#ergates

the old reliable, Ergates faber, a massive wood-boring cerambycid that i see a few times per summer. she was poking around with her ovipositor and eventually seemed to settle for this spot and stayed there completely motionless until i left, either laying eggs or thinking she was hiding from me somehow

i did get a bonus photo of her chompers though. you'll have to excuse the sun glare, you don't know the horrors that august brings upon innocent folk out here

life's rough when you're a finger-sized beetle who can move at a total speed of two centimeters per hour and doesn't know what a hiking trail is. luckily for this Ergates faber, all these invasive eucalyptus leaves littering the forest floor are good for one thing and that's moving bugs out of harm's way

she was, of course, not only very unfazed by the whole situation but also probably unaware anything even happened at all