📜 EwA Week Highlights: Bee Mimics & Calligraphers

[Mike McGlathery]

EwA Highlights June 16, 2025 Hello everyone,  Thanks for reading the June 16th EwA highlights. 📸 I can’t believe I waited until mid-june to highlight my first bee mimic of the year. What you’re seeing in this photo isn’t a bumblebee but instead an Eastern yellow-backed laphria (Laphria thoracica), a type of robber fly (family Asilidae). Many relatively harmless species of insects exhibit Batesian mimicry, in which a relatively harmless species mimics the warning coloration of a more dangerous species to deter potential predators. This fly is anything but meek, though—robber flies are fierce aerial predators.  EwA iNaturalist Record (© Bill MacIndewar · Stoneham, MA · June 12, 2025)  Simon captured this beautiful photo of an American nursery web spider (Pisaurina mira) this week. Nursery web spiders are known for the large sheltering web they create for their young, but before the eggs hatch the females carry the egg sac around with them as you can see here. When the eggs are ready to hatch, the sac will be transferred to the waiting nursery web. EwA iNaturalist Record (© Simone Gurvets · Cohasset, MA · June 14, 2025)  EwA’s most observed species often give a little glimpse into how our naturalists are spending their time. This week’s species, the margined calligrapher (Toxomerus marginatus) suggests that our naturalists were observing the arthropod visitors to lots of flowers this week, as it is one of the more common of those visitors.  EwA iNaturalist Record (© kdemary · Somerville, MA · June 11, 2025)  📊 Thanks to everyone for your great biodiversity records this week, totaling 920 observations of 513 distinct species. If you’re curious about the records from this week that have been validated by the iNat community so far, you can find them » here. 🏆 Running tally: To date, we have recorded 237,747 observations of 12,607 distinct species! Check out our EwA umbrella project, see the details per site/observer, and more » here. 📅 EwA Upcoming Public Events Ewa Field Events » Check the EwA Summer [ Event details and registration » ] Don’t miss some great opportunities to follow the rhythm of the season in our local habitats and in the local wildlife! Space is limited for all our field events. Wildlife ethics is important to us and we seek to avoid putting the pressure on natural habitats which large gatherings unavoidably do. We are asking our audience to register-and-commit (or cancel when you know you can’t come) to avoid no-shows. EwA Fieldwork (and Resources) It’s a great time to join our monitoring programs. Check EwA’s Volunteer Program Calendar 📅  to know when things happen. And if a session is of interest to you, don’t hesitate to reach out to get the rendezvous location. 📅 EwA Sites Map | 🌱 Site Protocols and Guides · Field Rosters · Field Notes » All here! | ℹ️ More about EwA’s Citizen Science Program » Here ❓ Do you have any questions? Don’t be shy. Just email me or reply to this thread.  That’s all for this week—hope you have a good one! -Mike