These are larval Baeocera scaphidiines. The adults are super un-rove-beetle-like.

Baeocera larvae weave in and out the hymenial surface of polypore fungi.

Bass are spawning, so I went to check out the fishing over at WCP for 2 hours. The fish were small but active. Even picked up a bluegill with a larger top-water minnow. 3 l.m.bass, max of 12 inches, and 1 blue-G.

Today’s lures were:

Rebel Pop-R, an unstoppable top-water lure. The fact that you can see the bass attacking from below, visually, is amazing.

Rapala Original Floating, something someone picked up for me at a garage sale. The Original is a pricey lure and I was hoping to reek the benefits of tradition. In fact, picked up most of the fish off this baby today. Was using a darker natural color on a cloudy day, I’ve gotta get some brighter colors.

I heard some pleasing news today and it made my day.

This photo’s from Costa Rica. I think it’s a Microdon sp., checking out the nest entrance. Honestly, I know they’re myrmecophilous so I should be able to identify the genus from other hover flies, but the characters that define them are found in the wing venation, so kinda hard to check out in the wild.

Thanks to a comment by Martin, this fly was identified as a species of Lepidomyia. Martin also informed me that the larvae are unknown, but those of a related genus develops in decaying wood. Makes sense, this individual was scouting a tree hole opening, which was coincidentally occupied by an ant colony.

Whatever, gestalt is a taxonomist’s best friend anyways.

Gestalt betrayed me…

Lepidomyia checks out a tree hole opening.

More minis.

TA meeting, applied for money, reviewed a manuscript… Before I continue on with more pressing tasks, here are a couple more mini-clavs. These are from the KU collections.

Mini-clavs

And, something to stimulate your auditory senses while these little guys blow your visual fuse box.

Oh, and next time your lab gets dry ice.

Thanks for all your support everyone!

I wanted to thank everyone for their cross-posting and visiting my blog yesterday. Thanks to everyone, yesterday set a new record for the number of visits for a given day – 185!!! Yeah, yeah, I know that 185 isn’t much for most blogs, but given its entomological (and a some of my nonsense sprinkled here and there) content, not bad I think.

But, especially, I would like to personally thank Joe for supplying the video clips and a wonderful discussion on social insect symbiosis, as usual. Last, but never-ever least, Margaret, Peter, thanks so much for your wonderful comments on Facebook.

Snowed in

School’s closed again. I had to blaze a trail to lab today. I’ll use my tracks to go home.

A small clavegerine that Joe and I plan to describe. We think it might be a new genus. This particular species is Brazilian and from the British Museum. We have another two species from the collections here at KU.

A tiny myrmecophile.

Clavegerines are a diverse lineage of myrmecophilous pselaphines. They have compact appendages, especially those antennae. Some observations have elucidated, they twirl the those nubby antennae when they’re trying to assess the situation within their ant-nest homes. “Hmm, what’s going on?” (twirl-twirl)