Tag Archives: Quercus

Wingless Weirdos

Ever since I made a place on BugGuide to collect photos of them over a decade ago, I’ve been wanting to see (in person) one of those weird wingless gall wasps that can be found throughout the winter. Two years … Continue reading

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Acorn Plum Galls (and friends)

Hey, this blog now has over 1000 subscribers! Thanks everyone for your continued interest in my esoteric natural history investigations. I’m still slowly working my way through the photos I took last summer, during which one of my several jobs … Continue reading

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Oak Shotholes

At the moment there are 648 observations on iNaturalist purporting to show the “oak shothole leafminer” (Agromyzidae: Japanagromyza viridula). Apparently I have personally verified 93 of them, in almost all cases based on the presence of leaf mines. Virtually all … Continue reading

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The Yard List(s), Part 10

Yikes, I let more than a week go by since my last report on the yard lists. I guess I’m due for an update! First the leafminers… #32: Pegomya bicolor section (Anthomyiidae). On May 30 I saw the beginnings of mines … Continue reading

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The Yard List(s), Part 9

Things are really picking up now… First of all, I collected something from the arborvitae hedge at the end of the day yesterday that I didn’t get around to investigating until this morning. There were two of these little white … Continue reading

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The Yard List(s), Part 7

Last night I finished revising and updating the Lepidoptera chapter for the second edition of Leafminers of North America, and when I got to the end I was reminded that some species of Leucania (like the ill-fated one I wrote about … Continue reading

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Adventures in Taxonomy

Apparently today is “Taxonomist Appreciation Day,” so I suppose it’s an appropriate time to write a little something about my latest paper, which I discovered had been published right after I clicked “publish” on my previous blog post. I never … Continue reading

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Interlopers

I’ve been making sporadic progress in sorting through my backlog of photos, and I’m now exactly seven months behind. April 13 saw the conclusion of a story that began with my collecting this scrub oak (Quercus ilicifolia) leaf in early … Continue reading

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Spring Sparkler

Happy spring! You may be wondering where I’ve been for the past few months, unless of course you’ve subscribed to the monthly leafminer book installments, in which case you know I’ve been busy putting together a 383-page illustrated introduction, complete … Continue reading

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Acorn Weevils

It’s another mast year for red oak (Quercus rubra) in my neck of the woods, which means that for the past couple of weeks, large nuts have been raining down from the treetops, making it a little treacherous to go for … Continue reading

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