A female Giant Ichneumon wasp (Megarhyssa macrurus) oviposits into the side of a tree.
I was honored to have this observation selected as observation of the day for June 11, 2020, and again as observation of the week (week of June 21, 2020). It is covered in this blog post: A Trip to Texas Provides a Long Sought Photographic Opportunity - Observation of the Week, 6/21/20.
Please Help ID this Treehopper and Ant.
Ant drink the honeydew of a treehopper.
Watch the Video at:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5mGI5Ct_34
iNaturalists in action on a beautiful ranch in Texas.
@sambiology @greglasley @brentano @maractwin @mchlfx @robberfly
Clung to the beak of a Whimbrel that was foraging in the seaweed, the bird could not dislodge it, after a couple of minutes the isopod dropped off. The Whimbrel continued to feed with the isopod on board.
I really had no idea what this was in field. And no thought to ever seeing one of these. Sure hope the id holds.
Okanagana arctostaphylae was first described in 1915 and has not been collected since. These are the first photos ever taken of it in its natural habitat, and the second photos ever of a live individual.
Had spotted a white bundle of fur in a tree and after a time spent studying determined it was a Raccoon with either Albinism or Leucism. It shifted a few times over a couple of hours and finally when I had nearly given up, it briefly opened it's eyes. Which confirmed this as an Albino, as Leucism does not impact eye pigment.
@sambiology @mchlfx @wildcarrot I went looking for @jblinde Siren's but got distracted obviously. Has anyone mentioned seeing this animal at LLELA?
First two pics show two species for comparative purposes.
Specimen on right: Note V-shaped base of flower, less dense branching, longer/narrower petals compared to Amphiachris (left; https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/34926032).
Landed on my pants, and I had to get him onto my finger and wiggle around before he would leave
Emerged from grapevine leaves collected on 4/21/19. Found 7 and moved them to a container with some dirt and leaves to see if they will eclose. Last 2 photos show the larva is able to move 2mm with each pull.
4/21/19 Galls: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/22851697
I'm going back to some of my earliest wildlife images. These are scans from old prints and slides.
This swallowtail was photographed at a park outside of Taipei, Taiwan in about July of 1969 (annotated as "Summer 1969" on back of original). Identified from this reference:
Shirozu, Takashi. 1960. Butterflies of Formosa in Colour. Hoikusha, Osaka, Japan.
The several pink lunules on the hindwing suggest that this is a female (op. cit., pl. 16, p. 51). In that work, the Taiwan population of this east Asian swallowtail is termed Papilio bianor kotoensis. The following website suggests that ssp is "often treated as a full species".
http://www.swallowtails.net/P_bianor.htm
Two sets of what I believe are eggs. I think the top are hemipterans but unsure of what the bottom group are.
Dipteran parasite on male Argia fumipennis
Observation of damselfly here: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/10797332
This male was one of several dozen individuals on one of the main stems of a dying lacebark. I counted nine male/female pairs, some with a third individual (sometimes a noticeably smaller female, sometimes a male) which was usually chased off by the male of the pair. I got enough video to be able to confirm that the females appeared to be ovipositing. In addition, there were an indeterminate number of lone individuals roaming the trunk.
Two males apparently contesting access to a female. Although not apparent from the photo, the male on the right was noticeably smaller than the other male. They briefly pressed their heads together ('face-to-face') as if pushing each other before the smaller male backed away and, shortly after, scuttled away. The larger male then appeared to copulate briefly with the female and remained with her.
This moth stumped me, @sambiology, and a crowd of other Texas Master Naturalists
@gcwarbler @jeffmci9 Any ideas?
On Oct 2nd I was sweep netting at Overton Ridge Park and captured this caterpillar:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/17427773
When I got home, I realized from the photos that it was parasitized, so I googled it and came up with an ID. Here's that observation:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/17427771
TODAY I was out hunting mushrooms and came across this same caterpillar species with pupae of the same parasitoid! What are the chances this is the SAME CATERPILLAR 12 days later???
BG photos comparing wasp pupae: https://bugguide.net/node/view/995992/bgimage
Male Calopteryx maculata
A stunning male with blue iridescence held what, to my eyes, was the most desirable territory in the small creek.
Voracious spider captured hummingbird in web at sugar feeder. I did not think about location of web, other than it was uncomfortable to avoid when going through garden gate, when I rehung the feeder. A few hours later, she had trapped and beheaded and wrapped the hummingbird.
Foto 1: The observed insect.
Foto 2: A tongue.
Foto 3: The frog who ate my observation.
What a great time I had with fellow naturalists at Palo Pinto Mountains State Park (it is still closed to the public, so we had special permission to access the property). It was mighty dry, and the plants were pretty crispy, but we still spotted lots of cool things. It makes me tremendously happy to hang out with this community. :)
Not sure what is going on but this is the fourth birder that I know of who has had a phoebe perch on their binoculars or on their person at Commons Ford.
Came across a 43 year old slide that I had not posted before, so I scanned it for iNat. On June 20, 1975 (date written on original slide) I saw this male Painted Bunting in my back yard in south Austin. I recognized it from a cover illustration on the Robbins field guide I had at that time. It was my first Painted Bunting. It was this experience that drove me to go to a local Audubon meeting where I met other birdwatchers and began my life long interest in nature and photography.
Image 1 highly cropped, image 2 is the whole original image.
