2017 August 9

 

   Jeremy Tatum writes:  I found a spider in my apartment this morning that was so huge that I couldn’t fit it all into the frame:

 

Eratigena atrica (Ara.: Agelenidae) Jeremy Tatum

 

   Aziza Cooper writes: On Monday, August 7, I found one Purplish Copper at McIntyre Reservoir along the south side rim road. Also there were Cabbage Whites and one Western Pondhawk dragonfly.

 

Purplish Copper Lycaena helloides (Lep.: Lycaenidae) Aziza Cooper

 

 

Western Pondhawk Erythemis collocata (Odo.: Libellulidae) Aziza Cooper

 

 

   Jeremy Tatum writes:  I was at Swan Lake today, and I saw what I took to be a small metallic blue ichneumonid or braconid.  I had more or less decided that it was too small to be an ichneumonid and therefore it was probably a braconid when I suddenly realized that I was in entirely the wrong Order!  It was a sesiid (clearwing) moth. It was a smaller and different species from the Synanthedon bibionipennis twice recently reported on this site, but it didn’t stay for me to get a good look at it;  it darted off as they so often do.  So rarely do I see sesiids, and so exciting are they, that I take note of them even when it is just a fleeting glance at an unidentified one.