Category: insects (Page 77 of 88)

Bug of Week: Cicada Nymph

Here’s a bug you don’t see much this time of year.

My son dug up this pea-sized grub when trying to fix an irrigation leak.

When it is upside down you can see the beak it uses to feed on tree roots. It is so tiny, that is a bit of acacia flower next to it.

In this view you can see the claws on the front legs that it uses to dig through the soil.

Perhaps next summer it will crawl from the earth, attach to the side of a tree, emerge as an adult, and leave its exoskeleton behind like this one did.

For more information on cicadas:

Another sequence of cicada nymphs

Adult cicada

Cicada wasp with adult cicada photograph from this species

Bug of the Week: Jewel Beetles

These beetles are commonly called jewel beetles, or metallic wood borers.

Buprestid

The family name is Buprestidae, so they may be called buprestids as well.

buprestid-3

Aren’t they colorful? Do you think they are trying to mimic wasps?

It turns out that some of these beetles even fly with their top wings (elytra) closed and only use their membranous underwings to fly. Most beetles, for example our common lady beetles, fly with their elytra up and opened. By flying with their elytra closed, the buprestid beetles look even more like wasps.

The buprestids in these photographs were feeding on flowers in Ramsey Canyon, in southeastern Arizona. These are probably in the Genus Acmaeodera, although it is very difficult to tell one from another.

Bug of the Week: Leaf-footed Bug Nymph

Ever wonder how to identify an insect?

leaf-footed-bug-nymph-1

Let’s take this green bug we found this week. It looked familiar, but I couldn’t quite place it.

I knew it was a youngster or nymph because it has wing pads on the sides of its abdomen, not full wings. I also could tell it was a “true bug” because of the triangular-shaped piece in the middle of the back, where the adbomen meets the thorax.

So, I put the search terms “green bug numph” in the image search box of my search engine (in this case Google).

I got a bunch of green stink bugs, which I knew were wrong because they are more shield shaped. But scrolling down a bit, I found something very close.

leaf-footed-bug-nymph-2

A few more clicks, and “Aha!” Thanks to BugGuide I know it is a leaf-footed bug nymph, in the genus Piezogaster. I see the two spots on the back and the antennae are the same shape. No wonder it looked familiar. We have found leaf-footed bugs before, although not this species.

So, what bugs have you found this week?

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