Tidying Up

I'm still trawling through the haul from vacation despite having been back almost a week. And so here is a largely random selection of goodies.

Leaving the porch light on brought a couple of non-moth visitors on the last couple of evenings. There was this longhorn beetle Elytrimitatrix undata about an inch or so long, well an inch or so without the other inch worth of antennae. I was hoping to see more longhorns being in the woods as we were but this is a nice one.

And then this astonishing thing that rested, briefly, on the rocking chair. Alas it didnt stay long enough to get a really good picture but you can see how beautiful and delicate it was. It is an Antlion (Glenurus gratus), The Antlion larva likes in a little sandpit in the ground waiting for ants and other passing prey to tumble into the pit in a trickle of sand into its huge mandibles.  This adult doesn't feed at all just live a brief spell to mate and then dies. B ut what an amazing thing while it lasts.

Daytime exploration brought the Juniper Hairstreak on our first day,the only one I saw on the whole trip and still my only one ever. And the thistles along the road provided some new skipper....as if there weren't enough to fret over identifying already. These next two are actually one. The Zebulon Skipper (Poanes zabulon) This first is the male.

And this is the hugely different, beautifully frosted female.

This is a Checked Skipper. Im still unsure of the exact species but likey the Common (Pyrgus communis) Rotten picture, tiny twitchy butterfly, breezy day. Sorry. 

Amongst the Clubtail dragonflies on the river there were also plenty of Widow Skimmers including this mating pair. The male has the blue and black wings and the female the black and clear, rather tatty ones in this case.

I hvent seen any decent sized mantis at home yet but this one on the roses in front of the

cabin was a beauty over 2 inches long already and not mature yet (see the small wing buds). This isn't our usual Carolina mantis (Stagmomantis carolina ) I don't think. Still not sure which though.
It turns out to be the non-native Chinese Mantis (Tenodera aridifolia)

There are creatures out there that aren't bugs of any sort. Theyre generally regarded as cuter than bugs but thats a matter of opinion. For you none bug fans here is the Pickerel frog (Lithobates palustris) in the National Park sitting very still on the pathside rock.

And for the cuteness junkies, here is Bambi.