A New York minute

©2022 Karen Richards

I went to a college reunion last weekend in upstate New York. Ironically, I attended one of the premier institutions for entomology (Cornell), but didn’t know at the time how interested I’d be in the subject later in life. So when a friend suggested I join her at Sapsucker Woods where she wanted to bird watch, and where neither of us had ever been, I quickly said yes! The biggest jackpot of the walk was finding this scorpionfly. The males have a more exaggerated scorpion tail, which is a reproductive organ and has no stinging ability. These crazy critters don’t visit the west coast, so I was overjoyed to see it, and to be able to get one or two decent photos before it flew away.

©2022 Karen Richards

It was so cool how insects that are probably common in the east were new and interesting to me. This fly is in the Rainiera genus. It wandered along making vogue, pointing poses with its front legs, which I think are meant to look like antennae, with the white “foot” areas.

©2022 Karen Richards

I saw four or five different beetles over the course of the weekend that looked like fireflies. The beetle above is in fact a firefly. It’s in the Pyractomena genus and its common name is Spring Treetop Flasher. It would have been fun to see it lighting up, but I didn’t.

©2022 Karen Richards

This beetle has very similar markings to the firefly above, but it’s a soldier beetle, which is a different family. Do you think one of them has an advantage by looking like the other?

©2022 Karen Richards

Last, this isn’t an insect, it’s a spider. The common name is Orchard Spider but I think they missed a chance. Shouldn’t it be the Watermelon Spider?

Cheers!

Sawfly-Palooza

©2022 Karen Richards

On a two-night camping trip to the Oregon Coast last week, I found at least six different species of sawflies. Sawflies are in the same order, hymenoptera, as bees, wasps and ants. But they start life looking like caterpillars and have a few quirky adult characteristics. The eyes of this genus, Tenthredo, are bulging and wide. The antennae of some other genuses can be feathered or have knobs at the end.

©2022 Karen Richards

This light green sawfly flashed red-orange at the end of its abdomen when it flew. It would land with its wings open, and then snap them shut. I saw another light green sawfly that was too fast for me to get a picture of. It was a brilliant day-glow green from head to tail.

©2022 Karen Richards

This sawfly looked like a rainbow. From the yellow mouth, to the orange and red legs, to the wings that reflected blue in the sun. There’s a fantastic website for sawfly information at SawflyGenUS. I’m working my way through its identification key and I’ll add information here if I can i.d. these to a species. Often, sawfly larvae specialize in one specific plant, and the common name of each sawfly species is named for that plant. Name a plant, and there’s usually a corresponding sawfly. Honestly. Try typing in any plant or shrub and the word “sawfly” in a search engine and see what you find.

©2022 Karen Richards

This beautiful black sawfly is a female, I’m pretty sure. The common name comes from the switchblade-like features of the ovipositor on females, and the tip of the abdomen here looks like the sheath for that “saw.” They use these to cut into and lay eggs in various plants.

©2022 Karen Richards

I’ll end with a fuzzy photo of a black and white sawfly. The antennae were white at the ends and the leg joints were white. This sawfly was smaller and I couldn’t get very close before it flew away, thus the blurred image.

Happy June!