with the bug experts, it does get easier. Same went for the plants with Shirley’s help.
The early morning light shone on a Grass-Veneers (Crambini). The tentative ID I came up with was in the Agriphila genus, possibly the Vagabond Crambus (Agriphila vulgivagellus). This particular grass-veneer was larger than some that I usually find. It was probably about 15-17 mm in length!
The moth was allowing a close up!
The family Crambidae (crambid snout moths) have distinctive snout-like mouth part called a palpi. As I watched, it wiggled the hairs on the palpi! The grass veneers are hard to spot on the grasses and other vegetation.
Yesterday afternoon, I ran across this male Megachile bee. At first I thought a spider had it because it did not immediately fly away as I drew close to it.
In fact, not a spider in sight!
Look at the fringe on the front leg! Males in the subgenus Xanthosarus are known to have this feature. So this was a possibility but by no means a certainty.
Certainly was a cooperative fellow! On this bee, I consulted with James Hung (Assistant Professor, Oklahoma Natural Heritage Inventory & Oklahoma Biological Survey, The University of Oklahoma). Other tips that James gave me to watch out for were “the shape of the “hands”, the color of the eyes, and the shape of the butt tip”. James also sent me to the website Discovery Life for further investigation. It narrowed down my search to six species. So if I pursue this further, I will update this post later.
Thats a mighty cute bee. Im ambivalent about the astroid.
Well, it is one less thing to wipe out the earth’s creatures 😉