Tiger Beetle Trip to Arizona, Day 3, 7/23/25

I woke up bright and early at 6 AM.  In fact it was too bright.  Stupid Arizona, in their attempt to be unwoke, refuses to go on daylight savings time.  So when the Mountain Time Zone switches to DST, Arizona stays the same, essentially it moving into the Pacific Time Zone.  And being so far east in the time zone, the sun comes up a lot earlier.  The upshot is that Arizona gets going in the morning at 5AM.  What a bunch of idiots!

The target for the day was the very range restricted endemic Willcox Tiger Beetle, Eunota fulgoris erronea, a subspecies of the Glittering Tiger Beetle.  In fact it only occurs on the northern end of the Willcox Playa so that's where I was going.  I headed west down Railroad Avenue following the tracks and dodging mudholes on the rough sandy trail.  After a few miles I came to the spot.  When I'm focused on birds or bugs I'm not very good at taking habitat or general area photos.  I guess nine years of living in SE Arizona desensitized me a bit.  Here's the tiger beetle pond as I photographed a Tree Swallow hoping it was a Violet-green.  And a shot of one of the many passing trains.

When I first arrived there was not much activity but it warmed up fast and soon there was a green guy.  But it was just another Aridland Tiger Beetle.

And then Western Red-bellieds having an early morning quickie.

And then I spied another with a more turquoise shade of green with a wide cream colored edge.  Yes!  Willcox Tiger Beetle!  It didn't hang around long.  As I frequently see Eunota species in the saline areas of the Valley I think my brain subconciously picked up on the saline tiger beetle giss.  I think this is the first record on iNat for the year.  Well that was easy.

Yesterday White-striped Tiger Beetle was a lifer.  Now it's just another bug.

And then a boldly patterned Western Red-bellied.  It looks somewhat like the newly described Cicindelidia melissa but that is a montaine species mostly occuring in Mexico.

There were more variously colored Black Sky Tiger Beetles.  Sure makes identification a lot more difficult.

I was still looking for better photos of Willcox Tiger Beetle and this pair cooperted nicely.

There were two more rare species to look for, both a shiny metallic green.  Horn's Tiger Beettle has a black labrum and Cochise Tiger Beetle has a hairy forehead.  So this pretty one is not either of those. Also it's not shiny enough.   Not sure if it's Black Sky or Punctured.  We'll see what the experts on iNat say.

More Black Sky Tiger Beetles.

One more Willcox Tiger Beetle, this one with a blue carapace.

As the sun set on the tiger beetles I decided that was enough for a while.

This one is saying "Adios muchacho!"

In the words of the great boxer Roberto Duran "No mas!"  My brain is fried.

Tiger Beetle Trip to Arizona, Day 2, 7/22/25,

The next morning I was back on the road and was disappointed to find southern New Mexico extremely dry.  No summer monsoon out here.  But there was evidence of recent rain as I crossed into Arizona and by noon I driving just south of Willcox to my first tiger beetle stop on a small flooded alkaline playa on Blue Sky Road.  I grabbed the camera and jumped out of the jeep and walked a few yards onto the small sandy alkaline playa and bang!  My lifer Cicindela nigrocoerulea, Black Sky Tiger Beetle.  This southwestern tiger beetle can vary in color from black to blue black to green.  But always has a dull luster.

Then just a few feet away Ellisoptera marutha, the Arid Plains Tiger Beetle.  These metallic green beauties were probably the most common species in the area.  Lots of them were doing the tiger beetle chacha.

And then a tiny one with white stripes.  My lifer White-striped Tiger Beetle!  (Well actually it wasn't.  More on that later.)

When I first arrived another vehicle was parked by the playa with three people on the other side of the road walking through the grassland, one sweeping an insect net through the grass.  After a while one of them walked over to me to talk.  Turned out he was a tiger beetle biologist from back east (I don't remember where) with a couple of his students and was here for ten days doing population studies.  He asked me what I had found but we couldn't communicate very well.  Being a rank amateur I tend to use common names and this guy only knew Latin binomials.  He was looking for debilis in the grass.  I sort of understood he was looking for the rare tiny Grass-runner Tiger Beetle.  After a bit we parted and he went back to his students and I returned to walking around the shallow lake.  A couple of spotted species were common.  This is the Western Red-bellied Tiger Beetle.  I saw a lot of them in the Chiricahuas last year.

And the ubiquitous Ocellated Tiger Beetle.

After a lunch break I started working the shallow wet ditch along the sandy road.  The hazy sky became a little brighter and good stuff started popping out.  I was happy to get good shots of the White-striped Tiger Beetle, Jundlandia lemniscata.   Most of the photos I see of this apecies are individulas that have been attracted at night by black lighting.

