I should have posted these photographs of aphids in honor of Mother’s Day.
They were on a pink hollyhock flower.
Yes, even aphids are moms.
Category: Bug of the Week (Page 68 of 219)
After doing Bug of the Week for so many years, it can be difficult to find something new. This week I was lucky.
Although it looks quite a bit like a sand wasp, this is a new kind of cuckoo bee. It might be Triepeolus sp. (like this one).
Look at the tongue (proboscis) that it using to suck up nectar.
We have seen another cuckoo bee in our yard before, Xeromelecta californica (previous post).
Named after cuckoo birds, cuckoo bees lay their eggs in the nests of other kinds of bees or sometimes wasps, depending on the species. They don’t build their own nests and lack pollen baskets for collecting pollen. It’s not a warm and fuzzy lifestyle, but that’s nature for you.
It might be time to resume bug of the week. Here’s our newest find.
The desert marigold flower is only roughly an inch across, so you can imagine how tiny this solitary bee is.
Our temperature are predicted to rise over 100 °F tomorrow. Spring is ending. Summer is here.
For more information, see Roberta Gibson Writes.