Month: July 2020

Interconnections

Every week I continue to come across fantastic new beasts. Above is something I never imagined existed until I saw it: A fly that mimics a red-abdomened wasp! It’s in the genus Cylindromyia, with other similar flies that may have less strikingly red “tails.” This wasp is a parasite of green stink bugs, which I have also seen all over the yard, and in several stages of their life cycle. That kind of interconnectedness became a theme this week.

Do not mistake this unassuming moth for a passive fluffy creature. It’s actually an unapologetic carnivore. These sooty-winged Chalcoela iphitalis moths are parasites of, get this, paper wasps! Their larvae crawl into wasp nests and eat the larvae and pupae. Well, we have a lot of paper wasps around our house, and they have nests behind the siding. This moth showed up just inside a window, which makes total sense. I didn’t get a great picture because of the low light, but it is rather attractive, with an orange-yellow wing color fading to gray, and the underwings have a black and white pattern on them. It also rests with its wings in an arch, which is atypical.

This is a diapriidae wasp and it is super super tiny, within Wikipedia’s guidance of two to four millimeters. It’s on the stalk of a tomato plant and the lines obscuring the insect are the hairs on that stalk. These wasps are parasites of fungus gnats, and this tomato is pretty close to our compost pile, where I’ve seen plenty of fungus gnats, so again, it makes sense for it to be here.

The first and third images on this post were taken with my new (to me) Nikon D5300 and a NIKKOR 40mm macro lens. I’ve taken a couple hundred pictures and so far those two are among the best. Most images are overexposed and not in focus, so I’m learning why and what to do better.

This lovely bee was on a clarkia plant. I can’t emphasize enough how barren and weedy our yard is, and this flower didn’t have very many healthy blooms, but it was sufficient to attract this (what I think is a) Melissodes genus bee. They are “longhorned” bees, and this one doesn’t have especially long antennae, but apparently the females “horns” aren’t as remarkably lengthy. It does have blue eyes and extra hirsute back legs, all the better for picking up pollen. There are some gorgeous pictures and more information at this National Butterfly Center website out of Texas.

Until next week, cheers!

On the House

This gorgeous metallic cedar borer beetle is one of my three favorite Yard Insects to date and it was one of a parade of new bugs that showed up in or on the house this week. I saw it as I was heading in the front door. First it was on the concrete, then it crawled up an (intentionally rusty) metal column. The contrast in colors is amazing, and depending on the light and angle, the beetle looked more yellow or even blue. These Trachykele blondeli lay eggs under cedar bark, and while we do have those trees nearby, I don’t think beetles are harming the trees. And they’re just so beautiful!

That night, another beetle came to visit the house, this time on the deck. It was the same shape so I figured it was another borer. I think it’s a rusticoclytus, or “rustic” borer, and it favors hardwood trees to lay its eggs. It’s the borer larvae, by the way, not the beetle, that make their way (via chewing) under the tree bark. You can read more at this University of Missouri extension website.

I saw the underside of this ichneumon wasp from inside a large window and ran outside, chair in hand, to get this picture. I think I saw a male of this species earlier this year in the yard. It didn’t have the impressive ovipositor that this female sports–it’s longer than the rest of the insect, almost including the entire antenna!

Our cat was playing with this poor katydid inside one morning, but I managed to get it out the window. Upstairs a few minutes later, I found it had flown up to the deck, into the feline danger zone again. Silly creature. I think this is in the genus Meconema and is a “drumming” katydid. According to bugguide.net, they’ve expanded from the east coast to the west (originally from Europe), and they use their back legs to drum on leaves and make thumping sounds. Fun!

I now have a hand-me-down new-to-me camera and I’m supposed to get a macro lens before next Wednesday, so I look forward to sharing some fresh, perhaps sharper, photos next week.

Color and Growth

It’s starting to feel like summer is just kicking in, and there were a dozen new insects in the yard this week. A couple of them were nymph forms, like this assassin bug, above. This one was tiny. It looked like a bit of fuzz on the small leaf. Within the same week, I found an older version of the same bug in a different part of the yard, below.

I absolutely love how threatening they are. The adults don’t have spikes or bright colors, but their name is appropriate. They use their long pointy proboscises (probosci?) to pierce their prey.

Here’s another nymph I saw this week, this time a katydid. The adults are green, with no hints of yellow or red. The bright colors on the young ones probably indicate to predators they should stay away, since many bright colored bugs are distasteful or even poisonous.

