Dec 28th – Sorting more kits

Weekly progress:
Slow week in the lab, with work only on Tuesday and Wednesday. We pinned the last of Graham’s kit (Franklin Co) and sorted all of a kit by B. Heath (Portage Co). We are up to over 8,000 bees pinned and 17 kits sorted! We haven’t started identifying any bees, but we have started the second to last step that goes right before I can start identifying. So we are getting closer.

If we keep up our current rate of sorting and pinning, it would take about 40 more weeks for us to get through the samples (putting us out into September). This estimate does not account for any time identifying or any time doing any field work over the summer, so it still might take longer than that. However, I am hopeful that we will be able to get vaccines before then to have more people in the lab to help with sorting and pinning again. If you have gotten two doses of a covid vaccine and want to help out in the lab, let me know. Otherwise, we are still waiting for cases to decrease across Ohio before having people back in the lab.

Bycatch:
To see all bycatch photographed this week, see: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?created_d1=2020-12-21&created_d2=2020-12-23&place_id=any&subview=grid&user_id=malisaspring&verifiable=any

We often overlook our flies in the samples. However, if we take the time to look closely at them, they can be quite beautiful!

I mean, check out this crown of spines! This is the same fly as above, but looking from below.

Another fun bug from Heath’s sample is a tumbling flower beetle. These beetles are aptly named, as they are very quick to tumble off flowers when startled.

Another weird fly is this Wavy Mucksucker! It is actually a hoverfly in the family Syrphidae, but lacks the bright yellow colors of its cousins.

We also have a hairy weevil with rice for scale.

We also finally got an adult pincer wasp (Dryinidae), which is a parasite of leafhoppers! See more info about the family here: https://bugguide.net/node/view/26938

Guess that organism!
How good are you at recognizing obscure insect body parts? Do you recognize which insect this body part came from?

Who am I?

That’s all for now,

MaLisa