Two football-shaped, mint green insects, standing on a leaf facing away from one another, but touching abdomen to abdomen. The have black stripes on their wings, a yellow scutellum, and light green head with black patterning.
Minty green leafhoppers making little leafhoppers
Blue-green Sharpshooter (Graphocephala atropunctata)
Southwestern Research Station, Portal, AZ #inverts #bugshot
A red and white mite as as seen from the front, on a white background.
Forbidden strawberry...
A Giant Velvet Mite found during #BugShot Arizona #inverts
(Dinothrombium sp.) Portal, AZ
Bombardier beetles ripping apart a scarab
Dytiscidae predaceous diving beetle (Thermonectus nigrofasciatus)
Owlfly (Ululodes sp.)
Milky backswimmer (Notonecta sp.)
Some of my favorite macro shots from #Bugshot Arizona! I feel so lucky to have learned from @alexwild.bsky.social @dradriansmith.bsky.social and @abbottnature.bsky.social! Bombardier beetles ripping apart a scarab, Thermonectus nigrofasciatus, Ululodes owlfly, and Notonecta milky backswimmer
If you're into invertebrates and want to learn more about them along with various photography techniques a #BugShot workshop is a great way to do it! You'll see way more than searching solo.
Chiricahuan Gray Tarantula - A large black furry spider standing on dusty, dry ground.
Vinegaroon - A stock dark brown arachnid that looks like a land lobster with a thin tail. It is standing on a lump of earth in a photography white box.
Stripe-tailed Scorpion - A dorsal view of a scorpion with a brown body and tail and golden legs and pincers. It is standing on a white background in a photography white box.
Wind Scorpion - A gold colored arachnid with a cone shaped head, football shaped abdomen, and long leg-like pedipalps that seem like an extra pair of legs. It is sitting on dry earth.
We hit for the desert arachnid cycle at #BugShot Arizona, finding a tarantula, vinegaroons, scorpion, and a wind scorpion.
Chiricahuan Gray Tarantula (Aphonopelma gabeli), Vinegaroon (Mastigoproctus sp.), Stripe-tailed Scorpion (Paravaejovis spinigerus), Wind Scorpion (Subfamily Eremobatinae)
Two shiny golden orange beetles with very long black antenna crawl over small white flowers of a Queen Annes Lace
Very pleased with this one. Common Red Solider Beetles , Rhagonycha fulva, on Queen Annes Lace , Daucus carota. Small friend is lurking #bugs #insects #BugShot #beetles #nature
An orangish-yellow bee feeding on nectar from white flowers.
On a relatively cool morning at the Southwestern Research Station we found these handsome bees zooming around horsetail milkweed. I'm pretty sure it's a Plasterer Bee (Colletid). Bees in the family tend to be crepuscular and that fits, they were gone by mid morning.
Portal, AZ #BugShot
A bright green beetle with blue eyes and metallic stripes on the elytra (hardened wing covers). The beetle is standing on a branch with greenery in the background.
The appropriately named Glorious Jewel Scarab is bright green with metallic stripes. These beetles are found in Texas, Arizona, and northern Mexico. Adults are active day and night and eat juniper leaves. The larvae feed on decaying wood from the Arizona sycamore. #BugShot
(Chrysina gloriosa)
A beetle with a very large humped appearance and a small head. The elytra (hardened wing covers) and metallic green and dimpled like a golf ball. The beetle is standing on a dead branch with green in the background.
This funky beetle is a Black Bladder-bodied Meloid. The beetle is a flightless blister beetle and it can secrete a defensive fluid that causes blistering. It's not from Arizona, @alexwild.bsky.social did some bug hunting on the way to #BugShot and picked it up in west Texas.
(Cysteodemus wislizeni)
I'm not completely fearless and pretty proud of this image. We keep invertebrates in a bug zoo at #BugShot and I got the scorpion out, worked on a nice photo, and carefully put it back. 😊
A large gray spider with a brown pattern on her abdomen, and gold color on her chelicera (mouth parts) and around her two large, forward-facing eyes. She is standing on a rock facing the camera with dusty ground in the background.
An absolutely stunning female wolf spider found on a night hike in the desert near Portal, AZ.
(Hogna sp.) #BugShot
Side view of a scorpion in a white box. It you can clearly see the details of claws, feet, and the tail.
Focus stack of a scorpion to better show all the details of the animal. We hit for the arachnid cycle at #BugShot Arizona - finding a scorpion, tarantula, wind scorpion, and vinegeroon.
(Paravaejovis sp.?) Southwest Research Station, Portal, AZ
A man on the right holding a camera and talking to a circle of people.
A man on the left holding a snake and talking to a group of people.
A man crouched on the ground near some rocks with his camera pretty much touching the ground.
Our #BugShot Arizona instructors. Adrian Smith talking about videography, John Abbott talking about telephoto while holding a gopher snake, and Alex Wild demonstrating ant photography techniques.