True bugs and orthoptera, the katydid order, both go through a series of growth stages rather than having a complete metamorphosis like beetles, flies or moths. Seeing the various forms this past week makes me think that humans are similar, in a way. We’re likely to have flamboyant, experimental phases in our youth, and settle into a single-color, more camouflaged adulthood.

I’m up to 213 Yard Insects now. One of the ones I’ve added recently is an absolutely unbelievable wasp, but I’ll share that another time. First, I’ll show a sneak preview of another project I’m working on…

YAY! It’ll be a deck of Yard Cards, featuring 54 of the best insects from my yard in the 2020 season. I plan to give them away “little free library” style. I’ll describe more details later.

Yard List Count: 201

It’s been another great week in the yard! It occurred to me that a surprising number of insects on the Yard List are ones I only see once, and then they’re gone. Partially, that’s because some insects don’t live very long in their adult form. Sometimes, it’s because our yard isn’t their best habitat, but is somewhere they’re passing through. The longhorn beetle above is one I’m guessing I won’t see again. I’m still doing research on who this is, but I’m very happy to have seen it in the yard!

Here’s an insect I expect I’ll hear more of, but I might not see again in the yard. I heard a click, and found this cicada (Putnam’s cicada, I think) perched on a small tree in the nook by our trash cans. This side view shows its enlarged fore-arms. Maybe it should be called Popeye’s cicada. These cicadas don’t have a droning high-pitched song like eastern ones, and they don’t spend as long underground. Platypedia genus cicadas spend just 2-5 years as larvae in the soil. I feel so lucky it was low enough to the ground that I could photograph it!

I saw this bee coming and going from a hole in a dirt pile. She’d go in laden with pollen (the orange on the leg, here) and come out a few minutes later, clean legged. She wasn’t happy that I was camped out near the nest with a camera, but got used to me (I think). I caught a couple of pictures of it in flight, and then three in a row of it coming out of the hole (below, it’s about to take off).

I’m fairly certain this is an urbane digger bee, Anthophora urbana. It’s hard to see in this picture, but the eyes are kinda blue.

This is a mordella, or pin-tailed beetle. It gets its other common name, tumbling flower beetle, because it tends to fall from its perch when it’s disturbed. It has big back upper legs to kick off. In my experience, though, a lot of insects tumble to the ground when I get close with a camera. I feel like true bugs do it most frequently.

I said I wouldn’t post any more Yard List updates after I reached 200 insects, and here we are at 201! I’ll continue to keep a list and add to it, but I’ll talk next week about the other project(s) I have in mind for the yard insects, and more. Have a happy week. Get outside. It helps.

Yard List Count: 191

Cabbage white butterflies have been flitting around our neighborhood for weeks. But for weeks, they haven’t stopped at all, but have kept flying up and over fences to the next yard. Finally this week, they’ve slowed down, taken breaks on leaves and flowers, and I’ve seen a few couples mating. As you can see, they have amazing green eyes, and matchstick colored antennae.

You can easily tell males from females. Males, as above, have one dark spot on the wings, females have two. Why? As this tell-all article from the Atlantic shares, the sexes tell each other apart by judging their ultraviolet attractiveness, not by counting their spots. It’s an excellent article, by the way.

The little fly above is in the Platypalpus genus, which is a member of the dance fly family. I didn’t see any fancy footwork, in particular, but its enlarged middle thighs and pointed abdomen are distinctive.

It was a week of new butterflies and dragonflies, but most of them wouldn’t let me get close enough for a great picture. This (what I think is a) Pacific clubtail is on the fringe of being a good picture. It looked far more strikingly green and yellow in person. I saw two other dragonflies and a northern crescent butterfly as well. I hope to get more shareable images soon.

Speaking of hoping to get better images, I’ve been chasing these Chrysidinae sub-family wasps for weeks. They are intensely green and have been landing on dark wood and dark leaves, which punches up the color even more. This week, I finally caught one nice image! Aren’t they amazing? They’re cuckoo wasps, which means they lay their eggs in solitary bee nests. Their iridescent green cuticle (think skin) has tiny pockmarks in it. According to this great article, it’s useful in case they are attacked by the owners of the nests they invade.

I’m within striking distance of 200 yard insects, so next week may be the last summary post. I’ll keep expanding the list, but I’ll share another couple of projects I’m working on after next week.

Cheers!

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micro adventures with a macro lens