2026: The pussy willows near the BugLady’s lakeshore home are in bloom.��Here’s a BOTW about pussy willows from late March of 2012 – a few new words and pictures.

2012:��People get excited when pussy willows whisper the spring.��The BugLady loves skulking among them when they’re blooming, ogling the diversity of insects that come to visit when very few other flowers are out.��Willows are��dioecious��(separate house), bearing their male and female flowers on separate plants.��The gray, fuzzy buds are future male flowers that will morph into catkins bearing long, slender filaments (pollen-producing stamens).��The thicker, “caterpillar-like” flowers – fleshier stalks with what looks like a tiny flower at the tip, are future female catkins and seeds.��Pussy willow (Salix discolor), which is a prodigious pollen producer, is almost finished blooming, but other willow species are still in bud.

Remember that pollination is an accidental service performed by animals that visit the pussy willows for another purpose altogether – to perch, to set up housekeeping, to browse an important, early food source (the male flowers produce a little nectar and a lot of pollen, and female flowers supply nectar), or to browse the browsers.��Mining bees and syrphid flies made up the majority of the insects that the BugLady saw, with flies (blow, flesh, and house) next.��The BugLady also saw a spring azure butterfly checking out the willow flowers.��

For all their attractiveness and importance to these early pollinators, pussy willows are largely wind-pollinated.��Wind-pollinated flowers produce massive amounts of pollen because wind pollination is pretty random.

The BugLady found:

ANTS��– Ants become active when the spring sun warms the soil they nest in. If you put all of the people on the globe at one end of a teeter totter and all the ants on the other, our feet would be dangling. There are many kinds of ants with many lifestyles and many diets.��

ASCLERA RUFICOLLIS��– Adult Red-necked false blister beetles feed on early spring flowers in woods and wood edges; their larvae dwell in rotting logs.��Apparently, despite its name, a crushed false blister beetle produces highly irritating chemicals that will make a (false?) blister.

BROWN STINKBUG��– Some species of brown stinkbug are vegetarians, but the BugLady thinks that this is one of the predatory stinkbugs.��The BugLady wonders if the heavy dusting of willow pollen works as an inadvertent disguise.

CAROPHILUS BEETLE – A sap beetle – although most sap beetles are consumers of rotting fruits and vegetables and fungi, some are found on flowers.

DISONYCHA��BEETLE��– The very spiffy Striped willow leaf beetle is in the huge leaf beetle family Chrysomelidae.��Members of the small genus��Disonycha��(according to one source) mostly eat “weeds.”��This one eats willow-parts.

GREENBOTTLE FLY��– These members of the Blow fly family are listed as carrion feeders. Apparently, this fly was cleansing its palette.

CYNOMA CADAVERINA – Another member of the Blow fly family, with a decidedly un-wholesome name, stared at the BugLady from a willow branch. The BugLady moved on down the trail.

HONEYBEE��– an important – and imported – pollinator, honeybees are on the landscape starting in late winter and early spring.��Bees foraging for pollen near wetlands may warm up within the insulated comfort of a skunk cabbage spathe, which may be 30 degrees warmer than the ambient temperature.

MINING BEE��– Mining bees are a mainly solitary bunch of bees; females stock brood cells with pollen and nectar for their emerging young.��They are important early, native pollinators.��

SWEAT BEE – Sweat bees collect prodigious loads of pollen and transport it to their underground nests. Most are solitary; a few are marginally social.”

SYRPHID FLY – Syrphid/Hover/Flower flies are bee mimics that feed on nectar and pollen.

SPOOKY TACHINID��(probably) – Tachinid flies have an ulterior motive.��They lay eggs, or sometimes live young, on flowers so that their young may board another insect and become a parasitoid.��The BugLady thought this ghost-colored tachinid was a bit creepy-looking.

NOMADA WASP – The BugLady is amazed at the antennae on this Nomada wasp.

EUROPEAN PAPER WASP – Negotiating the thicket of flower parts on the male flower must be a challenge.

Go outside and watch the willows!

The BugLady

The post Pussy willow Pollinators appeared first on Field Station.

Let’s take some time off from the relentless, 24-hour news cycle and enjoy a few bug stories. 

MOSQUITOES – The BugLady always snickers at the obligatory TV news spot in mid-spring in which someone earnestly tries to predict what kind of mosquito season is on the horizon (“Well, Pete, if we get a lot of rain, we could have a lot of mosquitoes this year…”). Whatever the summer brings, how do mosquitoes find you, and do they find you delectable? .

(The BugLady also snickers at the weather folks who report that visibility is limited to only five miles or two miles instead of ten. Most people don’t live where they can actually see five miles, and most of us aren’t flying an airplane. All we need is enough visibility – maybe a quarter mile in each direction – to be able to pull through an intersection safely. But that’s a different soapbox).

INSECT SPECIES – There are about 100,000 species of insects in the US, and almost one-fifth of those species can be found in Wisconsin! Most live out their whole lives without producing a single blip on our collective radars, and formal insect surveys are a recent phenomenon, so it’s hard to say what the population trends are for many species. .

SPIDERS: – Spiders would appreciate a little peace and quiet .

LADY GAGA TREEHOPPER – Ever wonder how newly described insects get their names

WALKING STICK – Our Northern walking sticks max out at about 3” long (counting their antennae, maybe 5”) (and what cute nymphs they have ). They’re dwarfed by this newly-discovered Australian stick insect .

