Natural Science Forum / Biology / Entomology / June 2006

Hi, Im from Nottingham, UK and have seen Red Banded Sand Wasp
look-alike in my house (flew into my room).  I then caught it and froze
it in my fridge because i'd never seen anything like it.
Couple of weeks ago my mum threw it away once she found it, and today I

Does anyone know what kind of wasp this is?
http://home.planet.nl/~smi01802/Portfolio/Natuur/slides/IMG_7389.htm
I assume it's some kind of paper wasp, but I'm not sure.
thx in advance & kind regards

I love photographing insects and spiders, but I know next to nothing
about entomology. So I'm hoping someone can help me idenitfy this
spider that I shot as it was spinning a web on my front porch:
http://www.pbase.com/bob183/image/49310323. Someone told me it was a

Hey Fellow Leppers,
Can any one give me any tips on how to best cut plastazote foam? When I
tried to do it quickly last night I butchered it; there must be a trick
I don't know.

Can someone please help identify this butterfly?:
http://me.metaflow-project.org/butterfly1.jpg
Thanks
Jer

Found this one on my patio last night. The dark spot on it's end looked like
a black glass bead. It was about 4-5 inches long.
http://members.tcq.net/davepen/images/DSC00157.JPG
I suspect it's some type of Sphinx larvae, but which one?  Any ideas?

Found this one on my patio tonight. The dark spot on it's end looked like a
black glass bead. It was about 4-5 inches long.
http://members.tcq.net/davepen/images.DSC00157.JPG
I suspect it's some type of Sphinx larvae, but which one?

Today I saw live, very small maggots on 'something' (I had to do 'something
in the woods; ) that had been there for less than two minutes. They were not
there before I step away.
There were many flies on the 'something'.

I hope this is the right group for this kind of question:
Every evening, around 9-10pm a large number of beetles start to emerge
from the lawn in front of my neighbour's house.  They go out, climb the
crass and immediately take off.  This have never happened in the 6+

I'm just wondering if anyone has ever found or reared Battus philenor on
anything other than Pipevine? I can find no reference source that lists
anything else, but I have seen a handful of specimens over the last few
years at a park near my house where pipevine absolutely does not ...

I am searching for any date and locality records of Metrea ostreonalis
Grt.(Crambidae: Odontiinae).  It is much more widespread than published
records indicate (MONA 13.1B; Can.Ent. 107:131), but its full distribution
remains unclear.  I am also interested in habitat information and ...

I know the monarch rhetoric gets turned up a notch (or two or three) on
Leps-L, but I think we can all agree that this report from Journey North is
good news!
full link:

Could anyone help me identify this creature, found up an Andalucian
hillside this May:
http://www.prune.org.uk/Photographs/bug.html
It was about 50mm long (excluding antennae) and 10 mm across at the widest

Can anyone identify this insect please?  I've posted a couple of
photographs at
http://www.johnandgwyn.co.uk/whatisit.html
It was hovering and visiting flowers presumably for nectar.  

Is this a variety of Cicada? In the last few years we started hearing
buzzing in the trees around May/June in the San Fernando Valley, and I
finally got some pics to help identify.
http://tinyurl.com/llvm2