JAY PATTERSON  PHOTOGRAPHIC
insect, spider, reptile, and amphibian photography

GALLERY OF
INSECTS

Black and Yellow Mud Dauber Wasp
Sceliphron caementarium
Large image 77 kB

Common throughout much of North America, often associated with buildings. The name mud dauber refers to this wasp's habit of collecting mud in damp areas. Although we think of wasps as members of large easily angered colonies, most wasps, mud daubers included, are in fact solitary insects. Instead of forming large nests these wasps hunt spiders, having stung and thus paralyzed their prey they entomb the still living spiders in a tube-like cell constructed of mud. A single egg is placed on the spiders which will be the food source for the developing larval wasp, the tube is then sealed up. Although the cells of the mud dauber may aggregate in particularly suitable areas, they do not form true colonies. True colonies are composed of a queen and her many daughters, this is true of ants and wasps, both closely related members of the order hymenoptera. Mud daubers are not the only spider hunting wasps, the blue-black pompilidae are an entire family of spider hunting wasps. Even the largest spiders, the tarantulas, are hunted by very large pepsis wasps.

Spotted Tree Borer
Synaphaeta guexi
Large image 57 kB

The longhorn beetles are a large group of beetles with over 1200 north american species. Many wood-boring beetles are surprisingly hairy. It is thought that these slippery hairs help the newly emerging beetles to escape the narrow tunnels that they create in the living tissue of trees that they feed upon as larvae.

Weevil or Snout Beetle                            
Curculionidae family

Large image 61 kB

Weevils are beetles, as the largest group in the largest order in the animal kingdom, they are the commonest insect on earth. Over 40,000 species worldwide, 2500 in north america. Some species assume bizarre shapes, many are pests of crops and stored products. Few of the many plant products we value are safe from these omnipresent insects. Grains, nuts, cotton and tobacco are among the many crops that these beetles consume a significant portion of. So significant in fact that the boll weevil, a serious pest of cotton fields, at one time jeopardized the viability of the industry. Indeed the efforts of the boll weevil are credited by some as prompting the southern U.S. economy to diversify to other crops and industries. Apparently the town of Enterprise, Alabama even erected a monument to "the herald of prosperity", the boll weevil. The weevil in this photograph is tentatively identified as a species introduced to control plants competing for space in orchard country.

Golden-Haired Flower Longhorn Beetle
Leptura species
Large image 37 kB

Seen here pausing while feeding on sticky dandelion pollen to clean it's leg. By traveling between flowers these insects help pollinate the plants they feed upon. A good example of the trouble with common names as applied to insects, there are possibly many species which to a casual observer (i.e. anyone one without a dissecting scope and a species key ) would appear extremely similar to this one. Longhorn beetles typically deposit their eggs in damaged wood where the larval form of the beetle (a grub) feeds on the living tissue below the bark. After one to seven years (depending upon species ) the grub will undergo metamorphosis and emerge as an adult beetle. Adult longhorn beetles are not long lived. Some species, including this one, feed on pollen and nectar. See also the Spotted Tree Borer beetle above.

A Seed Bug
Neacorythus bicrucis
Large image 33 kB

A true bug. Contrary to popular belief not everything that scuttles on more than four legs is a bug. This seed bug, however, is a true bug. True bugs are sucking insects that possess a proboscis or beak used for sucking (depending on the species of bug) plant or insect juices. This bug's proboscis is visible in a folded position below the bug's body. The plant sucking bugs are often agricultural pests, however the true bugs that consume insects are regarded as beneficial. The family Lygaeidae (the seed bugs) contains species of both types.

Ocellated Snakefly
Raphidiidae family, Raphidioptera order
Large image 40 kB

A small, primitive, flying predacious insect that preys on soft bodied insects. Considered a beneficial insect because it preys largely on plant damaging insects. The thin tail like structure is the ovipositor used to deposit eggs in bark crevices. Only the female possesses an ovipositor. There are 50 species world wide, 19 in North America. An uncommon insect.

Photograph Galleries Copyright ©1998 Jay Patterson	Bibliography Home Links email me, jaypatersonphotographic@shaw.ca