BUMBLE BEES – Turns out that extreme heat can have an unexpected impact on bumble bees .

EXTRAFLORAL NECTARIES – Some insects protect the plants they live on, and the plants reward them for it . BOTW explored EFNs a while back Ants in My Plants Rerun – Field Station.

INVASIVE SPECIES ALERT – be on the lookout for a new alien species, the Elm zigzag sawfly – .  Here’s some info from the Wisconsin DNR .

The BugLady saw a fly sitting on the outside of her cottage the other morning. 

The BugLady

The post Bugs in the News XVI appeared first on Field Station.

2025: This episode is a Golden Oldie, first/last posted in 2008.��Despite her feelings of ambivalence about ants, the BugLady continues to photograph and write about them.��See��/field-station/bug-of-the-week/flying-ants/,��/field-station/bug-of-the-week/the-ants-of-cesa/, and��/field-station/bug-of-the-week/western-thatch-ant/, and more.��For this rerun, the BugLady added a bunch of random pictures of ants being ants.

The BugLady was out on the trail with a bunch of 3^rd��graders one day, and they found an ant hill – a small, conical mound with a hole in the center.��When she asked the kids how that pile of dirt came to be there, one speculated that ants brought dirt in from the surrounding area to protect the entrance.��Yet another reminder that we all see things from a unique angle.

11-18-08:��The BugLady and the AntFamily have logged six [now seven-plus] decades of run-ins, which the ants invariably win (Lederhosen��will work if you want to sit on thistles, but they won’t save you if you sit on an ant hill, and that’s the last thing the BugLady is going to say about that!).��Fire ants, which the BugLady encountered during a Texas litter pick-up, but which are not yet found in Wisconsin, will undoubtedly look her up when they get here (fire ants can run from their nest inside a discarded beer can, past the elbow of a litter-picker-upper’s arm at warp speed, biting and stinging all the way up, and that’s the last thing the BugLady is going to say about that, too!).��The BugLady does, however, admit to standing out in the hot, east Texas sun, enthralled with the solemn, single-file processions of leaf-cutter ants snaking around the edge of a parking lot.��

Like bees, wasps, horntails and sawflies, ants are in the order Hymenoptera (“membranous wings”).��Hymenopterans have been around for about 200 million years, and ants, which developed from wasps, for about 90 million years, give or take. They are most numerous and diverse in the tropics.��Elizabeth Lawlor, in��Discover Nature around the House, (an excellent series) says that E.O. Wilson found 43 species of ants living in a single tree in Peru (which is more than the total number of species in Great Britain), and that only three species live in the Arctic above the treeline.��They are considered by some to be at the pinnacle of insect evolution and to be the most numerous of all insects (and, it is said, if all the world’s humans sat on one side of a cosmic teeter-totter and all the ants sat on the other, the humans’ feet would be dangling).��There is a HUGE amount of information available about ants, and what follows is only a quick overview.

Although many hymenopterans are solitary, the order is famous for housing the social insects, and all/nearly all species in the ant family are social.��Most colonies operate with a caste system that includes a queen (a fertile female that mates only once and then retires to lay eggs, read romance novels and eat chocolates for the rest of her life, which may span up to 15 years), workers (sterile, wingless females who care for the queen, eggs, and larvae, maintain and defend the colony, and forage for food), and males.��Nuptial flights in spring and fall mark the only time ants may be winged (and then, only the Royal ants); after mating the male dies, and the young queen bites/scrapes off her wings and starts her own anthill.��She cares for the first crop of workers, feeding them saliva and eggs, until (Moms take note) they get old enough to care for her forevermore.��

Nests are generally (but not exclusively) excavated in the ground or in rotting trees, and some ants take advantage of the solar-heated microclimate that exists under a rock.��Other (larger) ant mounds are created when ants bring in materials from the surrounding area, forming a slightly domed mound and then tunnel through it – the domed shape facilitates heat absorption, and the temperature inside may be 15 to 20 degrees warmer than outside. Ants are active a good part of the year; the picture of the ant on the plum blossom was taken in early May and the group shot on the orange, in early November. In the winter, ants can migrate vertically, and live below the frost line.

Each nest/colony/hive has an individual scent, a combination of chemical secretions and of the scent of the colony’s nesting material; this allows its members to identify their sisters at home or away.��These chemicals also, according to Lawlor, “cause the workers to respond and maintain cooperative and altruistic behavior.”��When workers meet, they feel each other with their antennae and then feed each other a bit of food, which strengthens the bond of the colony.��Foraging ants may find their way to a food source and then back home by following both a chemical/pheromone trail (rubbing your finger across a chemical trail causes the ants temporary confusion) or by visual landmarks, and an ant deposited off-trail is in trouble.��Each segment of an ant’s antennae has a different sensory task; read Lawlor.��

In T.H. White’s terrific Arthurian tale, The Once and Future King, young Arthur’s lessons include being turned by Merlin into a variety of animals, including an ant, and the ant-lessons are powerful and memorable.

Ants enroll in a wide variety of food plans, depending on their species.��They consume nectar and other plant juices, and honeydew “milked” from herds of Homopterans like aphids and treehoppers. They gather seeds (ants disperse the seeds of many kinds of plants) and browse the oranges the BugLady puts out for the birds), and eat dead organic matter, decaying trees, and houses. Or, they may be predators, attacking small invertebrates.��Leafcutter ants mix pieces of leaf with their feces and make a garden in which they culture fungi to eat.��Stokes, in��A Guide to Observing Insect Lives,��has an interesting write-up of how a group of ants cooperates to carry home a large piece of food.��

Despite their familiar presence on flowers, they are poor pollinators, because of their slippery exoskeletons and fastidious grooming habits.

