Map to Open House:

The date of the 36th(!) Annual TAMU Insect Collection open house is set for Saturday, January 6th, 2024 starting at 9 am.

Heep Center (Second Floor)
370 Olsen Blvd
College Station, TX

Free parking in Lot 67 near Old Main and Olsen Blvd.

A. curvilinea is a visual stunner. Trehopr, do you know what country it's from?
I think I collected A. louisiana as a kid, but thought it was A. io. I no longer have those specimens but caught a couple of them a few years ago. Below are zephyria, randa, iris, io (all USA)

Agreed. Great species.

Very nice! How do you do such a perfect spreading job on small specimens?

If you have them, show us pictures of the giant house spiders, along with something to show the scale.

More...

These are not recent captures, but I thought I'd throw in a few more cerambycids after seeing Mike H's call for more beetles. All are from USA, mostly TX, AZ, FL. If you're interested in IDs, let me know & I'll post them after Thanksgiving.

This could help restore insect habitats:

https://reasonstobecheerful.world/drone ... wildfires/

I watched it from a ranch in south TX that was in the path of totality. The "ring of fire" was awesome. We plugged an iPhone into a 6" reflector telescope and got some great sequential pictures. The phone isn't mine, so I can't show the pictures until the photographer sends them to me.

Collectors like us should do more to encourage youngsters to become interested in our disappearing hobby. I got started at age 8 (I'll be 75 soon) because my uncle, with the help of my grandfather, made an insect collection for the 4-H Club. I always admired it and decided to start my own collection...

There are lots of houses for rent in the Tucson area, which is convenient to most of the major collecting spots. Many people live there during the winter and rent their houses out for the summer. I was lucky in 2019 to find one that was owned by the girlfriend of a friend. 3 of us collectors stayed ...

Call the Guinness Book of World Records!

Actually the Great Plains tiger beetle (Amblycheila cylindriformis) is not the biggest tiger beetle in N. America. A. hoversoni, native to south TX, is slightly bigger and is the largest tiger beetle in the Western Hemisphere. As the saying goes, "Everything is bigger in Texas". Here's one...

Here are a couple of female glaucus from the TX gulf coast. They are both very large. I assume they are not maynardi because they are not from Florida, but they closely resemble my maynardi specimens in size and appearance. I too would like to see a genetic comparison between glaucus & maynardi.

Nice drawer, Evra. Did you rear your specimens from eggs, larvae or pupae?

Excellent displays, Trehopr. I was hoping people would respond with drawers like that.

Sometimes drawers containing multiple families of insects rather than a single family or species can be interesting. Here are a few of mine. Let's see yours.

Very impressive, Dave!
Here's E. atala (male, upperside) for comparison: