[NOTE: Clicking on any of these pictures brings you a closer look. Click on the enlargement to come back.]
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tarantula hawk Hemipepsis sp. The female tarantula hawk seeks out tarantulas, paralyzing them with her sting. After dragging the spider to a burrow, she lays a single egg on its body. Upon hatching, the wasp larva begins feeding on the still living tarantula, first eating non-vital tissue but gradually killing it as it develops. |
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Sonoran bumble bee Bombus sonorus Only fertilized queens hibernate through the winter. In the spring, a queen builds her underground nest, making a wax cell into which she packs pollen and nectar for the larvae to eat. Offspring are smaller than the queen and take over the chores of gathering nectar and pollen and the construction of brood cells. |
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carpenter bee Xylocopa californica Some species of carpenter bees construct nests in dead tree limbs while others prefer agave, sotol and yucca bloom stalks. The females form nectar and pollen into a loaf of "bee bread" as provisions for their young. The adults feed on the nectar of flowers. Females sting but they are usually not aggressive. |
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velvet ant Dasymutilla sp. Actually wasps, female velvet ants are wingless and covered with dense hair of various colors. Males are winged. All species are parasitic on other insects, and females are most often seen in search of hosts, mostly ground-nesting bees and wasps. Velvet ants stridulate and produce a squeaking sound. |
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desert leafcutter ant Acromyrmex versicolor This ant does not eat the leaves it cuts but uses them as a mulch to culture a symbiotic fungus eaten by larvae and adults. Like all ants, leafcutters are vital in building topsoil - bringing inorganic material to the surface, taking organic material down several meters, and aerating the soil, allowing sparse desert rains to be absorbed. |
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