Some species of ants can bite, and some species sting – the ovipositor, which workers don’t use anyhow, has been modified into a stinger – and some do both.��Some also produce and spray formic acid or other chemicals, which act as irritants.��

The BugLady met an instructor who claimed to be a connoisseur of ants.��He said that black ants are too bland; small, red ants are too spicy, and that ants that have a red head and thorax and a black abdomen (like the (possibly) Allegheny mound ant pictured here farming the tiny treehopper nymphs) are just right.��Native Americans in the desert southwest collected honey ants and used them as sweeteners, and ant larvae and pupae provide protein for humans in parts of the world.��Ants are also eaten by birds, reptiles, amphibians, mammals, fish and by other insects.

Breaking news!��An abstract in a recent “Science News” reports on a species of US ant that raids the nests of a smaller species and enslaves its young.��The slaves do the housework and care for the young of their mistress. BUT, some slave ants have evolved a behavioral resistance to this and were pictured destroying young in the nursery (and referred to as “killer nannies”).��AND – this drama is playing out in the nest of the larger queen – IN AN ACORN!!!

Go out and watch some ants (but always know where your extremities are).

The BugLady

The post Ants 101 Rerun appeared first on Field Station.

It’s time to celebrate a dozen (or so) of the beautiful bugs that posed for the BugLady this year (and that have already graced their own episodes). 

Click on each photo to read more.

Great Spangled Fritillary

A butterfly on the aptly-named butterfly weed.

European Mantis

The BugLady intercepted this mantis as it was attempting to cross the road and moved it to a friendlier spot.��The tiny bulls-eye in its tiny armpit tells us that it’s a European, not a Chinese mantis.��Both are non-native, invited to God’s Country by gardeners who buy them and release them as pest control. (Alas, to a mantis, a honey bee looks as tasty as a cabbage worm).��

When fall freezes come, they die, leaving behind��ooethecae��(egg cases) that .��Eggs in ooethecae can survive a mild winter here but not a Polar Vortex; . Every fall, The BugLady gets asked if it’s possible to keep a pet mantis alive in a terrarium over the winter.��Short answer—no. Its biological clock is ticking pretty loud.

Gray Field Slug

It was an unusually hot and muggy day, a day when the cooler air above the Lake did not quite reach inland (15 yards) to the BugLady’s front door.��She glanced out and saw a gray field slug extended at least six inches on the storm door. Read here for more info on gray field slugs.������������

Candy-Striped Leafhopper

When a spectacular insect picks an equally spectacular perch. What a treat!

Brown-Marmorated Stink Bug

This stink bug shared the hawk tower with the BugLady on a cool day in late October.��They’re a huge pest in the East because they eat orchard crops in summer and hole up/stink up in your house/closets/attics/coat pockets/boots in winter, and they’re becoming more numerous here.�� Remember, not every brown stink bug is a BMS. Look for the pale stripes on the antennae and on the legs.

Orange Sulfurs

They are very common, and they don’t put on airs, they’re just quietly beautiful.

Tachinid Fly

When the BugLady thinks about Tachinid flies, she pictures the bristly, house-fly-on-steroids species that frequent the prairie flowers in late summer, but tachinid flies also come in “tubular.”��The larvae of this one, in the genus��Cylindromyia, make a living by parasitizing some moths and grasshoppers and a few species of predatory stink bugs (for which efforts they are��not��appreciated, because the predatory stink bugs are busy preying on plant pests).��The adults, which are considered wasp mimics, feed on nectar.��

Ebony Jewelwings

They are frequent flyers on these pages.��The spectacular males usually have a metallic, Kelly-green body, but some individuals, in some light, appear royal blue.

Shamrock Orbweaver

The BugLady loves the big��Argiope��and��Araneus��orbweavers., they grow slowly throughout the summer until they reach a startling size.��Most go through the winter in egg cases. Some hatch early but stay inside and ride out the winter in the case, eating yolk material and their siblings, while others hatch in spring.��They emerge from the egg sac, and after a few days, balloon away in the breezes. and see why, like the Marbled orbweaver, they’re sometimes called Pumpkin orbweavers. ��

Skimming Bluet

Note to self: ask insects to pose on the very photogenic leaves of Arrow Arum.��

Red-Velvet Mite

The BugLady is frequently struck by the fact that the weather data we rely on was measured by instruments inside a louvered box that sits five feet above the ground, but the vast majority of animals — vertebrate and invertebrate alike — never get five feet off the ground in their lives.��The weather they experience depends on microclimates created by the vegetation and topography in the small area where they live.��Red velvet mites search for tiny animals and insect eggs to eat; their young form temporary tick-ish attachments to other invertebrates as they go through a dizzying array of life stages��(OK — prelarva, larva, protonymph, deutonymph, tritonymph, adult). Read more about them here.

Bush Katydid

What child is this? A nymph of a bush katydid (Scudderia).��

Ants with Aphids

While shepherds watched their flocks at night……��Some kinds of ants “farm” aphids and tree hoppers, guarding them from predators, guiding them to succulent spots to feed, and “milking” them — harvesting the sweet honeydew that the aphids exude from their stern while overindulging in plant sap.

Eastern Pondhawk

And an pondhawk in a pear tree.

Whatever Holidays you celebrate, may they be merry and bright and filled with laughter.

The BugLady

The post The Twelve (or so) Bugs of Christmas appeared first on Field Station.

Howdy, BugFans,

The BugLady is already fantasizing about warm, sunny days in a wetland, photographing Swamp milkweed (and dragonflies), because she loves its color, and she loves being in wetlands, and because it’s a very busy plant, indeed!  

Also called rose or red milkweed (there are a couple of species of southern milkweeds that are also called red milkweed), white Indian hemp, water nerve-root, and water silkweed, Swamp milkweed prefers damp soils and full sun near the water’s edge. 

Indians, and later, the European settlers, used it medicinally (a tea made from the roots was reputed to “drive the worms from a person in one hour’s time”). It was used with caution – its sap is poisonous – and the cardiac glycosides that protect Monarchs also deter mammals from grazing on all but the very young plants.��The fibers in its stem were twisted into rope and twine and were used in textiles.

Its flowers are typical milkweed flowers – a corona of five parts (hoods) with curved petals below and curved, nectar-secreting horns above.��The flowers are tricky – sticky, golden, saddlebag-shaped pollinia are hidden behind what one author calls a trap door (a��stigmatic slit).��Insects walk around on the flower head, and when one of their feet slips through the slit by chance, a pollinium sticks to it.��When the bug encounters a stigmatic slit on the next plant it visits, the pollen is inadvertently delivered.��A quick-and-dirty, pick-up and delivery is what the plant had in mind; but, like the story of the raccoon (or was it a monkey) that reaches into the jar for a candy bar and then can’t pull its fist out of the small opening, sometimes the insect’s foot gets stuck to pollinia inside the trap door. Insects that can’t free themselves will die dangling from the flower, and insects that escape may be gummed up by the waxy structures.�� Look carefully for pollinia in the pictures.

Milkweeds support complex communities of invertebrates – their nectar attracts ants, bugs, beetles, flies, butterflies, moths, bees, and wasps, plus predators looking for a meal.��Here are some of the insects that the BugLady sees on Swamp milkweed.

MULBERRY WING SKIPPER – A small (one-inch-ish wingspan) butterfly of wetlands with an arrow or airplane-shaped marking on its rich, chestnut-brown underwings ().��Adults fly slowly through low vegetation, where females lay their eggs on the leaves of sedges.��

FLOWER LONGHORN BEETLE��BRACHYLEPTURA��CHAMPLAINI��(no common name), on a Swamp milkweed leaf. Other than a “present” checkoff in a variety of natural area insect surveys, there’s just about nothing online about this beetle, and not much more in Evans’ book,��Beetles of Eastern North America. It’s a long-horned beetle in the Flower longhorn subfamily��Lepturinae, a group that feeds on pollen in the daytime. This one has pollinia on its mouthparts.

Also seen were ants, leafcutter bees, sweat bees, Great black wasps, Great golden digger wasps, Red soldier beetles, Fiery and Broad-winged Skipper butterflies, and Thick-headed flies.  

The BugLady

The post Wildflower Watch – Swamp Milkweed appeared first on Field Station.

Greetings, BugFans,

When the BugLady saw these two tiny (5mm/¼”), black insects on a flower, her first thought was “ants,” followed immediately by a mental head slap.  They were piggyback – worker ants don’t do that, and royal ants have wings, and males are way smaller than females.  A (much) closer look revealed two long-horned beetles, Family Cerambycidae. 

The Cerambycids (aka the longicorns, borers, girdlers, sawyers, or timber beetles) are a large group of beetles (1,000 species in North America; 30,000 worldwide).�� Some are spectacular [, , ]; some are humble [, ]; some are just odd [, , ]; and at least one species graces a Wanted Poster – the large, non-native that’s been threatening our hardwoods since 1996.�� A number of native species are also��persona non grata, especially with the lumber industry.��

Many (but not all) Cerambycids have long antennae (“horns”) – some .����

Cerambycid larvae are often called round headed borers, and it’s the “borer” part that gets them in trouble.  They feed on the tissue within the stems, trunks, and roots of plants (woody and herbaceous).  Depending on the species, they may (or may not) wait for a tree to be compromised and bore into dead or dying wood – they are part of the recycling process.  They may be found in untreated lumber which, if it’s part of your house, you may not be ready to recycle yet.  Female Cerambycids locate the correct host species for their offspring by analyzing the chemical signatures of plants, and some damage trees by girdling twigs while they’re ovipositing.  Adults variously eat sap, nectar, pollen, fruit, fungi, foliage, and bark, or nothing at all.

The star of today’s show represents a tiny drop in the great Cerambycid bucket – there are only four species in the genus Euderces in North America (60 total), and  calls them “among the smallest of our longhorns.”&�Բ�����;

EUDERCES PICIPES (no common name) is found in the first half of summer, east of the Great Plains.  Its larvae feed under the bark of hickory, black walnut, oak, elm, dogwood, and locust branches.  According to the excellent Illinois Wildflowers website, adults are found on flowers in the aster, sumac (cashew), carrot, holly, honeysuckle, mint, rose, greenbriar, and buckthorn families, and many of the  pictures show them on white flowers.