I was looking for cluster of Veliids on the banks of the Rio Grande and found these Gerrids instead. Huge thanks to Alysa for being brave enough to go out and catch these. And to Chris for doing the detective work back at home!
Large clusters of these striders were found in shady areas beside the Devil's River, ranging from 10-30 feet from shore.
Note: This image was not taken in one shot. It is a compilation of 54 images with the shells scaled in size in relation to the penny. The identifications of these shells can be found on http://www.inaturalist.org/calendar/cedric_lee/2013/4/27.
Male Enallagma exsulans landing on abdomen of male Argia immunda
These two had a few back-and-forth interactions concerning this spot in the creek.
Had such a blast with other iNatters at the Del Rio gathering. I saw lots and lots of new plants and animals -- so these ID's are tentative. I'll have to do a little more digging later.
https://www.inaturalist.org/journal/sambiology/15447-spending-time-with-inat-community-in-del-rio
Come on, I had to. The great @gcwarbler (who is a salmon and/or trout) with his friends. Excellent night for mothing. This was one of four sheets.
The lizard was so intent on keeping its prey it didn't skedaddle, giving us a chance to take pictures.
I assume it wasn't scavenging and actually caught it, but you've got to be fast to catch these insects!
Prey here:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/10597608
Between 21-24 September I observed and photographed 24 different color banded Piping Plovers on the upper Texas coast and adjacent Louisiana. 22 in Texas, 2 in Louisiana. I have provided data and photos on all these birds to various governmental agencies in the U.S. and Canada, as well as several universities who are involved in various projects with Piping Plovers. I'll hold off posting these to iNat until I get data on the bird and its origin. I received info on this bird today, so I'll post that record here for the information to be available on iNat for anyone interested.
Piping Plover U13
23 September 2015
Rollover Pass, Gilchrist, Galveston Co., Texas
29.5108
-94.4908
Right leg above joint: metal numbered band
Right leg below joint: white over blue
Left leg above joint: yellow flag with black lettering “U1?”
Left leg below joint: blue over white
USGS Missouri River Tern & Plover Team
Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center
Jamestown, North Dakota
Piping Plover U13 - banded as an adult on 28 May 2015 on an alkali lake near Mercer, ND.
This species was tentatively recorded as non-fossil by @benhutchins in June of 2015.
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/2705512
A fresh-looking shell was also documented and suspected to occur as non-fossil by Richard Fullington in his 1979 report of Land and Freshwater Mollusca of the Guadalupe Mountains National Park, but that report seems as if it had been forgotten until recently.
After much debate among us and several other experts about the fossil vs. non-fossil status of that shell (Oreohelix spp have been recorded from the Guads in fossil in previous work), we finally had an opportunity to return to this area and search for this species and perhaps answer the question once and for all. My bet was on non-fossil.
Benjamin Hutchins, Zachary Schwartz (my son), and I took a 2-day backpacking and sampling trip into the high Guads. Soon after arriving at the approximate site where Ben had previously found the shell, we started finding bleached dead shells, then a very fresh dead shell, and then finally 6 live specimens! We were also sampling litter to document the snail community in this habitat, and a number of other species also occur there.
Aside from the excitement of the 'snail hunt', this is a significant find for snail diversity in TX, because it definitively adds a new family to the list of snail fauna in the state. Thanks to Ben for instigating this search and for inviting us to be a part of it.
At this point, we are calling this Oreohelix neomexicana. It fits the description for that species reasonably well, though there is apparently significant variation in size and shape in the species. I am not aware of any molecular work that has been done to confirm that these mountain-top species from various ranges in NM are all the same species. The nearest site where it has been documented in NM is in the Sacramento Mountains.
Found on a west-facing slope. Collected with permission and permit.
This record gleaned from the pages of "A Field Guide to Reptiles and Amphibians" by Roger Conant in the Peterson field guide series. I had a 1958 copyright edition of this book as a teenager, and still have it. In my younger years I wrote the location and date where I saw and/or captured certain species directly onto the pages of this book, and thus the information to provide this record comes from that. The first 6500+ records I posted on iNat had photo documentation, but now I am posting these records which do not have photos just to provide the data point for the species and location as best as I can for the historical record.
I was 11 years old at the time of this observation, and I still recall the snake spreading its neck like a cobra, hissing, etc. It made a huge impression on me. I was on a local boy scout hike and the leader knew what the snake was.
Location: Makunda Christian Hospital, Karimganj District, Assam
Date: 27th October 2013
Equipment: Nikon D300s with Micro-Nikkor 105mm
My uploads will be nothing if not diverse! We were birding La Barqueta Preserve near the resort of the same name and took a moment to walk over to the dark gray volcanic sand beach to do a little beach combing. Mary Kay noticed this small clam at the high tide line. For size perspective, my index finger is about 20 mm across.
You know you’ve found a large moth when…
To the best of my ability to measure this critter, the wingspan (with a bit of the tip of the right FW missing) is about 27.8 cm, so it would probably be about 28.5 cm (11.2 in) if it were intact. The species is said to have the largest wingspan of any Lepidopteran in the world.
The moth was initially discovered on the sheet by Mary Kay Sexton. I had overlooked it.
To read more of the story, see:
https://www.inaturalist.org/journal/gcwarbler/13211-mothing-in-panama
Kestrel was perched in tree with the two blue jays. I was fortunate to be firing away when they took off.