Daily Archives: September 11, 2012

Archytas apicifer

In general I’m not a fan of flies. Some of them are quite pretty, I know and of course they have their part to play in the natural order of things. Still, it’s hard to think of the common house fly and similar critters as anything other than disease carrying vermin. Close up, I guess, they are beautiful in a sinister sort of way. This is actually a fairly distant cousin of the house fly (Musca domestica) which is in a different superfamily of the Calyptratae. Yes, I know, whatever.

Scolia dubia Blue-winged Wasp

I know everyone is going to be shocked when the learn that I took insect pictures today. Me and insects? Really? Well, I think this is one of the coolest wasps I’ve seen in a while. It’s wearing woolies on its tail end. It is a blue-winged wasp (Scolia dubia) and it’s a big one, over two centimeters long. Males have longer antennae and though I don’t have anything to compare them to, I’m guessing this is a female.