Along with the black morph beetles that the BugLady saw,��Euderces picipes��also .�� The black morph is more common in the northern part of its range, and the red is more common in the south.�� Both colors are found in transition zones, and mixed pairs can be seen piggyback.�� Apparently,��they��know who they are.��

Many of the species in the genus��Euderces��and in their tribe, Tillomorphini, are ant mimics, but ant mimicry (myrmecophily, pronounced��myr’ me coph’ i ly) is not limited to beetles – do it��and , and so do other arthropods.�� There are even ants that mimic other ants, though scientists aren’t sure why.

There are several reasons why it might be beneficial to look like an ant.  One reason is to eat, and another is to avoid being eaten.  Besides its morphology (size, shape, structure), an insect or spider that wants to insert itself among the ants in order to eat them (aggressive mimicry) must also act and smell like an ant (or, at least, not like a spider).  An ant mimic that wants to avoid being eaten (protective mimicry) is taking advantage of ants’ reputation for protecting themselves by biting, stinging, formic acid, or all of the above, as well as for having an anthill full of sister ants that are always on call in an emergency (all of which the BugLady learned at an early age).  Not many organisms mess with ants.  

Especially not the BugLady.

The BugLady

The post Euderces picipes Beetle appeared first on Field Station.

Note: All links leave to external sites.

Greetings, BugFans,

When the BugLady first spotted this fly, she thought it might be one of the odd, stubby, little tachinid flies in the genus  (or thereabouts). She couldn’t find anything that matched, so she asked BugFan PJ, who steered her to some odd, stubby, little flies in the Syrphid/Flower/Hover fly family (Syrphidae), in the subfamily Microdontinae, the genus Microdon and the subgenus Dimeraspis (). PJ suspects that it’s Microdon abditus (the Broad-footed Ant Fly), or possibly Microdon globosus (the Globular Ant Fly) – the proportionate , and the BugLady’s pictures just aren’t sharp enough to say for sure.  Thanks, PJ.

It’s a small genus that’s found worldwide, with about 20 species in North America. – it’s furry, but some species are furrier ( ), and a few are .  

At first, the BugLady thought that this was going to be a really short episode, because nobody seems to know an awful lot about any of the species, except that they are highly variable, so identifying them to species can be challenging, and many are under-studied (which is not surprising considering where their larvae live). But she found some info about the genus, and partial biographies of some of the species, and – what a dynamite group of flies! Their taxonomy is being scrutinized, of course. Microdon has been kind of a “catch-all” genus, but once the dust has settled and the genus has been “sanitized,” the Ant flies may be elevated to family status (Microdontinae is considered an “aberrant subfamily”). 

Microdon flies are myrmecophiles – ant-lovers – whose larvae grow up in ant nests (and a few in termite and wasp nests) and whose adults do not hover over flowers but may hover over their natal ant hills and are seldom far away from them. Many Microdon species are hitched to a single species of host (the only ant host recorded for the Globular Ant fly is the Odorous house ant Tapinoma sessile), so the fly’s range lies within that of their ant. 

Other than a buzzing sound, which may be either defensive or a part of courtship, there is no wooing in the Microdon flies. Adults leave the nest (unless they’ve made a fatal error within, more about that in a sec) and mating occurs nearby, with the female fresh out of her pupal case. About 24 hours later, she deposits her eggs in the vicinity of an ant nest and dies soon afterwards, and when they hatch, her very-active larvae hike into the nest. An early observer wondered if some mating and ovipositing might actually take place inside the nest. 

The life of Microdon larvae in an ant nest is complicated – they survive their stay partially because they keep a low profile, partially because they are , and partly because they produce pseudopheromones that make them smell like colony members (the adult flies don’t; the larvae pupate near the exits of the nest and when the adults emerge, they must get out of Dodge in a hurry). R. M. Duffield wrote in 1981 that “First-instars [first-stage larvae] placed in ant nests had mortality rates of 90% or more. Iridomyrmex workers easily turned over the first-instar larvae and carried them out of the colony to the refuse piles where they desiccated and dried.”&�Բ�����;The BugLady assumes that these transplants didn’t have the scent of the colony.  

Bugguide.net says that “Instars 1 and 2 mimic ant cocoons. If the nest is disturbed and workers start moving cocoons to safety, the Microdon larvae curl up to look like ant cocoons, and the ants will pick them up and relocate.”

Once again, the BugLady was entranced by century-plus-old scientific writing. In a wonderful paper in the Journal of the New York Entomological Society, (Vol. XVI), 1908, William Morton Wheeler wrote of the behavior of the newly-emerged adults in the nest, “Their bodies were moist and their covering of pile [hair] was glued to the chitinous surface. While in this stage they walked about among the ants without being noticed or, at any rate, without being molested. After a few hours, or sometimes much sooner, their wings had expanded and were folded over each other on their backs, their integument had acquired the adult metallic coloration and the pile had dried and become conspicuous. They remained very quiet except when rudely touched. Then they emitted a loud humming sound, but without moving their wings. This peculiar behavior has also been noticed by Bignell (1891) in M. mutabilis. The humming attracted the ants, which at once seized the defenseless creatures by the legs or wings and drenched them with formic acid. This killed them almost instantly. These observations show very clearly that the adult M. tristis is treated with pronounced animosity even by ants among which for many months it has been tolerated with indifference as a larva and as a pupa.”

Several researchers noted that adult flies emerge from their pupil cases in the morning, when the ants are likely to be sluggish and down in the warmer regions of the nest.

