Sawfly Week

©2021 Karen Richards

You know when you notice a certain type of car, maybe you’re thinking about buying one, and then suddenly it’s like you’re seeing that car everywhere? I’ve had that kind of week with sawflies. These insects in the bee and wasp family spend their younger lives as caterpillars, looking like members of the butterfly order. Adults only live a short while and look like wasps without the wasp-waist.

Last November was the first time I’d ever seen one. I didn’t even know they existed before that. Now, I can usually recognize them for what they are, but they continue to fool me sometimes. The sawfly above was one of dozens flying around unfurling ferns. Only when they stopped to lay eggs did I get a chance to snap a picture.

©2021 Karen Richards

I was sure this long, lean insect on cinquefoil flowers was a wasp. I frantically took pictures of one, knowing it was a new insect to me, and then after a few minutes I noticed there were several others flying around, and even mating, in the same small area and I calmed down. I still only came away with a couple of decent photos. This is a stem sawfly, in the Cephidae family. The common name gives away the answer to the trivia question: Where do the larvae live? More specifically, they grow up in the stems of grasses or shrubs.

©2021 Karen Richards

I don’t have an i.d. on this teeny insect yet, but I’m pretty certain it’s a sawfly, and it would be appropriate if it’s in the tribe Nematini, as I think it may be. I’ve been able to find these on nearly every flowering serviceberry I’ve seen, but it’s been windy and these little dudes are camera shy and always on the go.

©2021 Karen Richards

Going back a couple weeks, here are two more sawflies I’ve seen and not yet figured out their names.

©2021 Karen Richards

It’s so odd to me that I’ve seen five different species in such a short span, but I’ve probably been spotting them for years without knowing it. Maybe, like the car analogy, it would be useful to set one’s sights on things you hope to see. I’ll bet there’s a subconscious attraction that helps you notice those things, even though they’ve always been there.

Water Log

©2021 Karen Richards

For the past 10 days or so I’ve been visiting a temporary water tank, placed near some slash piles at a local park to keep any burning from spreading. I’ve found a bunch of interesting insects that would be harder to spot in the grasses and woods. Above is a male March fly. Its big eyes almost take up its whole head, which is quite different from the females, who have more red forearms and much smaller eyes, making their head look more wasp-like.

The water highlights the fly’s halteres, which are the pin-shaped organs mid-body. Flies have these instead of a second set of wings, and halteres help them stabilize in flight.

©2021 Karen Richards

I’ve seen a couple of these painted ladybugs in trees lately and they’re super hard to photograph because they move quickly and they’re so tiny. The red markings can sometimes be tan or even pink, and the hues change depending on the light. I was happy to see this Mulsantina picta in the water to get its picture, and also because its head and pronotum (body plate behind the head) are visible. Also of note: the smaller wasp in front of the beetle climbed up on it to get out of the water. Several teeny insects showed up in my photos after I enlarged them.

©2021 Karen Richards

I found three interesting wasps swimming in the tank. This one’s in the Ophion genus. Most larvae of these wasps are parasites of caterpillars. Though its not obvious in this photo, their eyes are often outlined in a lighter color, in this case yellow.

©2021 Karen Richards

This last water-logged insect is a crane fly. I didn’t see its spiny antennae until I looked at the pictures when I got home. If I’d known, I would’ve tried to get better pictures of them. They are branched on both sides of a central staff, which means this is a male. The surface area of their antennae help them find females.

©2021 Karen Richards

This Phoroctenia genus fly is a wasp mimic, and it sounded like a wasp too, when I took it out of the water and it beat its wings to dry them. Its also the subject of this week’s Mount Pisgah blog.

I rescued all of these insects, of course. I hope they all dried off and went on their way.

Cheers!

Recognizing an Opportunity

©2021 Karen Richards

Sometimes it’s hard to recognize an opportunity. I think we’d all be better at being lucky if we spent a little time pre-thinking what it is we’re hoping to happen. I nearly squandered my luck finding a bunch of Western Ash Borer beetles a few days ago.

What happened was, I noticed activity on a downed log out of the corner of my eye. It turned out to be dozens of these black beetles with white or yellow fleur-de-lis markings on their backs. They made so much scuttling noise you could hear it. It sounded like a rain stick. I took a couple of pictures and then started moving up the trail. It was a gorgeous day and there was a lot of insect activity.

Thankfully, I paused a few yards away. “Maybe I should go back to the log and spend some more time there,” I thought. That little voice came from experience. I’ve often learned too late that what I saw was rare or interesting, and the only pictures I have of it are slush.

©2021 Karen Richards

I’m so glad I went back. The pictures were much better the second time, and I was able to observe the Neoclytus conjunctus as they scrambled to find mating partners. There were both yellow and black males and females, and there was a subset of the longhorns that were nearly half the size of the others. Those were only in the black-and-white morph.

The best thing I did was take a video of the action. In watching it frame by frame later, I saw how the males used their enlarged back femurs to leg wrestle each other. The still photo above is from that video. It was impossible to see the beetle’s maneuvers in real time because it happened too quickly.

©2021 Karen Richards

I’m not saying I’ve learned my lesson and I’m ready to queue up the next one. Since the Neoclytus beetle day, I’ve already wished I’d spent more time with a couple of insects. For example, this weird-shaped, minuscule moth. At rest, Gracillariinae subfamily moths look like tiny twigs. I don’t have a great picture with the feathery tail in focus, but you can see the threadlike, long antennae that are swept back down its body. It’s a pretty cool character. I wish I’d spent a few more minutes finding better focus.

Here’s wishing you a buffet of opportunities in your life,

Cheers!