Lmst

I claim to like bee butts, but not nearly as much as this guy - Stylops melittae is a twisted wing fly, also known as a Fächerflügler, a parasite of Andrena sand bees. This painting is of a male - females retain their pupal form and live most of their lives within their host, who survives the ordeal, albeit greatly subdued. The female's head partially sticks out from between the bee's abdominal segments, releasing a pheromone that attracts males. The larvae hatch inside the female's body, where they consume their mother from within before emerging through the head. The still living host bee then scatters the mobile larvae around flowers, where they can be picked up by unwitting foragers.

#SciArt #InsectArt #watercolor

Watercolor of a black insect with broad antennae and large, fan-like hindwings. The forewings are reduced to club-like protrusions.

This is actually the second version I did of this piece, for a story project I have been working on for a few years now
I felt I couldn't get the right greens from the pallette of the first one

Gouache on Oxford watercolor paper

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#gouache #gouachepainting #art #mastoart #insectart

A gouache painting of a firebug making its escape from wicked flies, using a spaceship

Where's your nose, friend? For #WeevilWednesday I have a broad-nosed weevil, Phyllobius arborator. The Germans call weevils "Rüsselkäfer," which translates literally to "trunk beetles." A Grünrüssler would be a green trunk guy, I guess.

A weevil's mouthparts sit at the end of its nose, or rostrum. Broad-nosed weevils in the subfamily Entiminae have notable scarring on their mandibles, from where they lose their sharp poky teeth (deciduous processes) shortly after emerging as adults.

#SciArt #InsectArt #watercolor

Watercolor of a shiny green weevil with no nose.

This lady wins the award for coolest common name - Riesen-Blutbiene, or giant blood bee (Sphecodes albilabris). Despite its name it is not out for blood, unless you happen to be the larva of a Colletes bee. As kleptoparasites, females lay their eggs in other bees' nests, killing their hosts to make room for the new larvae.

#SciArt #InsectArt #watercolor

Watercolor of a black bee with a bright red abdomen.

Gouache in my sketchbook

#kons_spons #konstrukto_spons #gouache #sketchbook #insectart #art #MastoArt

A sketchbook gouache painting of a firebug

For Christmas my spouse got me even more German field guides! So many new friends to paint!

This green-eyed fellow is a Salz-Buntbiene (Camptopoeum friesei). They dig semi-communal nests in salty, alkaline sands and specialize in collecting oils from thistles.

#SciArt #InsectArt #watercolor

Watercolor of a black and white bee with bright green eyes.

Today for #ArtAdventCalendar, you get a drawing and a photograph! Burying beetles (genus Nicrophorus) are known for their practice of burying small animal carcasses to create a home and food for their larvae. Both females and males tend to their brood until they pupate.

One of the most exciting moments of last summer was when one wandered through my backyard!

#SciArt #InsectArt

Chalk drawing on earth tone paper of a black beetle with red stripes and fringed antennae, carefully carrying a white larva in its mandibles.

Photograph of a black beetle with red stripes and fringed antennae, walking across pavement.

Today for #ArtAdventCalendar I have this power couple, the trilobite beetle (Platerodrilus sp). Females retain their larval form, just getting bigger and bigger, while males undergo regular metamorphosis. The females were first described (and poorly classified) in 1831, but it took nearly 100 years to figure out who or what the males were.

#SciArt #InsectArt #warercolor

Watercolor of two beetles. The male is small with yellow wings and squiggly antennae. The female is an enormous, armored worm, brown with bright orange highlights.

Today for #ArtAdventCalendar, you get... wasps! Just as important as bees, and even more fabulously diverse!

#SciArt #InsectArt #watercolor

Watercolor of a long-tailed giant ichneumonid wasp (Megarhyssa macrurus), a yellow and red wasp with a very long ovipositor.

Watercolor of Aphytis melinus (unlabelled), a very tiny yellow wasp with green eyes.

Marker drawing of a Pelecinid wasp (unlabelled), a black wasp with a long, curled up abdomen.

Watercolor of a fairy fly wasp (family Mymaridae), a wasp too tiny to have regular membranous wings. Instead they have what look like fluffy feathers stuck to their backs.

Today for #ArtAdventCalendar I have... Cicadas! I love listening to them scream :D

#SciArt #InsectArt #watercolor

Chalk drawing of an orange and black cicada, staring wide-eyed at the viewer.

Drawing of the outline of a person's head, their brain filled with screaming orange cicadas. It says, "There are cicadas where my brain should be."

Watercolor of a black and orange cicada in a pinned pose, with one set of wings extended to the left and the other folded up. The colors bleed outside the illustration for a grungy aesthetic.

Watercolor of a white cicada with orange and blue stripes. The colors drip and bleed beyond the illustration for a grungy feel.

Today for #ArtAdventCalendar... I love learning about insect symbionts.

Like the guardian wasp (Parachartergus apicalis), which tends to treehopper nymphs, protecting them from predators in exchange for honeydew excretions.

Or Attaphila cockroaches, which are known to infest leaf-cutting ant's fungus farms. They mimic the scent of their hosts, making the pests indistinguishable from worker ants.