Their eating habits are complex, too. Older fly larvae feed on ant larvae (one source said that they eat eggs, too) – Duffield said that “In laboratory colonies, second- and third-instar larvae consumed half-grown ant larvae or smaller ones but never pupae. Frequently the ants would pull the larvae away from the microdon. Successful microdons moved up and over the ant larvae piercing the larval skin and emptying the body contents, then discarding the empty shell. A worker would promptly pick up the larval remains and carry it to the refuse pile.”&�Բ�����;

First instar larvae, though, don’t eat ant larvae. Worker ants feed their young a masticated protein substance that the ant larvae process and feed back to the adults (a process called trophallaxis). First instar Microdon fly larvae probe the ant larvae, possibly stimulating them to regurgitate food for them.  Wheeler thought that maybe worker ants accidentally drop lots of food pellets and that the fly larvae (and other non-ant-inhabitants of the nest – synoeketes) feed on this “litter.”&�Բ�����; It’s speculated that some species may be scavengers. 

It is not known if the adults feed.

The BugLady admits to burying the lead here. According to Wheeler, “no tyro in entomology could fail to recognize the imagines [adults] as Syrphid flies” (um, well…).  

The larvae, on the other hand, were accused for a long time of not being insects at all – in fact, because of their domed appearance and fringed edges and slow movements, studious papers in the 1800’s placed them with the slugs, or at best, with the scale insects.

Said Wheeler, “So repeatedly have even experienced observers been deceived by the singular elliptical larvae and puparia, that the history of the genus is unusually instructive. The larva of the common European species, M. mutabilis, was first seen by von Heyden, who in 1823 described and figured, but refrained from naming it. He says that he does not believe it to be ‘the larva of an insect (perhaps a species of fly) for its whole organization, especially the structure of its mouth-parts, is too different from that of any insect larva’ known to him. So he concludes that ‘it is much more probably a mollusk, but if such be the case, it must constitute a new and extraordinary genus.’

The following year (1824) von Spix found the larva of the same species of Microdon, and believing it to be a slug, named it Scntelligera amerlandia. Thereupon von Heyden published a second paper on the creature and dubbed it Parmula cocciformis, for the joy of naming things was as great in the early decades of the nineteenth century as it is to-day.

The same year Schlotthauber presented to the German naturalists assembled at Pyrmont a carefully written paper with illustrations to prove that the organisms described by von Heyden and von Spix as mollusks, were really the larvae of Microdon mutabilis. Unfortunately this paper was never published;

There is apparently no reason why unusual Microdon larvae and pupae, as fast as they are brought to light in various parts of the world, should not become the types of futile genera of naked mollusks, at least till the millennium arrives, when naturalists no longer itch to attach a name to everything that swims within their ken.

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The BugLady

The post Ant Fly appeared first on Field Station.

Howdy, BugFans,

As usual, the BugLady’s “Bugs in the News” folder runneth over, so here’s a collection of articles to chew on. Many come from the wonderful Smithsonian Daily Newsletter, which not only posts a lot of good stuff, but it doesn’t put articles behind a paywall. Support your Smithsonian!

THANKS, POLLINATORS –
8 Reasons to ‘Bee’ in Awe of Pollinators by Donna Stockton

SMALL BUT MIGHTY (get in line, Ben Franklin) –
by Sarah Kuta

JUST MIGHTY –
by Rasha Aridi

HOW SPRINGTAILS SPRING –
by Sarah Kuta

SPIDERWEBS TRAP SOUND –
by Krishna Ramanujan

ANTS MAKE MILK –
by Will Sullivan

AND THEY SERIOUSLY OUTNUMBER US –
by Ayanna Archie

BUMBLE BEES PLAY –
by Vanessa Romo

MOTH NAVIGATION (AND ain’t technology grand!) –
by Margaret Osborne

The BugLady

The post Bugs in the News appeared first on Field Station.

Howdy BugFans,

Instead of slaving over a hot computer, the BugLady has been hanging out on the hawk tower. The Red-tails were blowing past sideways on Tuesday. Here’s a rerun from eight years ago, with a few new words.

The BugLady’s first experience with entomology (well, except for the fresh-from-the-garden earthworms she consumed when she was 8) (they do not taste like chicken) came when someone gifted her family with a little box of chocolate-covered insects from a novelty store. No one ever opened it. Her first serious exposure to the idea of eating bugs came when she spent a week at the Audubon Camp in Maine. One of the camp’s teachers mentioned that he had eaten ants, and while the small red ones were too spicy for him and the large black ones were too bland, the species that are red at one end and black at the other were, like the Baby Bear’s bed, just right. The BugLady didn’t hear the term “entomophagy” until at least three decades later.

“Entomophagy” simply refers to the use of insects by humans as food (notwithstanding the fact that an “extract” of a scale insect called the cochineal bug provides a natural red dye called “red dye E120” or “carmine” that is widely used in food products; and that the FDA standards for food purity allow five fly eggs or one maggot per can of fruit juice and 400 insect parts per 0.22 cup of ground cinnamon). Used broadly, the term includes spiders and millipedes, but it does not include invertebrates like crayfish that are already part of our cuisine. Eggs, larvae, pupae and adults may be used, depending on the species. Some insects are eaten in recognizable form, but if staring into your food’s compound eyes isn’t your cup of tea, some insects are ground into “flour.”

There are several large issues around entomophagy.

