Little caterpillars chewing the heck out of the burclover. Brown heads. The very tiniest ones had light brown bodies.
Has prolegs so I’m thinking caterpillar, but super weird looking one
10.05.2021 - https://www.biodiversity4all.org/observations/78206634
12.05.2021 - https://www.biodiversity4all.org/observations/78458174
19.05.2021 - https://www.biodiversity4all.org/observations/79387927
25.05.2021 - https://www.biodiversity4all.org/observations/80261382
Este es un gusano de la amazonia ecuatoriana, que estaban en cadena al cruza una piedra y decidí tomarlos fotos, donde unidos parecían un gusano super grande, sus colores y su pelusa te puede dar comezones si le tocas.
Armenien, Syunik, Gomarants, Gomaran-Pass Südseite, 770m
Bild 113272 © Heiner Ziegler. Det. ?. 2.Juli 2011
PLEASE NOTE - this observation is NOT for the bee... it's for the parasitic larvae attached to the bee's thorax.
I did some preliminary digging and found examples of beetle larvae attaching to a digger bee [1] and a miner bee [2]
Apparently the larvae will end up in the female's nest and consume the food she's gathered for her young as well as her eggs. Source #2 (below) is especially instructive about the process which involves the larvae emitting a scent that mimics a female bee's pheromones.
I will note that when we first arrived at this location, I noted a few bees buzzing around the wooden post of a sign. By time these photos were taken 15 minutes later, there were considerably more bees buzzing around and I was observing mating behavior. I don't know if the increased activity and observed mating behavior was due to larvae's presence or whether that increase in activity would have occurred naturally, larvae or not.
I believe the bee is a Cellophane Bee. Observations for this bee and others close by are here:
bees:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/160588380
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/160588381
mating bees:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/160588382
bee with beetle larvae
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/160588384
sources referenced.
[1] https://www.livescience.com/63589-beetle-larvae-parasitize-bee.html
https://www.livescience.com/63589-beetle-larvae-parasitize-bee.html
[2] https://www.honeybeesuite.com/triungulins-a-hitchhiker-riding-a-bee/
From a shallow freshwater pond viewed at 400x mag. Elongated cell with a long flagellum at the anterior end and no plastids.