Looking for larvae in all the right places

Dr. George O’Meara, Professor Emeritus, Florida Medical Entomology Laboratory (FMEL), is pictured above leading life in the treetops and pits on Valentine’s Day 2015 for the FMEL Volunteer Class. A special thank you to Cynthia Bredeck (shown above) for bringing Valentine’s day chocolate to accompany, serendipitously, the coffee brought by Bob Bruce.

Burrowing as an adaptation is one theme of this class. Bob Montanaro spoke about woodpeckers, birds that burrow in treetops, and has blogged about Dr. O’Meara’s ‘looking’ for Deinocerites cancer mosquito larvae in the hole of a great Atlantic land crab.

Dr. O’Meara above is looking for Wyeomyia mosquito larvae in large terrestrial bromeliads at FMEL after not finding larvae in the native epiphytic green wild pine (Tillandsia utriculata), though ably assisted by Pepper, the Louisiana catahoula leopard dog …

Thank you to Ellie Klebonis for bringing baby bromeliads, tiny green wild pines on the branch of a sand live oak (Quercus geminata) with insect galls on the leaves, and for holding the plastic pan for Dr. O’Meara …