The first is that producing conventional protein on the hoof is very expensive ecologically. Americans are expected to consume more than 220 pounds of meat per capita in 2022, and with about 5% of the world’s population, we eat 15% of the meat. Insect farming uses only a small fraction of the resources (including land) required to raise the more charismatic ��(remember, rainforests are cut down so that the world can have hamburgers), and it contributes little to water and atmospheric pollution. In a 2008 New York Times article, author Sam Nejame contends that insect (“mini-livestock”) farming and consumption is far more sustainable in a growing world than traditional meat-ranching, and that it offers “food security.” He quotes an entomophagy enthusiast who says “‘Insects can feed the world. Cows and pigs are the SUVs; bugs are the bicycles.’” The Netherlands leads the Continent in experimenting with these unfamiliar forms of protein; Dutch entomologist Marcel Dicke says, “Give a cow 10 pounds of feed and you get 1 pound of cow. Give crickets 10 pounds of feed and you get 9 pounds of cricket.”

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What’s a confirmed carnivore to do?

The second issue revolves to a large extent around our Western (US, Canadian, and European) cultural aversions (a.k.a “the ‘ick’ factor”). Eating insects turns up as an ultimate challenge on those contemporary social yardsticks, TV reality shows. But insect-shunning is not a global phenomenon. The BugLady once watched a PBS show that showed Giant water bugs in , dipped in batter and deep fried, their crispy legs sticking out below.

What kinds of critters are we talking about, anyway? “Wikipedia” says that well over 1,000 species of insects are consumed across 80% of countries worldwide. Grasshoppers, crickets and mealworms (a type of beetle larva) may be the most , followed (in no particular order) by other beetle grubs, cicadas, ants, tarantulas, bee and wasp larvae, cockroaches, termites, caterpillars, cocoons of silkworms, scorpions (we are reminded not to overcook these), giant water bugs, the eggs of water boatmen and backswimmers, and even dragonflies (though many dragonflies carry internal parasites).

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Nutritional value is another concern, but Sam Nejame assures us that “Bugs compare favorably to traditional livestock in available protein and fatty acids; for some vitamins and minerals, they better them by a wide margin.” Overall, insects are protein-packed, high in fiber and low in fats – the perfect food. It is recognized, however, that as they become more popular, some “best practices” will be needed in order to standardize collection, preparation and storage to ensure their wholesomeness. “Free range” insects may be exposed to pesticides. A few people may have allergies.

After that, the only question is “How are you going to prepare them?” Here is a potpourri from the BugLady’s research:

• BugFan Dan (who provided the mealworm photo-op) has tried the dried mealworms that are available at pet shops and bird food stores, and he describes them as tasting like bland, deep-fried pork rinds. He guesses that if you started with a sauté pan bubbling with butter and garlic and used live meal worms, you might produce a more memorable meal (the BugLady is wondering about curry). Thanks, Dan. Mealworms may also be battered and fried.
• For a great blow-by-blow of one woman’s experience in cookery (Best quote ever – “If you squint, they just look like mutant, oversized flaxseeds.”)
• American Indian tribes took advantage of the easily-procured protein – the same Indian tribes that staged those dramatic bison drives on the American Great Plains also staged locust drives.
• Some insects, like stinkbugs, serve as “spices” and condiments.
• About the Thai giant water bug, Sam Nejame says “[It] Yields a thimbleful of meat the consistency of crab and has a surprisingly powerful citrus aroma” (he adds that “after importation and preparation, its flesh can cost hundreds of dollars a pound.”) (the BugLady can visualize cooking insects whole, but she can’t quite picture fileting them).
• In Thailand, fried insects are served with beer. Bar food.
• BugFan Mike, a Wild Foods enthusiast, has added cricket-rich Chapul energy bars to his wild food tastings, and his audiences are enthusiastic. He sent recipes for “Orthopteran Orzo” [grasshopper/cricket] and “Sheesh! Kebobs” from David George Gordon’s Eat-a-Bug Cookbook. Thanks, Mike.
• A soft Sardinian cheese called casu marzu or formaggio marcio (“rotten cheese”) is famous for the live insect larvae that it contains. Locals call it “maggot cheese.”
• In her research, the BugLady came across several pictures of insect lollipops – insect bodies on a stick, encased in candy, like amber.
• Immature grasshoppers (chapulines) are a part of Mexican cuisine; harvesting them keeps them from harvesting the farmers’ grain crops. Chapulines are showing up on the of Mexican restaurants in the US.
• Finally, from BugFan Becca, a seasonally appropriate for caramel apples with mealworms stuck on the outside. Thanks, Becca – it takes a village.

Does the BugLady eat (or anticipate eating) insects? The BugLady thinks (alas) that a lightly seared porterhouse steak sounds mighty fine; she speaks softly to insects as she photographs them and she thanks them as they depart.

The BugLady

The post Entomophagy 101 Redux appeared first on Field Station.

May is American wetlands month, so we’ll end it in the swamp, in the company of Marsh Marigolds, the flowers that turn newly thawed wetlands a riotous yellow from the last days of April through much of May. Skunk cabbage and pussy willows may whisper the arrival of spring, but marsh marigolds crank up the volume.

The BugLady should have started this project two weeks ago when the marsh marigold was at its peak, but the truth is that despite the masses of flowers it produces, she seldom sees many insects on it, and the ones she sees are as likely to be resting as dining. According to the great , “The nectar and pollen of the flowers attract flies and bees primarily. This includes Bombylius major (Giant Bee Fly), Syrphid [hover, flower] flies, Halictid [sweat] bees, honey bees, and others. Two leaf beetles are occasionally found on the foliage of Marsh Marigold: Plateumaris nitida and Hydrothassa [Prasocuris] vittata. It is possible that they eat the foliage. For other herbivores, specific information for Marsh Marigold is lacking. Because the acrid foliage contains toxic alkaloids and glycosides, it is usually avoided by mammalian herbivores.”

