Bark beetle galleries
In Great Hills Park on April 3rd a fallen tree trunk revealed bark beetle galleries.
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I find these when splitting our firewood and the bark strips off. Sometimes I find the beetle grubs as well. I’ve photographed a few with the iPhone but haven’t shared them anywhere as of yet. If you start collecting these images you can have a bark beetle gallery gallery.
Steve Gingold
April 14, 2022 at 5:15 AM
I’d be happy happy with a bark beetle gallery gallery. The previous bark beetle gallery pictures I showed here were from an iPhone, which probably served me better in that case than a regular camera due to the difficult-to-access place where the patterns were.
Steve Schwartzman
April 14, 2022 at 5:23 AM
OMG That’s amazing. It looks like a drawing. I wish I knew the meaning.
72tis43
April 14, 2022 at 10:03 PM
I think you’re free to imagine any meaning you like. How could anyone fault you?
Steve Schwartzman
April 14, 2022 at 10:58 PM
Therein lies a tale; maybe several tales written in beetle hieroglyphics.
Gallivanta
April 14, 2022 at 5:37 AM
I hope the tale that lies therein doesn’t tell lies therein.
Steve Schwartzman
April 14, 2022 at 6:01 AM
One can but hope.
Gallivanta
April 14, 2022 at 9:29 PM
And one can hope, but….
Steve Schwartzman
April 14, 2022 at 10:56 PM
Real insect art !
picpholio
April 14, 2022 at 5:57 AM
Unintentionally so (I assume).
Steve Schwartzman
April 14, 2022 at 6:01 AM
Ah! I have an upcoming post about this… bark beetles destroying the woods in ca. But I must say that you took much better photos of the galleries, now how am I going to publish mine ? 😉
Alessandra Chaves
April 14, 2022 at 8:09 AM
I see several possibilities. 1) Editing might improve the quality of the pictures you took. 2) You could take some new pictures. 3) You’re welcome to borrow mine.
Steve Schwartzman
April 14, 2022 at 12:35 PM
I ain’t going back to Yosemite for that. Thanks for the offer, will provide a link to your post for “a better view of bark beetle galleries.”
Alessandra Chaves
April 14, 2022 at 2:17 PM
Problem solved.
Steve Schwartzman
April 14, 2022 at 3:11 PM
These are pretty neat! Like little maps too, but they really are artful.
circadianreflections
April 14, 2022 at 9:42 AM
I assume the insects are just doing what comes naturally and have no idea how artful they are.
Steve Schwartzman
April 14, 2022 at 3:12 PM
Artistic beetles! Looks like roads in a housing development.
Lavinia Ross
April 14, 2022 at 9:46 AM
Would you want to live in a housing development with such curvy roads?
Steve Schwartzman
April 14, 2022 at 3:14 PM
I wouldn’t want to live in a development, period. 🙂
Lavinia Ross
April 16, 2022 at 11:06 PM
Understood.
Steve Schwartzman
April 16, 2022 at 11:14 PM
Great shots. The patterns in the second one are particularly interesting – I see all sorts of things in them. Poor tree though!
susurrus
April 14, 2022 at 11:35 AM
Like Marley, the tree was dead. It had fallen over, but I don’t know if the insects that created the galleries had anything to do with the tree’s demise.
Steve Schwartzman
April 14, 2022 at 3:19 PM
The Nazca lines in Peru, one is reminded of, perhaps…
RobertKamper
April 14, 2022 at 11:58 AM
Pace Erich von Däniken, in some parts of the country galleries like these are created by aliens (alien species of beetle, that is).
Steve Schwartzman
April 14, 2022 at 3:17 PM
I’d linger in front of either of these in a gallery. They’re so evocative; I see angels hovering at the top of the first, and echoes of Matisse in the second. The texture is wonderful: very touchable.
shoreacres
April 14, 2022 at 8:52 PM
Now that you mention it, I didn’t touch these bark beetle galleries. All my attention went toward composing photographs. That said, I’ve often enough touched other subjects I’ve photographed, so why I didn’t do it with this one remains a mystery.
Steve Schwartzman
April 14, 2022 at 10:32 PM
Could these be considered xyloglyphs?
tanjabrittonwriter
April 14, 2022 at 9:05 PM
They definitely could. I wondered if you were the first to come up with that excellent term: yes and no. When I searched dictionaries I didn’t find xyloglyph per se but did find xyloglyphy:
https://onelook.com/?loc=dmapirel&w=xyloglyphy
Steve Schwartzman
April 14, 2022 at 10:43 PM
I didn’t know if that term existed. It gave my mind a little something to do and I was pleased with its ring.
tanjabrittonwriter
April 15, 2022 at 7:47 AM
Maybe you could work out something on a xylophone to match the ring of xyloglyph.
Steve Schwartzman
April 15, 2022 at 7:50 AM
Alas, I’m not that musically gifted.
tanjabrittonwriter
April 16, 2022 at 6:16 PM
I couldn’t do that, either.
Steve Schwartzman
April 16, 2022 at 6:51 PM
The tree may not be too pleased with this deadly beetle attack, but I look at the wood carvings as a piece of art.
Peter Klopp
April 14, 2022 at 10:43 PM
I don’t know whether the bark beetles had a part in killing this tree. If so, it was an artsy way for the the tree to go.
Steve Schwartzman
April 14, 2022 at 10:45 PM
Fascinating patterns; I’ve long been drawn to these too. No immediate faces to visualize, but my mind immediately conjures up a hand at the upper-left third of your first image.
krikitarts
April 16, 2022 at 1:18 AM
I don’t see that hand, but I’ll hand it to you that you’ve got a good imagination. This log was an excellent specimen, with its beetle galleries relatively easy to photograph, especially because I had my ring flash on the camera and could stop down for good depth of field on a roughly cylindrical surface.
Steve Schwartzman
April 16, 2022 at 7:15 AM
Sorry, the hand I see is in your second image, not your first. The thumb is very long and disarticulated from the wrist, but it’s there. It’s a fair guess that these patterns were the inspiration for the mazes that folks envisioned for their parks and gardens.
krikitarts
April 17, 2022 at 2:57 AM
Ah, now I see the hand and its long, long thumb. That’s an interesting conjecture about wooden insect galleries like these having inspired botanical mazes. Human designers have often taken their inspiration from nature, as for example in the movement called Art Nouveau.
Steve Schwartzman
April 17, 2022 at 7:02 AM
I always find these fascinating. And I love what the shadows do for that bottom photo, giving it a very three-dimensional look.
Todd Henson
April 17, 2022 at 11:20 AM
I felt the same way about those delineating shadows, too. These were the most accessible and clearest bark beetle galleries I’ve come across. Photographing them wasn’t the chore it often is with this subject.
Steve Schwartzman
April 17, 2022 at 1:21 PM
I don’t like bark beetles but I must say, their carvings are pretty cool!
denisebushphoto
April 20, 2022 at 11:54 AM
I gather they do damage to some trees. On strictly esthetic grounds, the carvings fascinate me.
Steve Schwartzman
April 20, 2022 at 10:23 PM
[…] feeding of these insects, is characteristic of each species. Good photos of beetle galleries can be seen o this post by fellow blogger Steve Schwartzman. I took the photo below in […]
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