Today I took a bike ride to a nearby National Wildlife Refuge here in Massachusetts. Along the edge of the wetland there, there is a lot of purple vervain and goldenrod which attracts a lot of interesting insects. I brought a macro lens for very up-close shots of these. However, I didn't forgot to bring any telephoto lens rendering any dragonfly pictures nearly hopeless. And there were a lot of dragonflies.
Here's what I was able to capture:
Along with the goldenrod, there is plentiful milkweed. Here is a Large Milkweed Bug (Oncopeltus fasciatus) looking clueless, at least it is on the right host plant :)
Next up is the Gold-marked Thread-waisted Wasp (Eremnophila aureonotata) which is a common wasp in my area. If you start looking at goldenrod, you'll find them eventually. The silvery patches (4 or 5 on each side?) on its thorax are a distinguishing feature for this species. It should be called the Silver-marked wasp really... It is large but docile.
Here is a European Tube Wasp (Ancistrocerus gazella), introduced in our area and you can throughout the eastern United States. They stock their nest with caterpillars and the adults feed on nectar, as this one is doing.
I believe that 'U' shaped indentation in the yellow coloring on the abdomen is a good identifying feature for this species.
There were a few paper wasps around. They appeared to be this dark species called the Dark Paper Wasp (Polistes fuscatus). These seemed smaller than other times I've seen them. Maybe different broods are different sizes depending on time of year or food availability? Or just natural variation in size...
Lastly, here is a type of 'weevil wasp' of the genus Cerceris. These wasps prey on adult beetles, namely weevils!
There are many different species of this genus in North America. Upwards of 80+. So I'm not sure which one this is, perhaps Smoky-Winged Weevil Wasp or C. insolita. One could dig through the BugGuide pages for a long time...
Their abdomen is what usually gives this guys away as Weevil Wasps. Each segment or tergus is rounded, like if you put together a bunch of different sized tires together.
Thanks for checking out my post! All photos are my own. Maybe next time I'll get some dragonfly photos!