Here are some marsh marigold basics, adapted from an article the BugLady wrote for the newsletter of the Friends of the Cedarburg Bog in 2012:

• Your Grandma probably called them “Cowslips,” which comes from an Old English word “cuslyppe “or “cu slyppe” for cow slobber or cow dung.
• Thoreau called them “A flower-fire bursting up, as if through crevices in the meadow where they grow.” He also said that “the flower has no scent but speaks wholly to the eye.” He was wrong about the scent, but the flower’s faint odor is more easily detected by insects than by humans.
• Early 20th century naturalist John Burroughs wrote that “they give a golden lining to many a dark, marshy place in the leafless April woods.”
• They’re not marigolds, and marsh buttercup would be the most accurate name for these members of the Buttercup family Ranunculaceae (Ranunculus is Latin for “little frog”). The scientific name, Caltha palustris, means “Cup of the swamp.”
• Marsh marigold is found in damp-to wet ground around the world, growing in sunny places with saturated soil. Forty years ago, it was hard to find a marsh marigold in bloom before the first week of May; now it often flowers in the last ten days of April.
• The flower has no petals but is made up of five to ten shiny, yellow sepals (sepals are the usually-green, modified leaves that clasp the flower bud, protecting it before it blooms). The sepal’s yellow color is in a waxy coating that can easily be scraped off with your thumbnail – in a few of the pictures, you can see white spots where the color has been eaten away.
• Marsh marigold is an abundant source of pollen and nectar that attracts more than three dozen species of early sweat bees, flower flies, and bee flies. A bee’s-eye-view is vastly different than ours is, and its perception of UV light makes the yellow sepals look purple and turns the center, where the nectar is found, black.
• Marsh marigold has awesome, starfish-like seed pods (#3 in the slide show https://www.minnesotawildflowers.info/flower/marsh-marigold).

What did the BugLady find on the flowers and leaves?

MINING BEES AND SWEAT BEES hard at work ensuring next year’s show.

A TEPHRITID FLY – Tephritidae is the (true) fruit fly family, as opposed to the pomace fly family Drosophilidae, home of those universal lab rats, the Drosophila. Tephritid larvae develop within various plant parts.

A CRAB SPIDER having a Sistine Chapel (or an ET) moment.

MOTH FLIES – The BugLady has been seeing these tiny (1.5 to 4 mm), aptly-named flies (family Psychodidae) on the vegetation in wetlands recently. Some moth flies live wholesome existences, and others live in sewers and feed on the by-products thereof. These feed on nectar and on stuff they find in stagnant water; their offspring eat algae, fungi and bacteria suspended in the still waters of the swamp. For the story of another group of moth flies, see this past Bug of the Week.

(PINK) SPOTTED LADY BEETLE – Ladybugs eat aphids and other tiny critters, both as larvae and as adults – you can find both stages feeding in aphid herds side by side. Pink lady beetles prefer dampish habitats, and, according to , “Unlike most lady beetles, plant pollen may constitute up to 50% of the diet. This is the only North American lady beetle that can complete its life cycle on plant pollen.”

A MALE CRAB SPIDER lurking. Spoiler alert – the fly flew.

ANTS are unsung (and ineffective) pollinators. Yes, they are all over the flowers, but since they are on foot, it’s hard for them to move pollen from one flower to another (unless it’s a cluster of flowers). Plus, they groom their slick little bodies constantly.

BAG WORM – This little collection of plant material looks like a case made by a bag worm moth larva called . The BugLady often sees these on screens and siding and even on leaves, but never before on flowers. Larvae make the shelters, enlarge the shelters as they grow, pupate in the shelters, and the wingless adult females receive suitors in the shelters, and lay their eggs there.

SYRPHID FLY – aka Hover or Flower fly. A great group of often-exquisitely-marked bee mimics that feed on pollen and nectar.

MOSQUITO WITH MITE – Both male and female mosquitoes feed on nectar – males exclusively and females as a supplement. This one is being fed upon by the nymph of a water mite that attached when the mosquito was in its aquatic, larval stage.

BUTTERCUP BEETLE Prasocuris vitata – A leaf beetle (Chrysomelid) that is a buttercup/marsh marigold specialist. Check out this previous Bug of the Week on the Buttercup Beetle.

PLATEUMARIS NITIDA – The BugLady’s first thought was “what’s a Donacia () doing in a marsh marigold thicket, far from the nearest water lily?” Then she looked up the second beetle mentioned in the Illinois Wildflower site. It turns out that some members of the genus Plateumaris are Donacia look-alikes and marsh marigold is listed as the host plant of at least one species. The beetle’s gleam is due to physics, not pigments. While looking for info about this beetle, the BugLady came across this about the feeding behaviors of leaf beetles.

Also seen were a , a soldier beetle, several more spider species, and a mining bee, and a clever shelter built by a spider that bent a yellow sepal over and anchored it with silk.

FYI – BOTW will, as usual, be Closed for June, so that the BugLady can go out and photograph the heck out of the local nature areas. She will post tasteful and timely reruns.

The BugLady

The post Wildflower Watch –Marsh Marigold appeared first on Field Station.