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Ants Herding Treehoppers

Posted on October 18, 2010 by Troy Bartlett

January 28, 2010 | CaraÃ§a Natural Park, Minas Gerais, Brazil

These ants have quite effectively corralled their herd of honeydew producing treehoppers.

There’s a lot to see here if you look carefully. First, it looks like quite a few of the life stages of the treehoppers are present. There’s the dark adult in the center, an early instar in the bottom center, and the majority appear to be middle instars.

In the detail below, you can see the ant on the right has just taken a drop of honeydew and the dark adult has a drop waiting.

Detail

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Pentatomid

Posted on October 15, 2010 by Troy Bartlett

January 27, 2010 | CaraÃ§a Natural Park, Minas Gerais, Brazil

I really like the flashy colors on this large stink bug.

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CaraÃ§a Tiger Beetles

Posted on October 14, 2010 by Troy Bartlett

January 27, 2010 | CaraÃ§a Natural Park, Minas Gerais, Brazil

I encountered a handful of these tiger beetles. At least, I think that’s what these are. I hope I don’t embarrass myself.

Most of them were up in trees and bushes as suggested by the first photo. I only encountered one on the ground.

From a distance, I mistook the first one for a large ant. Indeed, they move more like an ant than what I expect from a tiger beetle. I believe they may in fact be mimicking ants, and I found some references to back that up. None gave even a general identification though, so I wasn’t able to search for any online photos. read more

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Ant tending Caterpillar

Posted on October 8, 2010 by Troy Bartlett

January 27, 2010 | CaraÃ§a Natural Park, Minas Gerais, Brazil

Here’s an ant in the Formica genus tending a caterpillar in the Lycaenidae family. The ant has just taken a drop of a sugary substance produced by a gland at the rear of the caterpillar. Here’s a shot from about 10 seconds earlier where you can see the drop sitting atop the gland and the ant fast approaching.

Sugary drop produced for tending ants

I’m not sure what flowers these caterpillars are eating, but they are pretty well camouflaged settled in among the flower buds. Once I spotted the first one, I started looking for them and found quite a few wherever I spotted these flowers. read more

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More Bell-bearer Treehoppers

Posted on October 7, 2010 by Troy Bartlett

January 28, 2010 | CaraÃ§a Natural Park, Minas Gerais, Brazil

Another photo, same individual

One more shot, same individual

I’ve been researching these neat little treehoppers some more and I found references to a couple of Brazilian species,Â Bocydium globulare and tintinnabuliferum. I had to mention these just because of the scientific names.

Do you know the Edgar Allen Poe poem, “The Bells”? Remember these lines?

To the tintinnabulation that so musically wells
From the bells, bells, bells, bells,

That came to mind as soon as I saw that scientific name, tintinnabuliferum.Â Besides just sounding cool, it translates as “bell-bearer”. The other name, globulare, I can’t quite work out, but I think in part it means “little balls”. read more

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Treehopper

Posted on October 2, 2010 by Troy Bartlett

January 27, 2010 | CaraÃ§a Natural Park, Minas Gerais, Brazil

I actually saw quite a few of these in various places throughout the park.Â I’m sure that headdress serves some useful function. I’m just not quite sure what.

In this excellent little book thereâ€™s a very similar looking treehopper identified as aÂ Bocydium. I assume the one shown above belongs to that same genus.

[book:1554073456]

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