2015 May 27

   Gordon Hart writes (May 26): I stayed around the yard today and managed to catch up with a few insects.  The Ceanothus (California Lilac) is in full bloom and was attracting several kinds of bees and three Cedar Hairstreaks with a couple of Spring Azures. I counted eight Pale Swallowtails at the same time on the Rhododendrons , a new yard record I think. I have attached another picture of a Cedar Hairstreak, plus a small brown pug on a squash leaf; and a small beetle with bright red-pink stripes on the pronotum.

   Thanks to Scott Gilmore for identifying the beetle to genus as Ellychnia.   This is in the firefly family, but only the larvae bioluminesce. 

   Jeremy Tatum writes that his best guess for the pug is Eupithecia annulata – but he can’t be certain.

Ellychnia sp.: (Col.: Lampyridae)  Gordon Hart

Eupithecia sp. (perhaps annulata) (Lep.: Geometridae) Gordon Hart

   Scott Gilmore sends photos of two colour varieties of a cerambycid  beetle – the common black-bodied form:

Pidonia scripta (col.: Cerambycidae) Scott Gilmore

and a less-common form with a brown body:

Pidonia scripta (Col.: Cerambycidae) Scott Gilmore

   He also sends photographs of a very tiny bug, the Mountain Leafhopper:

Colladonus montanus (Hem.: Cicadellidae) Scott Gilmore

Colladonus montanus (Hem.: Cicadellidae) Scott Gilmore