Take a Good Look: The Numbers Game — July 11, 2024

July 12, 2024

I am a little late in adding a post to the Numbers Game this week, because Hurricane Beryl came through on Monday. The storm was not a big one and it moved fast, but like many other people, we lost power. It was off for about 56 hours, and then it has been spotty since it came back.

This week the number to find in your photo file is 150. Many of the ones I have with that number are from April of 2020, when I was outside every day recording species for the City Nature Challenge Bioblitz for Houston, and I already posted a lot of them here.

So today, I thought I would choose from among my #150 photos, a few creatures that are normally hard to spot. Either they move too quick for you to get a good view, or they resemble another creature so common you ignore them, or they are just too well camouflaged.

First we have this dragonfly. When it perches in the grass, it is very hard for the camera to pick out what to focus on…

Camouflaged against tall grass.

…but when you do get a clear picture, the features are amazing.

Calico Pennant, Celithemis elisa

Next we have a very tiny creature that rustles through the leaf litter like a snake…

Camouflaged on the forest floor.

Little Brown Skink, Scincella lateralis, only 3 to 5.5. inches long.

I have written a little more about skinks here.

Next we have a creature that flies around pretending to be a sweet innocent pollinator…

In plain view, but mimicking a totally different creature.

And then you realize it is not gathering pollen… This is a robber fly, Laphria saffrana.

I love robber flies — they give an impression of bee-dom, but when you look closer, they look like weird outer space aliens. I have written about them here and here!

And lastly, we have another creature that looks so much like a common insect that it is easy to overlook. This one fell out of a tree right in front of me, and I almost ignored it, thinking it was just a common June bug. But it turned out to be a Texas Goldsmith Beetle, which is actually on the Texas list of Species of Greatest Concern.