Bee Assassin on Purplish Prickly Pear
This great find in a purplish prickly pear cactus flower (Opuntia azurea) in Big Bend National Park in West Texas was an exciting one for me. This bee assassin bug is a clever hunter of bees and other pollinating insects found throughout much of North America. It is most often found inside flowers waiting to stab the unsuspecting insect attracted to the flower's sweet nectar with its sharp proboscis, where it will literally drink its prey dry. Even though this one is covered in pollen, you can still see the warning colors of black and red (aposematic coloration) warning birds and other predators that this bug is not safe to eat or hunt.
- Copyright
- ©2015
- Image Size
- 5200x3467 / 6.8MB
- Keywords
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Angiosperms, Animalia, Apiomerini, Apiomerus, Apiomerus spissipes, Arthropoda, Big Bend National Park, Brewster County, Cactaceae, Caryophyllales, Chihuahuan Desert, Core eudicots, Eudicots, Harpactorinae, Hemiptera, Insecta, O. azurea, Opuntia, Opuntia azurea, Opuntia azurea var. diplopurpurea, Opuntia phaeacantha, Plantae, Reduviidae, Texas, X, animal, antennae, aposematic, arid, arthropod, assassin, assassin bug, beautiful, beauty, bee, bee assassin, bee killer, biting, black, botany, bug, cacti, cactus, coloration, coyotillo, critter, dangerous, desert, dicot, fauna, flora, green, heat, hurt, insect, invertebrate, native, natural, nature, nopal, nopal coyotillo, pad, pain, painful, plant, poke, predator, predatory, prickle, prickly, prickly pear, purple, purplish prickly pear, red, sharp, southwest, spike, spiky, spring, stinger, stinging, succulent, thorn, thorny, toxic, true bug, warning, west, western, wild, wildlife, wing, wings, yellow, Chiricahua, Chiricahua Desert, Chiricahuan, desert, Big Bend National Park, National Park, NP, BBNP, Chiricahuan Desert
- Contained in galleries
- Insects
