A Study of Milkweed Beetles and Bugs

I keep a close watch on the milkweeds throughout their budding, flowering and seed dispersal because there's always some drama going on in addition to the life of the milkweed itself.  One of my favorite dramas is that of the Red Milkweed Beetle, Tetraopes basalis, that lives its entire life in and on the milkweed, including wintering beneath the surface in the roots.  On most days I'm lucky to see one or two of these beetles in a large patch of milkweed.  By the way, this is the Showy Milkweed, Asclepias speciosa, one of at least five species of milkweeds I know of in this area.    Today maybe the beetles sensed High Sierra Music Fest on the way and felt they needed to finish their business and hide away before the enthusiastic weed eaters arrive to make room for tents and crazy parking.  There were over a dozen RMBs in the small patch of milkweeds I watch on Lee Road by the fairgrounds.  I also found two Small Milkweed Bugs, Lygaeus kalmiii, on the same milkweed.  They were much more skittish than the beetles so I had to chase them around a bit to get any reasonable photos.  The Small Milkweed Bugs are so-called True Bugs in the Order Hemiptera, while the Milkweed Beetles are beetles, of course, and in Order Coleoptera.  Despite all this taxonomy, which I share for those who are interested, today's was primarily an aesthetic experience.  I love photographing them, and while in the vicinity, I love the fragrance of the milkweeds.  While in graduate school in zoology years ago, I was steered toward specializing, and I could have been easily drawn toward studying one species of animal for my whole life.  At that time, it would have been a turtle or a frog.  In retrospect, I am glad I have remained a generalist.  There is so much out there that fascinates me, there is not nearly enough time in a life to study it all in detail.