A botfly! Let me tell you, I watched this fly buzz around for about 3 minutes before I realized what it was. And of course I know I looked like a crazy nerd as I chased after it, such is the life of an entomologist

These flies belong to the family Oestridae, genus Cuterebra. They are parasitic flies and the females deposit eggs onto the skin of vertebrate hosts. Body heat from the host triggers the larvae to hatch and burrow underneath the skin. The larvae encyst below the skin and cause a lump that is known as a warble. The larvae feed on host body fluids, not necessarily blood. Just before pupation the larvae bore out of the host and finish development in the soil. Adults do not feed, and in fact, have vestigial mouth parts.

We only have one genus (and some 26 species) in the US. The species we have only parasitise rodents and horses. Human botflies have a distribution limited to the tropics.

This fly belongs to the Sciomyzidae family in the genus Sepedon. The larvae are prey on snails. This particular individual is participating in a behavior called ‘bubbling’.

It is thought that flies regurgitate food from their crop (food storage organ) to form a bubble on the tip of their proboscis in order to concentrate the fluids via water evaporation.

Been trying out a new hobby, more on that later, but haven’t been able to keep my eyes off the insects that are around me. Here are some photos of dragons and damsels from tonight.

The nymphs, or naiads as they are called in the aquatic system, spend most of their life (some up to several years) under water and eventually climb their way up vegetation to morph into an adult. The picture below is of a dragonfly’s exuviae (i.e., the shed exoskeleton).

Below is a female damselfly laying eggs.

Some damselfly love…the male (above) deposits sperm in a pouch up near the base of his abdomen, then grasps the female and guards her while she bends her abdomen forward to pick up the sperm.

Josh and I went back to our new favorite spot, the cedar swamp, with the kayaks this morning. We didn’t see any black-crowned night herons like the previous time…but saw tons of green herons.

We watched this great blue heron for a while in hopes of getting a picture of it with a fish…but no luck.

And how many people can get a picture of an osprey defecating in mid-air? My husband can…

Lastly, this pictures was taken back at our condo and is of a male gypsy moth. He’s a little dirty.

Just some selected photos from this past week…

This is a stink bug nymph using its piercing-sucking mouth parts to feed on a woodwasp.

Cicadas are out and about…here are a series of photos of the nymphal exuviae (shed exoskeleton) and the adult.

The white stringy things in the exuviae are the old trachea (breathing tubes)…when insects shed their old skin and emerge into an adult they even shed their old breathing tubes.

And lastly, a chrysomelid beetle.

Tiger beetles, that is…

Found a whole bunch of tiger beetle love going on today. She is actually laying eggs in the sandy soil while the male guards her.

I’m still out in NY, but luckily I have a husband who is nice enough to drive out and spend the weekend with me. I made the poor guy come work with me today but I at least gave him a toy (the new Nikon he bought me) to play with

Here are some pictures he took today while at the field site.