“[…] it is often not easy to assign insects to precise categories because there are so many species and their morphological, behavioral, and genetic differences frequently tend to overlap or intergrade. Often the best we can do is estimate degrees of relationship and/or distinctness and assign them to hypothetical groups as information becomes available. As anyone who gardens is well aware, botanists are often found transferring species from one genus to another, changing generic names, or even changing family names, for somewhat obscure reasons. […] it is because the evolutionary relationships of groups of species, genera, and families of plants are obscure and difficult to reconcile. This obscurity arises because organisms, whether plants or animals, are constantly evolving over time and space and are not precisely fixed genetic statues. Every individual organism is prone to variation, which the taxonomist attempts to codify, but the truth is that organisms have no particular regard for those of us who attempt to study them.” ~ Eric Grissell, Bees, Wasps, and Ants: The Indispensable Role of Hymenoptera in Gardens (Timber Press, 2010).
This is such an important point: it’s hard to pin down a moving target. The epic work of codification by the pioneering taxonomists, or systematists, took place before genetics were unraveled. Much of it was even pre-Darwinwallace. The one thing we probably all learned about species, that they are reproductively isolated, that is, they cannot breed with organisms outside their species, turns out to have been pretty simplistic, and not necessarily so. The fluidity of evolution is an amazing thing. Different species can often interbreed, and produce fertile offspring, but usually don’t because of their physical isolation.
There’s only one recognized Homo species now, but there have been, we think, something like half a dozen others historically; yet just as a H. erectus female didn’t given birth one day to a H. sapiens child, some of us now are probably in the process of becoming a new species (or two or three?). (Evidently, some of them are not going to be able to see for shit.)
In bird-land, the pronunciamentos of the authorities (the American Ornithological Union) come down from on high: last year, they split the winter wren (formerly Troglodytes troglodytes) into Pacific (T. pacificus) and Eastern (T. hiemalis) species; while the Eurasian wren remained T. troglodytes. Meanwhile, the subspecies T. t. icelandicus, which I saw on Iceland, is a darker bird, with a longer bill and longer legs, than the mainland Eurasian. Indeed, for this small species, icelandicus looks like a big bruiser. Might it be split someday, too? Probably. Islands, after all, are intense sites of evolution.
Ah, summer, season of buzzing and flying and biting! The insects are out in force. OK, there’s really not that much biting, per se. Seen last week on Nantucket: 
One of the green metallic bees, genus Agapostemon, also known as sweat bees, on chicory flower. Note the big bundles of pollen around the legs.
A small Syrphid fly on one of the wild roses.
Freezing a beetle for a minute or two makes it easier to photograph, but then you get the dead beetle look. (And since only Paul and Ringo are still around…) The bug, one of the long-horned beetles, specifically Strangalia luteicornis, revived.
Genus Photinis firefly.
The battering of June bugs, genus Phyllophaga, against window screens was a constant of my island youth. They still come towards the lights, the poor bastards. And sometimes they get in. This one promptly fell to the floor on its back, lurched around, and then upwards into the air and was almost immediately caught in spider silk underneath a table. Although the spider was much smaller, it eventually captured what must have been food for a week. The flash here captures the beetle’s elytra, the shell-like coverings of the wings, as well as the wonderfully feathered antennae. 
