Due to a death in my family a few days ago, today’s Friday 5 is going to be short.  I’m out of town and don’t have access to my main hard drive, so it’s a little tough to do a good post anyway.  However, I have taken a ton of bug photos recently, largely as a way to stop thinking about sad things for a little while, and I have my cameras with me.  These are 5 of my recent favorites.

This beetle (the ten-lined June beetle, Polyphylla decemlineata) has been out in force in Flagstaff, AZ the last few nights.  Hundreds of them have come to the porch light each night.  They squeak when you pick them up too!  Pretty fun distraction.  This isn’t the most technically precise photo of the bunch I took, but I love the look of his (or her – don’t know why but I call all animals “he” until I know better) face:

Okay, so you’ve seen several photos of palo verde beetles recently, but photographing them was a joy for me.  Hence, another Derobrachus hovorei:

A damselfly from Flagstaff, AZ.  It’s probably a plains forktail (Ischnura damula) or pacific forktail (I. cervula), but I honestly haven’t put much effort into IDing it yet.  Identifying a random damselfly hasn’t even come close to the top of my list of priorities lately, and I’m not great at IDing adult damselflies anyway:

This beetle (along with palo verde beetles) always makes me think of summer in Tucson, AZ.  This is a fig beetle, Cotinis mutabilis, aka my June bug:

Finally, I have no idea what this long-horned beetle is and haven’t even begun to try to ID it, but I thought he was just lovely.  And look at those long hairs on the abdomen!  He was sitting under the porch light at my house in Tucson earlier this week:

This may be my shortest Friday 5 yet, but it’s the best I can do.  Hope you enjoyed the pretty bugs!

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