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Better living through entomology July 3, 2013

 Any visitors who come to Palo Verde during the wet season will be better off if they like insects. Aside from the omnipresent mosquitoes and the cockroaches (who, to be fair, really don’t do anything too noxious or obnoxious), there is always a parade of insects underfoot. Sometimes literally: I keep winding up with nocturnal beetles in my rubber boots and apparently don’t do a good enough job of shaking them out. The beetles then try to crawl out while I’m wearing the boots, with limited success. While picking them off my socks, I made a half-hearted effort to identify them and decided to call them tenebrionids, although I have no idea if that’s actually correct. Playing the name game also helps when dining: I learned that the minute insects walking across my plate are beetles in the family Nitidulidae.

On the other hand, there are also some entirely enjoyable insects here. Palo Verde has the most preying mantises I’ve ever seen in my life. There are also some gorgeous true bugs and beetles, which are often twice as large as their temperate counterparts. And the awesomeness of Palo Verde’s Lepidoptera will be a topic for another day.

A leaf-footed bug (Family Coreidae)