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Great Basin Collecting Trip iReport
During the last week of August, I teamed up with fellow longhorned beetle enthusiast Jeff Huether to look for species in the genus Crossidius. This exclusively North American genus contains a number of...
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Big, black (and red), and beautiful!
While I may have already declared Plinthocoelium suaveolens (bumelia borer) as North America’s most beautiful longhorned beetle, any short list of top candidates for this title must also include the...
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Sunset beetles
Acmaeodera immaculata? (family Buprestidae) | vic. Vogel Canyon, Colorado. Regular readers of this blog know that I am fond of natural sky backgrounds for insects found during the day on flowers and...
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2014 Great Plains Collecting Trip iReport
During the past year or so I’ve followed up my longer (one week or more) insect collecting trips with a synoptic “iReport”—so named because they are illustrated exclusively with iPhone photographs. It...
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My first experience with Prionus lure
Our quick stop in Hardtner, Kansas to see “Beetle Bill” Smith at the beginning of our Great Plains Collecting Trip had already produced one unexpected success—the long-sought-after Buprestis...
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How to catch “bucket loads” of Prionus fissicornis!
Fresh off our unexpected success at finding Prionus integer in the shortgrass prairie of southeastern Colorado, field mate Jeff Huether and I made our way down into northeastern New Mexico to see if...
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Scorching plains, screaming cactus
One of my greatest pleasures with collecting insects is not only the sights of the habitats that I visit, but the sounds. How many a night I’ve spent camped out in the Ozarks and watched royal moths...
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Cactus beetle redux!
Moneilema armatum LeConte, 1853 | Vogel Canyon, Otero Co., Colorado On my most recent Great Plains collecting trip, cactus dodger cicadas weren’t the only residents of the cholla cactus (Cylindropuntia...
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A cicada that snaps, crackles, and pops!
Last summer during a collecting trip through the western Great Plains, field partner Jeff Huether and I made a quick stop in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains just a few miles north of the...
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