John Carlson

A dark black shiny fly with thin yellow stripes on the abdomen is sitting on a white flower

Decaying vegetation in stagnant water definitely sounds like rat tailed maggots. Very strange looking creatures. The adults are really nice looking, many bee/wasp mimics.

I’m going to guess that they’re maggots of some kind. Rat tailed maggots are the closest that I’ve seen, but I’m really not sure if those long trailing parts are a breathing siphon or just trailing goop? Did they come out of water, or at least mud, with high organic content?

Looking down on the back side of an Aedes aegypti with belly full of blood, otherwise black with white lines splashed about the insect.

Inconsistently! Fall is my busy season with residency interviews so spotty presence on social media until February. But I am checking in on Bluesky every few days

A black beetle with reddish color that takes up the anterior half of the elytra is hanging up-side-down on a cluster of whitish pink flowers.

The Wedge-shaped Beetle, Macrosiagon cruenta, ambling around on flowers near the Mississippi River

In the foreground are stems rising up from below the frame of the photo, each bearing clusters of bright pink flowers. There is a black and yellow butterfly perched near the top of one, drinking from on of the flowers. In the blurry background you see the Mississippi River, a green forest on the other side and a sky that is blue but with a lot of fluffy clouds.

Aren’t butterflies (and other small wondrous creatures) great reminders that there is beauty in the world? It doesn’t take away from the very hard things going on, but does provide a counterbalance that I find helpful. 💛🖤💛

A bright yellow butterfly is seen in profile sitting on a pale yellow flower. The sun’s angle sets off the texture of the wings with shadows under the veins.

Late September is when green leaves turn into yellow butterflies here in New Orleans.

😂 Calling a beetle “pale legged” is bound to make it feel judged!

A black beetle with a faint greenish hue is at the edge of a bright green leaf. You can see plant hairs on the bottom of the leaf giving you the sense that this is really zoomed in to a tiny beetle. The beetle is peering over the edge of the leaf.

A pale-legged flea beetle, Lysathia ludoviciana, looking contemplative at the leaf’s edge.

I don’t often plan my trips out to the batture and arrive out there midday under the blasting heat of the sun. It is so hot! But- the lighting is great!

Agreed!

They really are delightful creatures

Thanks!

A brown beetle stands on sand. There are white curly lines on the elytra scribbled in from the lateral margins. When you look closely at the brown parts of the elytra, thorax and head you see red and green iridescent sparkles

The Bronzed Tiger Beetles (Cicindela repanda) scampering along the Mississippi River beaches have subtle iridescent colors when you look closely.

😂 I can imagine a taxonomist of long ago, starting to have trouble with their eyesight, sniffing specimens to tell the species apart.

They are pretty wild!

A bug with an orange head and body with speckles of white, pink, and maroon, is standing on the edge of a flower petal that is light pink in color. The translucent wings folded over the back of the bug have a hint of orange to them. It is a bit gaudy.

A Hibiscus Scentless Plant Bug, Niesthrea louisianica, on the edge of a hibiscus flower in the Mississippi River flood plane

A man with brown boots, khaki pants, tan shirt, and greenish hat is holding an aerial sweep net, standing on a wooden walkway in the woods next to a first with yellow shirt, blue shorts and gray boots. She looks happy.

A photo from the first Bug Walk in 2013. I don’t always wear a tie.

A group of people are standing in front of a fountain with a statue of a woman at the top, seen above the heads of the people standing in front of it. The oldest of the group is a man to the far left wearing brown boots, green pants, a tan shirt, tan hat, and brown tie. That’s me! The Allergy Fellow in the bottom right hand corner is holding an aerial sweep net. A huge live oak tree is in the background

Despite the unusually dry weather we had a successful Bug Walk in Audubon Park and nearby neighborhood to find insects of medical (and non medical) relevance. This year we had folks download @inaturalist.bsky.social (or Seek) to practice documenting the biota in the city.

I don’t know what the pokey bits in the back are for- sorry!

What a beautiful insect, and posing so nicely for this photo!

That’s an aphid- but they are notoriously difficult to identify down to species.

It really is wonderful to see how the ecosystems change over time. Adding in those native plants is going to support some incredible creatures!

Looking back I didn’t upload any photos in 2013; it was when we did a repeat BioBlitz at Jean Lafitte 2016 that I brought a group of Allergy/Immunology fellows and took my first photo. Incidentally that was the start of my annual Allergy Bug walk for fellows.

How it started / How it’s going

A screen shot from the iNaturalist app. In the top left is a tiny photo of me with my son. Below that you can see the species number, 20,000 and to the right on the same line it says 3,250 species. You can see the three most recent posts, a metric paper wasp at the top, the a North American spit-throated grasshopper and lastly a sleepy orange butterfly.

My first post on @inaturalist.bsky.social was a Metric Paper Wasp (my favorite paper wasp) as part of a National Geographic supported, invertebrate-focused BioBlitz in Jean Lafitte National Park in 2013. And now it is my 20,000th post also!

A wasp is standing on the backside of a stem with little white flowers on it. The flowers are so little that we can see most of the underside of the wasp. The abdomen is light brown with yellow stripes, the thorax black with yellow legs grasping onto the plants, and most clearly you can see the face of the wasp that is light yellow with shiny brown eyes on each side and antennae curing in front of it.

It’s very dry here in New Orleans; plants are crisping up and the insect activity is way down. An exception is this wasp, clamoring over flowers, perhaps using nectar for hydration

A photo of a bee hanging down from the bottom of a white flower. It’s very fuzzy with black and yellow fur. Its tongue is probing into the flower. Off to the left of the bee are little white specks floating in the air, seen on the bah round of blurry green vegetation

I finally got a flash for my camera so that I could increase shutter speed. My first subject was one of the frenetically bumbling bumblebees crashing into flower after flower. I didn’t get a great photo of the bee but you can see the pollen floating away from the flower which is really interesting

An insect seen in near-profile. Its abdomen is a reddish brown. Thorax is black and yellow but mostly covered by translucent wings with dark veins folded over the back. The head has large black eyes and a pale yellow face. The black legs are helping to crawl across a background of grass that is green and tan.

A pretty Thread-waisted #wasp meandering through the vegetation at Bayou Savage in New Orleans

A brown butterfly seen in profile on a rough patch of sand. The background of the photo is mostly white, with the bright sun causing the photo to be over exposed.

A Question Mark #Butterfly sipping Mississippi River water on the sandy shores under an exceptionally bright sun this past weekend

There is some really fascinating research on this that I learned about reading The Laws of Connection by @davidarobson.bsky.social with solutions other than brain surgery!

A Four-spotted Pennant #Dragonfly perches next to the Mississippi River as it bends around the city of New Orleans.