It wasn't a fly

photo by Regina Alvarez


Two readers, Lloyd Spitalnik and Sheila Rosenberg, sent in an ID for one of the insects I posted without identification yesterday. I thought it was a wasp or a wasp-mimic fly, and put my money on the fly.: Neither wasp nor fly, it turned out to be a beetle: the Locust Borer [Megacyllene robiniae.]

"Many long-horned beetles are bright black and yellow, presumably to deter wasp-shy predators," writes Stephen Marshall in his new resource for amateur entomologists: Insects: Their natural history and diversity. It's pricey. Its index is maddening. Still it's a marvelous book and worth saving up for.