Skipper

Hesperiidae
11/30/05
Vero Beach, FL
Pretty little skipper. Pretty common, that is! I do not know which species happens to be, but I like the way I can get a nice macro shot of it just by zooming in.

Mosquito eggs

Culex quinquefasciatus
11/29/05
Vero Beach FL
Just some eggs from my colony. I am taking some "eye candy" shots for a presentation and thought these looked kind of cool.The rafts stick to one another with via van der Waals forces, I believe. Makes for some pretty patterns. Also note that sometimes females die in the process of ovipostion, especially in a dense colony situation.

Macropezidae

A Stilt-Legged Fly
11/28/05
Vero Beach FL
Nothing too interesting out today, although there are some monarch butterflies flying around.

Dung

Phanaeus vindex
Gainesville FL
11/25/05
If the colour is off on this shot, it is because I am adjusting it on a crappy monitor. Anyway, it sure is purty in real life.
Tommorrow: Manatees!

Mothra

Syngamia florella
Gainesville FL
11/25/05
Don't really know what this is yet. I am suspecting it is a pyralid or something. Anyway this is what you do to entertain yourself when some crazy american (my girlfriend) shops for a new laptop.
http://bugguide.net/node/view/38074/bgimage

When I was pickin' oranges

Hyla cinerea
Gainesville FL
11/25/05
I done picked a bunch of oranges yesterday and found this little guy. Pretty cute iffin I do say so myself.

Rosary Pea

Abrus precatorius
Vero Beach, 11/14/05
Rosary Pea, an invasive exotic in FL. Extremely toxic, even one seed can kill. Check this out: http://www.vet.purdue.edu/depts/addl/toxic/plant53.htm
http://aquat1.ifas.ufl.edu/abrpre.html

Anticarsia gemmatalis

11/21/05
Vero Beach, FL
This moth looks so much like a live oak leaf that it is uncanny. When startled, it just flies to a new spot and remains still. It is a type of noctuid.

Bromeliad weevil

Probably Metamasius
11/22/05 Vero Beach FL
This is a bromeliad weevil, which seems to be killing large numbers of bromeliads in Florida. This plant was quite well destroyed by the action of this one larva. It is pretty cute though.

Nurse Shark

Key Largo FL
11/16/05
OK, against my better judgement I am going to start commenting on some of these photos. What ever happened to "a picture is worth a thousand words"?
So this is a nurse shark that I saw while snorkelling in the Keys. To get this shot I had to freedive down about 15 feet with a disposable underwater camera. I must say, that I find this snorkelling to be quite a lot of fun and if I do it much more I may become addicted. The sheer amount of living creatures of all sorts down there was amazing. If I could spend a few hours out there at a time I think I would get my fix.

Pretty fish

Bluestriped Grunt
Key Largo FL
11/16/05
Boy that is an ugly name for a pretty fish. I cannot believe how ignorant about fish ID I have become. It has only been 2 years since I took Ichthyology, and I cannot remember some pretty big orders and families.
Oh well, at least I have my insects.

Great Barracudas

Key Largo FL
Nov. 16 2005
Oh my golly, are these ever nifty! They just cruise around the reef with their big teeth and their silvery bodies lookin' too cool for school. They seemed to me to be pretty wary fish, and were always watching me.

Time for a review

OK blog-gods, maybe you can get around to checking this blog and removing me from your spam-blog list. As you can see I just post pictures here. I thought I already sent you one of these, but here goes again. Thanks.

Anole

Anolis sagrei
Vero Beach FL 11/21/05
The most common herp down here and yet this is the first picture I have posted. 2 reasons:
1) They are tough to approach
2) Familiarity breeds contempt, and while I do not have contempt for these, they do not seem remarkable. Only when they are doing a major territorial showdown or catching a big insect do I notice them Or when they are impaled on a barbed-wire fence:
http://triatoma.blogspot.com/2005/09/whodunnit.html

Black Soldier Fly

Hermetia illucens

What can I really say? These guys hang around in shit as larvae and sometimes eat other maggots. The adults are pretty.

Black Soldier Fly

Hermetia illucens

Uranotaenia sapphirina

Fort Pierce FL
Nov. 20 '05
My lousy picture cannot do this justice. One day a great insect photographer will come along and capture the true beauty of this beast. Probably with a Hirox scope.

Hemidactylus mabouia

Key Largo, FL
Nov 16, 2005
All right, so this would be the 3rd Hemidactylus species I have seen in FL (if I have ID'ed it correctly). All are introduced and one has a lot in common with the Virgin Mary. Although unlike the Virgin Mary, Hemidactylus garnotii exists,
http://photos1.blogger.com/img/201/6138/1024/HPIM3772.jpg
http://photos1.blogger.com/img/201/6138/640/HPIM2614.jpg
By the way, what do you think of these links? Pretty fancy, eh?

Another view

Agapostemon spp.
Vero Beach FL
11/12/05
Another view of another sweet bee, dude!

Pretty!

Urbanus proteus
Long-tailed Skipper
Vero Beach FL
11/12/05
This is a long-tailed skipper feeding on a type of flower called Lantana, which is introduced and is considered quite a destructive plant in Florida.

Another Halictid (Sweat Bee)

Agapostemon spp.
Vero Beach, FL
11/12/05
Oh yeah. Ain't this purty? Almost purtyer'n a chrysidid. The name "sweat bee" is kind of gross, so I hereby propose "sweet bee" as in : "sweet bee, dude!"

Orchard spider

Leucauge spp.
11/12/05
Vero Beach FL
These guys are quite beautiful, having an almost translucent appearance if lit right. Check out this:http://bugguide.net/node/view/34344/bgimage
Which is much nicer than mine, but what the hey.

Salty

Aedes taeniorhynchus
(Saltmarsh Mosquito)
11/12/05
Vero Beach FL
These gals can be demons if in sufficient quantity, but for my money, nothing beats a good thick mass of no-see-ums for sheer annoyance.

Halictid

11/12/05
Vero Beach FL

Halictid

11/12/05
Vero Beach, FL

A Crambid

11/11/05
Vero Beach FL

"Wild Coffee"

Psychotria nervosa
Vero Beach FL
11/11/05

American Beautyberry

Callicarpa americana
Vero Beach FL
11/11/05

Dolichopodid

Vero Beach FL
11/11/05

Wolf and Co.

Wolf Spider and young
Fort Pierce, FL
Nov. 4 2005

Spider, man

Eriophora
Fort Pierce, FL, Aug 2005

Moth

Heterocampa biundata

Bloodfed

Culex quinquefasciatus
Nov 1, 2005