swells's Journal

Yesterday I visited the arboretum at the University of Idaho. It is a very buggy place.

I took hundreds of photos, ending up with 29 iNat observations from 24 taxa with 11 life list firsts. (New Taxa List Total: 711)

I was especially pleased to find my first member of the Conopidae familiy, Physocephala texana -- or at least that's what I think it is. (I'm waiting for confirmation on this) When I first looked at its photos I thought it was a wasp of some kind, but I couldn't find one that looked like it. Finally I realized that I had been fooled by a fly's disguise. Evolution makes some damned good costumes!

Another one that almost fooled me was Cylindromyia, a tachinid fly that mimics a wasp with a black and red abdomen.

It's a great place to go iNatting, and I'll be back there often in the days ahead.

I recently created two new iNat places that are close to my home in Moscow, Idaho: Idler's Rest and Spring Valley Reservoir.

I've visited each a few times, adding several new taxa to my lists. Among them were oblique-lined tiger beetles, a new long-legged fly genus (Dolichopus), and some really bad-ass robber flies. It was nice to see some non-insects, too - a Red Squirrel, Yellow Pine Chipmunk, and Wild Turkey; some new plant taxa - Western Red Cedar, White Pine, and Larch; and some fungi - Turkey Tail and Red-banded Polypore.