A week ago I visited the Yturria Brush unit of the Lower Rio Grande Valley NWR west of La Joya and found It had received quite a bit of rain. Though lush compared to recent years, not a lot of stuff was blooming. It seems most of the plants were just trying to recover from the terrible drought we've had. And consequently there were few butterflies.
I ran back over today hoping to see more flowers and to check to see if the Schaupp's Tiger Beetles were out. I saw them about this same time last year. Well I just barely made it about fifty yards north of the new parkig area and a couple of tiger beetles ran and flew in front of me. Then one jumped on the other and vigorously copulated with it. What the hell?
These were much larger than schauppii. I managed to get a decent photo of one of them.
Well it's not the rare Cazier's Tiger Beetle. That thing is glossy black with smaller spots. The only big, flat black species with spots that I know of is Large Grassland Tiger Beetle. But that occurs north of here. I seem to vaguely remember a Valley subspecies of Cicindelidia obsoleta in the field guide. But there were no records on iNaturalist for that one. Glad I got some photos.
Not much more was blooming than last time and I saw very few butterflies. But I did find my Schaupp's Tiger Beetles.
After a nice two mile walk I returned to the jeep and ate lunch. A short check south of the parking area turned up a couple more of the mystery tiger beetles.
That was enough for the morning. But I figured I should check the old entrance to see if they had trimmed. It was pretty thorny last time I tried to walk the old trail. Well they had trimmed and darmed if there wasn't more of the big black tiger beetles. And I got some good photos.
Upon arriving home I checked the field guide and yes there is a subspecies of Large Grassland Tiger Beetle that occurs along the westen edge of the Valley. The book says it was discovered in 1946 and has rarely been seen since from Maverick to Hidalgo Counties. I sent the photos to Alex Harmon who is the Entomology Chair at the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History. He was happy to finally get photos of Rio Grande Grassland Tiger Beetle Cicindelidia obsoleta neojuvenilis for iNaturalist. Here's a link to the iNat page.
