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Today we have some lovely insect photos by regular Mark Sturtevant. Mark’s ID’s and captions are indented, and you can enlarge his photos by clicking on them.

Here are more pictures of insects taken two summers ago from area parks near where I live in eastern Michigan.

First up is a slightly embarrassing accomplishment, which is a decent picture of one of our Sulphur butterflies. Sulphurs are an exceedingly common group with several local species, but for some reason they are extremely wary around me. Anyway, this one was unwary, and I think it is the Orange Sulphur (Colias eurytheme):

Next up is our largest butterfly, the Eastern Giant Swallowtail (Heraclides cresphontes). They are often challenging since they tend to keep their “engines running” (meaning their wings are almost always in motion) when rapidly foraging from flower to flower, but this one paused very briefly:

One of my favorite insects is shown next. This is Anotia uhleri, or what I call the “Flat Derbid”, although this Derbid planthopper has no common name. They can be found in forests sitting on the undersides of leaves. The orange thingies sticking out of the head are stumpy antennae:

Here is a Leaf-footed Bug nymph (Acanthocephala terminalis):

I was finding quite a few of these Lacewing egg clusters along a forest trail. Lacewings lay eggs on the ends of long stalks for protection. Having the eggs tied together in a bundle suggests that these are one of our larger Green Lacewing species, Leucochrysa insularis. This species tends to stay in forests, sitting under leaves by day, and like the Derbid above they lay their wings flat.

An occasional visitor to the porchlight at home are Mosquitos of Unusual Size, and one is shown in the next picture. I was eventually able to identify this giant mosquito as the Gallnipper, Psorophora ciliata. This one is a female. Although she will require a blood meal to reproduce, and they are described as being rather aggressive in pursuit of humans, a relatively good thing about them is that the larvae are predatory on other mosquito larvae. I have pictures coming up later that compares one of these beasts to a regular mosquito, but for now the attached picture can give some idea:

The next three pictures show a surprise, but the story starts out unremarkably. The beetles foraging on flower pollen are Brown Blister Beetles, Zonitis vittigera. Blister Beetles are a large family, and are so-named because they are chemically protected by exuding an irritating fluid if annoyed. It is relevant to point out that they have interesting biology in that they grow up as parasites on other insects, usually on bees. The mobile first instar larvae are called triungulin larvae, and they start their journey by clambering up onto flowers and wait for a bee to visit. Once the flower is visited by their intended target, they hitch a ride to the nest where they move in and eat the bee provisions and even bee larvae:

I almost did not bother processing the 2nd picture because it had motion-blur, though the composition was nice. But do you see the tiny things on the thorax of the beetle? The 3rd picture provides a blow-up. Those little things are Blister Beetle triungulin larvae! Possibly not this species, though. So, what is going on? I have sent these pictures on to a Blister Beetle Facebook group and to iNaturalist to ask for opinions. There is no answer yet, but possibly the larvae attach to any insect visitor. Although non-bee visitors would be temporary dead-ends, one can imagine that this would at least disperse them to other flowers:

Finally, here are pictures of our most common Sand Wasp, which is the Four-banded Stink Bug Wasp (Bicyrtes quadrifasciatus). Females of these highly energetic wasps will provision a burrow with paralyzed stink bugs, and these are used to raise the next generation of wasps. In the first picture you can see the spray of sand being flung out as she excavates her burrow:

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One of the big differences between Venus and Earth is the lack of plate tectonics. While Earth's continents float on tectonic plates—constantly reshaping our world—Venus was previously thought to remain locked in a largely static crust with only occasional volcanic hotspots. But everything we thought we knew might be wrong! Researchers examining 30-year-old NASA Magellan spacecraft images have spotted what appears to be the smoking gun of tectonic activity on our hellish sister planet, potentially rewriting planetary science as we know it.

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Researchers have developed a simple method to explore a complex area of quantum science. The discovery makes research in this field cheaper and more accessible, which could significantly impact the development of future laser, quantum and high-tech display technologies.

Researchers have developed a simple method to explore a complex area of quantum science. The discovery makes research in this field cheaper and more accessible, which could significantly impact the development of future laser, quantum and high-tech display technologies.

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A surprising connection has been found, between two seemingly very different classes of superconductors. In a new material, atoms are distributed irregularly, but still manage to create long-range magnetic order.

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The connection between a crumpled sheet of paper and quantum technology: A research team at the EPFL in Lausanne (Switzerland) and the University of Konstanz (Germany) uses topology in microwave photonics to make improved systems of coupled cavity arrays.

The connection between a crumpled sheet of paper and quantum technology: A research team at the EPFL in Lausanne (Switzerland) and the University of Konstanz (Germany) uses topology in microwave photonics to make improved systems of coupled cavity arrays.

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