My very first tiger beetle and I found it in a completely unexpected place -- on the sidewalk outside my house. Here I am, ready to travel all the way to the Great Sand Dunes National Park to see a rare and elusive beetle and there's one skipping merrily down my sidewalk.
Kai and I were walking home from a dragonfly watching expedition at our local mosquito infested, lawn water runoff wetlands. I was pushing Jasmine in the stroller. Rowan had ridden his bike ahead and was about to miss one of the coolest bugs I'd ever seen. Something darted from the sidewalk into the adjoining lawn and I came to a dead stop. I still had my camera around my neck, but with my the telephoto lens on.
After a few seconds of staring, I realized what it was and cursed the luck that Rowan wasn't there to see it. Kai grabbed me my lens bag and I hoped it wouldn't fly away while I switched to the macro lens. The tiger was wary and a very fast runner, but didn't fly. It may have had a damaged flying wing; one of its elytra (would the singular be
elytrum?) was broken at the rear tip.
I thought about catching it, but we have a gazillion pets right now, so I let that thought skitter away. Instead I kept clicking away at the camera shutter and the beetle held still, perhaps sensing that I was insane but mostly harmless. Kai grew bored and Jasmine restless, so I finally decided to pack it up and get home.
I'm such a geek, I've been looking at these pictures since I got home. Check out those chompers!
For those of you Latin fans, the order is
Coleoptera (beetles), it's in the subfamily
Cicindelinae of the family of ground beetles,
Carabidae. I think it may be related to the six-spotted
sexguttata species, but I'm still awaiting word from the good folks at the
Bug Guide.
Post Script:
The word is that it's a sidewalk tiger beetle or Cicindela punctulata. For more info see: http://bugguide.net/node/view/578
This teeny tiny jumping spider is on a showy milkweed. For a size idea, measuring from the center of the pink flower in the upper right corner diagonally down to the dark pink petal below and to the right of the spider's abdomen is a little over a half an inch.
I don't generally get to photograph the "blue" part of the little blue butterflies I like so much. I suppose they are technically brown. Our own humble little Morpho-like butterflies.
I'm not sure if this is a normal coloration or example of albinism in the blue damselfly its shape resembles. In any case, I thought it was beautiful.
I've been seeing a lot of these red dragonflies this season. Rowan spotted this guy who liked this rock enough to keep returning despite the annoying chick with the camera.
There were many grasshoppers in Trinidad and Rowan became blaise about catching them. This little fellow was notable because he didn't immediately skedaddle.
At our local mosquito paradise, we found evidence of a fierce action figure battle. Oh, the toy-manity! I apologize for those viewers with no stomach for severed, plastic, miniature limbs.
I was trying to describe to my dad the silvery coloration that alternates with the red bands. I'm reminded of a 1963 split window Corvette.
This is an insect I don't often see around here and the largest I've seen of the local, flightless, stink-less and charming fellas. In other areas of the country they can squirt tear gas-like liquid from their rear ends. In other areas of the world they have wings and can be much larger. 
This spider along with many, many relatives, was hanging out at night by the outside lights of the Mansion on Oak Hill in Indianapolis. That was the site of my niece's wedding. Very fun, but when Rowan grew tired of dancing he went looking for bugs and showed these spiders to me on our way back to the car. 
