Counting spots and lines

 Flying critters, long and skinny, short and fat:

Four-spotted skimmer, Libellula quadrimaculata. Beautiful stained-glass wings! With 2 black spots on the leading edges of each wing, making 8 spots. Plus 2 at the hinge of the rear wings. So, 10.

And here's the June beetle my cat brought me. A 10-lined June beetle, Polyphylla decemlineata.

She was in a bad mood, hissing her complaint about the cat, and I let her go without insisting on a clear antenna shot.

She's a female: the males have huge antennae that they spread out like fans to detect female pheromones.

Male antenna, collapsed. Photo from 2011.

And another bluet. These have 4 black and blue wing spots, one on each.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Tres criaturas voladoras, largas y delgadas, o chaparritas y gordas:

1. Una libélula de cuatro puntos, Libellula quadrimaculata. En el borde anterior de cada ala hay dos manchas negras, dándonos 8 en total. Y con las dos manchas cerca de la articulación de las alas posterioras, son 10 "puntos". Pero la llaman la quadrimaculata.
2. Esta es la escarabajo rayado hembra que me trajo la gata. Una Polyphylla decemlineata, con 10 rayas negras en el dorso, 4 largas, 1 muy corta.
3. Estaba de muy mal humor, quejándose del trato de la gata con su siseo, y la dejé irse sin sacar una foto buena de su antena. Es hembra; los machos tienen antenas grandes, que abren en forma de abanico para oler las feromonas de las hembras.
4. Una antena de un macho, cerrada. Foto de 2011.
5. Y otro caballito del diablo. Estos tienen 4 manchas, azules con negro, una en cada ala.

In formal dress

I went out to water the garden and found this black and white beauty on a gladiolus stem.

Banded laurel borer, Rosalia funebris

His* body, not counting those antennae, is a bit over an inch long.

He's dressed formally in black and white; a white top with a black shield in centre back, a long coat-tail with three white bands. I love the two white buttons on either side. Legs and antennae are in alternating bands of black and white. And look at those fancy shoes with the two yellow-fringed toes!

The larvae of these longhorned beetles eat wood, but since their eggs are usually laid in fallen wood rather than living trees, they're not a threat to local landscaping. The adults feed on flowers.

*The antennae of the males are longer than their bodies; females have shorter antennae. I can't tell here, whether this one was male or female, because the antennae that were in focus curved around behind the next glad stems.

When I watered the glads, he hung on, not seeming to mind the rain, but when I returned after I hung up the hose, he was gone.

The species name, funebris, comes from the Latin for "funereal, mournful, gloomy", probably referring to the black and white colouring, but he looked cheerful enough to me.

The better to grab you with

Even contained in a glass under bright light, a June beetle resists being photographed. Legs, complicated antennae, wing covers; everything is in constant movement. (It doesn't help when the cat keeps pushing the glass off the white background, either!) And I keep the photo sessions short, because it's a terrible imposition to take up so much of her short life being glared at. I got a few shots of those amazing grappling hooks and released their owner outside.

Look at those hooks! What he grabs, he holds.

He's a ten-lined beetle. To get the ten, you have to count the centre line as two, one for each wing cover. That gives you eight, but there are two very short lines between the outer two long lines (barely visible in this photo), making the total ten.

Such a nice furry vest! And more leg and foot detail. She's a female; the antennae of the males are much larger.