Some things I've been especially excited about this spring/summer

[holyschist]

A few things I've found especially exciting in explorations this spring and summer, all in Colorado.

Spotted coralroot is a type of parasitic orchids. Coralroots wrap themselves around the roots of trees, and get food from symbiotic fungi rather than photosynthesizing.



Pretty shootingstar, a wildflower I've wanted to see for years:



I wasn't exactly excited about this creeping oregon-grape (nothing wrong with it, but I've seen it a million times before), but I like the photo:



Blue-eyed darner, sadly not much longer for this world or it would have been zooming around, not resting on the ground (I fished it out of a pond):



I'm really amazed by leafhoppers right now. They're so tiny they're easy to overlook, but they come in amazing colors:



A praying mantis nymph grooming:



A new dragonfly species for me, the eight-spotted skimmer:



I'm still struggling with photographing twelve-spotted skimmers, as they rarely rest in convenient places, but this is the best I've managed yet:



I finally found a cooperative tiger beetle! This is a punctured tiger beetle, a really common North American species:



The same individual, scavenging a dead darkling beetle:



I love milkweed beetles:



I think this crabronid wasp is the most beautiful wasp I've seen. I can't get over the eyes:



And this jumping spider is definitely the most beautiful spider I've ever seen. At first I thought she was a tiny metallic beetle. (Unfortunately, I didn't quite get an in-focus photo.)

Comments

[lark_ascends]

Fabulous!!! Your insect shots are stunning!

[holyschist]

I'm glad you like them! My macro lens is relatively new and I'm having a lot of fun getting the hang of it.

[lark_ascends]

Yeah, I can't wait for summer to have more of a play with mine again.

[spiralsheep]

Both the skimmers are lovely but, being a rock geek, I like the tiger beetle cap best. I'm glad you're having fun and thank you for sharing.

[holyschist]

Hee! It is probably generic granite gravel in the background (I assume you don't mean the scavenging pic, where the background is asphalt road). I really ought to go do more geologizing...there's an awesome county park down in Colorado Springs I've been wanting to go to for years.

I'm still trying to figure out how to post about naturestuff on DW, now that I have restarted my Wordpress blog. I don't mind the pictures being the same, and it's not like it's hard to connect DW with real!me these days, but I don't want to make DW easily googleable in the other direction by using the same text.

[sixbeforelunch]

Lovely photos! Thanks for posting them. :)

[holyschist]

Glad you liked them!

[switterbeet]

Thanks for sharing this! The photos are gorgeous and I just learned a lot of new insects!

[holyschist]

Thank you! One of the things I love about insects is that there are always new ones to find.