The Fine Backed Red Paper Wasp is Known to be a Great Fall Pollinator
The Fine Backed Red Paper Wasp is Known to be a Great Fall Pollinator shows one of these beautiful wasps as she feeds on pink tamarisk flowers. It explains how these wasps feeding now will help them to survive the upcoming winter.
Red in the Tamarisk
Recently, I took a hike in Gothe State Forest that led me to a large patch of beautiful, little, pink tamarisk flowers that was filled with plenty of pollinators including honeybees, thynnid wasps, Ammophila wasps, delta scarab beetles, and longhorn beetles just to mention a few. Another pollinator that I found that same afternoon was this pretty little fine backed red paper…
EVIL MARK, EVIL MARK, EVIL MARK!!! I want to be coherent about this season but please picture me foaming at the mouth and running on the walls. S2 being what if Mark's just like his Dad? Insanity. I love this show. Anyways, AU where an Evil!Mark tries to make Our!Mark worse, and Our!Mark tries to make the other better. Something something confronting your idea of the worst version of oneself. Plus, tweaked black and yellow costume because I saw it and immediately went murder hornet lookin' ass and knew I had to draw it. Evil ass Mark. Horrible. I think he should be dragged kicking and screaming into redemption.
Walk with me: Mid-summer hike through a Central Appalachian forest. As summer hurtles toward its final explosive act, the forest's living things embrace urgent, primordial impulses triggered by shrinking daylight: to bloom, to seed, to feed, and to reproduce before the killing frost of Autumn shocks the earth into hibernation. In the deep forest, the fetid perfume of decaying fungi signals the countdown has begun. From top: a bumblebee traversing the fanning pink flowers of hollow-stemmed Joe-Pye weed (Eutrochium fistulosum); the maturing red stem and flowers of seedbox (Ludwigia alternifolia), also known as rattlebox and square-pod water-primrose, a very attractive wetlands annual with four-sided seed capsules; cowbane (Oxypolis rigidior), also known as common water dropwort, a delicate, marsh-loving member of the carrot family that also happens to be toxic; Allegheny hawkweed (Hieracium paniculatum), also known as panicled hawkweed, a spindly-stemmed member of the dandelion tribe; the lovely and hallucinogenic fly agaric (Amanita muscaria); a sprawling colony of sulphur shelf fungus (Laetiporus sulphureus), an edible delicacy otherwise known as chicken of the woods; a red eft (Notophthalmus viridescens); white wood aster (Eurybia divaricata); a twin set of common puffballs (Lycoperdon perlatum); the fungal version of suburban sprawl courtesy of orange moss agaric (Rickenella fibula); a gelatinous serving of orange witches' butter (Dacrymyces chrysospermus); a fiery clump of eastern Jack-o-lanterns (Omphalotus illudens); a potter wasp (Ancistrocerus campestris) drinking from the clumped white flowers of virgin's bower (Clematis virginiana); one of my all-time favorite critters, a locust borer (Megacyllene robiniae), taking its nectar fill from flat-top goldentop (Euthamia graminifolia), also known as grass-leaved goldenrod; a green metallic sweat bee (Augochloropsis ?) finding sustenance from parasol white-top (Doellingeria umbellata var. umbellata), also known as flat-top aster; and the intricate purple flowers of tall ironweed (Vernonia gigantea).
[VIDEO AND PHOTOS TAKEN: JUNE 13TH, 2024 | Video and Image IDs: A video and three photos of a female black and red, red velvet ant or cow killer wasp, in the video, it's burrowing into the sandy soil in a few different places, running around looking for a good place to make its burrow for its young. In one of the images, it's on top of a carpeted but dirty outdoor platform, in the other, it is once again digging in the soil /End IDs.]
Fluffy ✅, can dig in the soil ✅, rapid sniffing ✅. Yep, this is a doggy.
Hanging Upside Down Allows the Wasp to Drain the Flowers
Hanging Upside Down Allows the Wasp to Drain the Flowers features a fine-backed red paper wasp hanging upside down in order to feed on nectar from a row of flowers. These guys are actually fall pollinators and just beginning to nest right now.
Bottoms Up
All the fabulous flowers that are blooming now are also attracting all sort of pollinators including bees, wasps, and butterflies. I spent some time watching and taking pictures of several of them last week. Unfortunately, I’m have computer difficulties with getting pictures from my camera into the computer for editing, so none of them are ready yet. Instead, I decided to feature this…
I’m working on “Queen Wasp” which means a Chloe akuma! I rotoscoped these options a while ago to show my patrons. The top row follows Chloe’s canon M.O. of inverting an existing hero, and the bottom leaned into some royal vibes, but none of these are the final look.
You ever like something a lot and then you color it and it’s like you ruined it?
one thing I love about Arthur Morgan is that he enthusiastically volunteers for the “silly gay man protection” task force! Like… Albert Mason, Charles Chatenay, Algernon Wasp, Mr. White and Mr. Black? Get this man a medal for his service!