adam1420's Favorites

A striking resemblance to Europe's Semaphore Fly (Poecilobothrus nobilitatus), but lacking the white wing tips of that species, not to mention on the wrong continent. A male and a female were engaged in a long courtship dance, which I was able to observe for several minutes. Open to suggestions on a North American species.

Turns out that I have a lot of these in my house. They enter in the late fall with the cluster flies, and then start collecting around the lights on the ceiling in the evening when the weather warms up.

Part of a mixed community of cyanobacteria and lichens that have colonized a sock, embedded in the mud of a flooded abandoned quarry. The filaments of Scytonema are embedded in thick yellow sheaths, 12 to 20 microns wide. The epifluorescence photos reveal the form of the filaments within the sheaths.

I have too many moths to add here.But this one was exceptionally beautiful. ID from a moth expert . This one was sitting on my kitchen wall. After I took the photo she flew away and never revisited me.

Wondering if this is A. hemiophrys but not sure what I'm looking for to distinguish between it and americanus- yes- it's wild. west side of the northern Sable Island on Lake of the Woods (this time of year there are thousands of toads (mostly babies) there so this one caught my eye for being different)

I figured these were something interesting when I saw them, though they were undescribed at the time. It turns out this a species endemic to this site, as well as the only US Asellid endemic to a thermal spring.

Resting on an understorey plant. At a quick glance, I initially thought it was a bird dropping. The white hairs give it the appearance of being infected with an entomopathogenic fungi, maybe as a deterrent to predators...? Definitely the most amazing cerambycid I've ever seen!

Update: this species finally has a name! The paper naming and describing it can be freely downloaded from here: https://doi.org/10.54102/ajt.iv1x5