While I was shooting these little red tigers an even smaller red one ran into the open and it didn't hve stripes.  What the....?  Holy smokes!  Sonoran Tiger Beetle!  I had a couple of spots for Brasiella wickhami south of Tucson so this was going to save me some driving.

I worked the ditch a bit more and then back around the shallow lake.  A mixed pair of Black Sky Tiger Beetles got my attention.  Do the colors of the offspring stay true with one color being dominant?  Or are the offspring somewhere in between?

Love these green Arid Land Tiger Beetles.

Then I spotted another solid green one.  iNaturalist AI wants to call it another nigrocoerulea but it looks slimmer to me.  And I was right as iNat Tiger Beetle expert Alex_cicindela_guy just IDed it as a Punctured Tiger Beetle, Cicindela punctulata.  The ones in Texas are mostly black but SE Arizona has the green chihuahuae subspecies.  Punctured Tiger Beetle is probably the most common species in Texas north of San Antonio.

And one more nigrocoerulea.

That evening as I went through my photos at the motel, I started with the most recent and scrolled backwards.  Eventually I came to that first White-striped Tiger Beetle.  After seeing nearly a dozen during the day, I had to laugh.  This was actually the rare Grass-runner Tiger Beetle, Parvindela debilis, the same species the tiger beetle biologist was searching for.

Eight species of tiger beetles in one day easily broke my old record of five.  And I still haven't seen my primary prey, the Willcox Tiger Beetle.  Maybe tomorrow.

Tiger Beetle Trip to Arizona, 7/21-26/2025, Day 1

The Rio Grande Valley of south Texas has become hot and dry as it often does in the summertime.  An unproductive trip to the Teniente tract in Willacy County turned up few butterflies in the dry brush country but a stop at the CR 30 crossing on the west end of La Sal Vieja turned up this beautiful green Eunota circumpicta, Cream-edged Tiger Beetle.  Most are brown but tiger beetles have some weird genetic phenotypic variability.  I think it's a way for a taxon to deal with environmental changes.  This one seems to have lost its antennae.  The third photo is a normal brown one with antennae intact.

This find along with the general paucity of butterflies got me to checking iNaturalist where I discovered lots of tiger beetles had been recentedly sighted on the alkaline Willcox Playa of southeastern Arizona, including several that would be new to me.  It was also a chance to get out of the south Texas humitity.  So I packed the jeep and took off.

Day one would be a 680 mile slog with few stops to Van Horn where I would overnight.  West Texas has recently received lots of rain after several years of drought and a flooded low area with muddy shoreline beckoned a late afternoon stop just past the Kent exit on Interstate 10.  I pulled of the highway and scrambled down the bank.  Sure enough there was the common Ocellated Tiger Beetle.  I see lots of these in the Valley.  They live lives of killing and copulating.  That's the tiger beetle mantra.

Then there was one with different markings.  This Thin-lined Tiger Beetle, Cicindelidia tenuisignata is a first for Culberson County on iNat.  I saw then last fall in new Mexico along the Pecos River.

The find of the day of the day was this cool Texas Banded Gecko at exit 188.  I have only seen a few through the years.

Tomorrow I go the the Willcox Playa area for a tiger beetle palooza.

Yturria Brush, 7/17/25

I ran over to the Yturria Brush tract of the LRGV NWR west of La Joya to see if stuff was still blooming.  It doesn't take many rainless days of 100F to dry stuff out.  I was a little late.  Plants are wilting and very few flowers till I reached the brushy low spot where things still looked prety good.  This Lantana Scrub-Hairsteak was the first I've seen since winter.  Not sure why they are in the genus Strymon when they look so different from the other scrub-hairteaks.  I bet it has to do with caterpillar or chrysalis similarities.

I like my angle on this Vesta Crescent.  I regulary see butterfly watchers just take any old photo they can of a butterfly and seem oblivious to the geometery involved.  A little simple reorientation can change a poor angle to a good angle to an interesting angle.  I regularly get down on my knees or lower for a better shot.  Reorientation can also improve the lighting.

Theona Checkerspot oviposting on cenizo.

It was kind of a slow day so here's a Southern Dogface.  They use the kidneywood as a host plant.

I got a couple of shots of this White-patched Skipper and then it shot into the brush.

Maybe we get some rain in a week.  Hot and dry till then.  But the wind is blowing from the south  and both Tailed Cecropian and Blomfild's Beauty have been seen at Oleander Acres so there is hope.