I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’ve been cold lately!  It’s been chilly here, so today I thought I’d share an image that I took when the weather was warmer to make myself feel better about the cold:

Delta flower scarab, Trigonopeltastes delta

That’s a delta flower scarab on the flower of a rattlesnake master plant.  These are, I think, my favorite beetles in North Carolina.  Granted, I haven’t done a whole lot of blacklighting yet, nor have I come across any of the eastern Hercules beetles in the wild, but I think these beetles are marvelous.  They also scream “summer!” to me!  Ahh, that was a lovely warm summer day.  Is it bad that I already miss summer when the winter hasn’t even begun?

In case any of you are interested, I wrote a blog post yesterday about aquatic insects and how they can remain active even in cold weather.  It’s up on the blog for my museum. Please feel free to check it out!

Hope everyone stays warm – and happy Thanksgiving to all of you ‘Mericans out there!

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