#SciArt #InsectArt #watercolor

Watercolor of a black wasp with white wing tips. She is tending to little brown treehopper nymphs.

Watercolor of an ant surrounded by little brown blobs similar to tribbles, including one perched on the ant's head. It says, "The Trouble with Attaphila..."

Today for #ArtAdventCalendar you get some of my favorite beetles - tiger beetles! They're so pretty! They're vicious little predators! They run around so fast their little brains can't process what their enormous eyes see!

I first learned about them as a kid from the Animal Planet show, "The Most Extreme", which I'm still half convinced was a fever dream because I've never met anyone who even remembers that show. I was obsessed with it.

#SciArt #InsectArt #watercolor

Watercolor of a fuzzy green beetle with purple and white elytra. It has enormous eyes (all the better to see you with) and large, stabby mandibles (all the better to eat you with).

Scribbly sketch of an all-green tiger beetle with white spots at the rear of its elytra.

Today for #ArtAdventCalendar, a lovely mantis.

#InsectArt #watercolor

Watercolor of a silhouette of a mantis clinging to a flower in front of a setting sun.

Today for #ArtAdventCalendar I have some ancient insects that we only know of from fossils and amber. I based the coloring on modern insects.

Angimorella burmitina is a beetle found trapped in amber and covered in pollen grains, pushing back our understanding of insect pollination by nearly 50 million years!

Palaeovespa florissantia is one of the earliest known wasps, from an absolutely gorgeous fossil found in my home state of Colorado.

The last one is an extinct frog legged beetle called Pulchritudo attenboroughi, or Attenborough's Beauty. It also comes from a gorgeous fossil found in Colorado, not far from where I used to live!

#SciArt #InsectArt #FossilArt #watercolor

Watercolor of Angimorella burmitina, an extinct beetle that lived around 98 million years ago. It is mostly brown with a green head and thorax and thick rear legs.

Watercolor of a wasp of the genus Palcovespa, which lived between 44-10 million years ago. It is a reddish colored wasp with a black and yellow striped abdomen.

Pastel drawing of a shiny green beetle with intricate black swirls on its elytra. Its hind legs are very thick, like a frog's.

Today for #ArtAdventCalendar I have some buggy jewelry I made a few years ago.

#InsectArt #WireWrapping #jewelry

A bee made from beads and wire. Black beads of three different sizes make up the head, thorax, and abdomen, which is wrapped with gold wire to make stripes. Gold wire also forms the outline of wings, while black wire is used to make antennae. The stinger is implied by a silver, conical bead at the tip of the abdomen.

A beetle made up of beads and wire. The head is a black bead, the abdomen a green oval with thick silver wire to outline wings. Thin silver wire makes up two curly antennae.

Some more 3d art for today's #ArtAdventCalendar, this time carved from wood scraps.

#InsectArt #InvertArt

A beetle, made up of various types and colors of wood, fitted together like a puzzle.

A bee, made up of various types and colors of woods, fitted together like a puzzle.

Wood art featuring octopus tentacles reaching up from below.

Today for #ArtAdventCalendar, a couple of weevils - also good for #WeevilWednesday

#SciArt #InsectArt #watercolor

Watercolor of a host nose weevil, Antliarhis zamiae. It is a bright orange weevil with an absurdly long nose.

Watercolor of an acorn weevil and her larva, nestled in an acorn, made visible for a heart-shaped cutout.

Dieses entzückende Insekt ist ein Stabwanze (Ranatra linearis), also called a water stick, or a delightful little guy. The long tail is a breathing tube that allows them to sit motionless underwater indefinitely for a hapless prey to cross its path.

#SciArt #InsectArt #watercolor

Watercolor of a very long, stick-like insect with large eyes and clawed forelegs, ready to pounce.

Today for #ArtAdventCalendar, I have all of the insects I painted in 2024 for #Invertober (I missed it this year, due to moving). Rather than going with the official prompt list, I focused on invertebrates found in my home state of Colorado.

#SciArt #InvertArt #InsectArt #watercolor

Many watercolors of invertebrates, cut out and placed on a black background. Includes: Mormon cricket, tiger beetle, brown tarantula, rocky mountain capshell, cave pseudoscorpion, say's stink bug, mountain cicada, mussel, millipede, grass carrying wasp, Colorado soldier beetle, desert centipede, robberfly, yellowjacket, cow killer, rocky mountain snail, boxelder bug, silvery blue (butterfly), snakefly, tiger moth and caterpillar, two spotted stinkbug, rocky mountain billbug, thread-waisted wasp, colorado potato beetle, firefly, mountain pine beetle, ornate checkered beetle, golden blister beetle, rabbitbrush beetle, pigeon sawfly, and an extinct wasp... I think I got all of them.

For today's #ArtAdventCalendar I present: all the bees I painted last year for the first annual #Septembee, a self-made challenge in which I paint a new bee every day for a month. In 2024 I focused on bees found in Colorado.

#SciArt #InsectArt #watercolor

#insectart

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