krechols13's Favorites

My first ever tortoise beetle!! This little dude was about 7 or 8 mm long and very skittish--he kept trying to run away or drop down to the ground. I'm taking the only "seen nearby" species suggestion from the ID algorithm, since it seems like a good visual match.

Easily my best find from this outing! I found this pristine, beautiful boy clinging to a stick a few inches off the forest floor, looking fresh and perfect like he had just eclosed that morning. He kindly sat on my hand so I could get close photos of his little fuzzy face, and then I set him on a tree trunk so he wouldn't get stepped on.

The utmost highlight of my entire day!! This little guy was sitting on the stream bank waiting for his parents to come feed him, doing the little bounce that gives dippers their name. It was SO CUTE. A video of Junior showing off his dance moves can be seen here: https://youtu.be/XsoY6vkEPro

I was absolutely THRILLED to find this guy marching across the parking lot at dusk. I scooped him up in the only container I had so I could take photos once the light was better, though he really didn't want to cooperate for a sunlight photo shoot the next day. I'm assuming this is a male who was looking for a mate. Legspan is slightly larger than my palm. Desert Tarantula seems to be the most common species in Utah and the only one with observations in Utah County, so I'm going with that ID unless someone tells me otherwise.
I'm planning to release him at dusk back where I found him.

Update as of 8/24/2021: I released this guy at dusk on the 23rd and have added some photos from the release. (Photos 7 through 11)

On edge of Jack Pine Plantation just outside of Grayling, Mi. Could not locate in either Butterflies of Michigan or Swift Gd to Butterflies. Puddling with a group of Blues and Skippers but lone sighting.

This guy was unusually unbothered by my looking at him; he stayed on his perch for several minutes even after I got out of the car and crossed the road to get a better view. I'm really glad these photos turned out well, considering that I got my car stuck in the snow in the process of taking them!

Found this guy buzzing around a spruce tree after dark and kept him overnight so I could get better photos in the daylight. I've set the time and location to when and where I found him. He was very grumpy about being handled and kept making indignant squeaking/hissing noises at me.

The absolute highlight of my day. I have never seen a mink so unconcerned to have people looking at him. He went about his business swimming and grooming and doing his bouncy little run across the grass, and even came within about 6 feet of me of his own accord. A very pleasant surprise!

Here's also a short phone video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e--bvvspxnM

Finding this was absolutely insane. An iguana had run across the road so I pulled over to try and get a photo of it. When I walked over to the shoulder the iguana was gone, but this (nocturnal?) shovelnose snake was crawling around in broad daylight.

I found this male A. minutus on Swamp Milkweed (Asclepias incarnata) seemingly feeding on nectar. I thought it was strange based on my knowledge of the adult beetles feeding behavior being on sap flows/tree wounds, but I figured there was likely documentation somewhere on this behavior I just hadn't read yet. After sharing the photos on bugguide and with an entomologist friend with a focus on beetles, I'm learning this may be a more significant find than I realized. Of anyone knows of literature regarding nectarivorous feeding behavior on this species, please share.

a swarm of hundreds of individuals was seen crossing a forest trail; the morphology and swarming behavior agrees with Z. neptunus (see Wesener and Schutte 2010, https://www.ajol.info/index.php/mcd/article/view/63137)