Wednesday, September 19, 2012

Tigers in the Yard

I was pleasantly surprised to find several of these tiger beetles,

(Cicindela) Habroscelimorpha fulgoris erronea Vaurie,

around my patio light. It occurred to me that this was rather late in the season for them as this subspecies is common in July and August in response to the summer monsoon. In addition, there hasn't been any trace of rain in over two weeks, though, there are a few puddles from prior storms.

This subspecies is endemic to the Sulphur Springs Valley of southeast Arizona where it is associated with wet saline flats. It's coloration varies from bright green, blue or purple.

This voucher specimen documenting it's late temporal activity, I'm afraid, is a bit worse for wear ... and my poor photography doesn't do it justice.


Here is the series in my cabinet ...


© Delbert La Rue 2012. All Rights Reserved.

2 comments:

  1. Those are some snazzy looking tigers in your cabinet!

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  2. Thanks, Ted.

    In a future post coming soon, I share my methods of tiger beetle curation including field storage, degreasing, pinning and labeling. It seems to me to be a dying art.

    Best wishes, ...

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