Way back in 2010, when the BugLady wrote an episode called “Big Beetle – Tiny Beetle,” the tiny beetle was a generic Tumbling flower beetle. There are a whole bunch of (unrelated) beetles that share the common name “flower beetle” – hermit, bumble, shining, soft-winged, and more, along with the long-horned flower beetles. Tumbling flower beetles are interesting little critters, so here’s an enhanced biography – new words, new pictures.

The psychological principle called “The Law of Closure” explains that when we see text with partial or misspelled words, our brains tend to serve up the missing information, often without our even noticing its absence (which is why over-familiarity with a text makes for bad proof-reading). The incomplete becomes complete. That being said, the BugLady must confess that whenever she sees the name of the Tumbling flower beetle family – Mordellidae – her brain always fills in the name of a kind of lunch meat, Mortadella. BugFans may come to their own conclusions/diagnoses about that. 

Tumbling flower beetles, so-called because of their method of locomotion, are also called Pintail beetles, because of their pointy anatomy. There are more than 2,000 species of Tumbling flower beetles distributed over six continents, with 200-plus species in North America, and 68 of those in Wisconsin. They seem to be in continuous taxonomic limbo – there’s been a lot of shuffling and more is expected to happen. They can be a very confusing bunch – to tell the difference between some of the species, you have to count the ridges on the hind tibia and tarsus (leg and foot). All of the species in North America belong in the same subfamily (Mordellinae), and speaking of names, there are some very fine genus names like Mordellistena (the largest genus), Hoshihananomia, and Yakuhananomia.

These small (about ¼”), active, caraway-seed-shaped beetles always remind the BugLady of a flea on a flower. Tumbling flower beetles are wedge-shaped (tapered toward their pointy rears), and are covered with short hairs that are silky and slippery and that may give them an iridescent shine. They have long, flattened, hind legs (the better to tumble with, my dear) and hump-backed bodies, with heads angled down almost under the first segment of the thorax (sort of a “pre-somersault” position). Their elytra (wing covers) are shorter than their abdomen. 

Tumbling flower beetles are generally dark, but some are more decorative

In an article in the journal PSYCHE (1987) Deyrup and Eisner write that “The Mordellidae are small, wedge-shaped beetles commonly found in one of the most dangerous of all insect habitats, the open inflorescences of plants.”Food and habitat-wise, Tumbling flower beetles tend to be generalists. Adults feed on nectar and pollen (their hairy bodies make them effective pollinators), and some nibble on the flowers a bit.

The larvae, concealed within plant stems , leaves, galls, dead trees, or shelf fungi, feed on dead wood, the pith of herbaceous plants, and woody fungi, and larvae of a few species may be predaceous.��Most sources agreed that although they like sunflowers, the larvae aren’t considered an agricultural pest.��Downy Woodpeckers find the larvae in plant stems, and crab spiders capture adults on flower heads.

Do they tumble? Oh my, yes! When alarmed, which seems to be often, they bail, letting go of the flower and tumbling or jumping off. Part way down, they may spread their wings and fly (they are good flyers) or they may fall all the way to the ground, where they are impossible to find. They jump by pushing off into a spiraling somersault using one of their extra-long back legs, and they rotate clockwise or counterclockwise in the air, depending on which leg they pushed off on. Sources say that these gymnastics help the beetle position itself for flight. 

Deyrup and Eisner again: “Their chief protection against the many predators that frequent flowers is a series of convulsive leaps followed by rapid flight, as acknowledged in their common name, “the tumbling flower beetles.” Their escape from a predator’s grasp is facilitated by their wedge shape and covering of smooth, backward-pointing hairs, while their movement and purchase among stamens and floral hairs may be assisted by rows of tibial and tarsal setae strongly reminiscent of the combs of fleas. These escape mechanisms, while undoubtedly effective against many predators (including entomologists), have the disadvantage that they involve abandonment of the feeding site.”

Adults emerge in late spring, romance ensues, and females lay eggs in decaying wood or in living plant tissue (there may be as many as 40 larvae in a single sunflower). Tumbling flower beetles often find themselves in the company of other Tumbling flower beetles and are said to be aggressive toward them. They overwinter as larvae in their food plant, and there’s only one generation per year. 

An article about Tumbling flower beetles on the Beyond Pesticides website states that “the tumbling flower beetle’s ancestors were some of the earliest insects to utilize flowers for food and habitat. In doing so, these ancient pollinators began an important collaboration between flowers and beetles which continues today.”

The BugLady

The post Tumbling Flower Beetle appeared first on Field Station.

What an awesome beetle – thanks to BugFan Dave for sharing it!

There’s not a whole lot of information out there about this species, and there’s some misinformation (more about that in a sec), so let’s sneak up on it, taxonomically.��Tri-colored harp ground beetles are in the Ground beetle family Carabidae, a huge (34,000 species), cosmopolitan (found ‘round the world) family of often metallic or dark and shiny, mostly nocturnal (except for the wonderful, diurnal Tiger beetles and a few others), carnivorous beetles whose eggs, larvae, and adults tend to live under debris or in crevices on/near the ground.��(The BugLady wouldn’t want to diagram that sentence.) Most insects have a one-year life span and spend more than three-quarters of it in the larval, nymphal, or naiad stage, but Ground beetles may live two or three years as adults.��

Tri-colored harp ground beetles are in the subfamily Harpalinae, the Harp ground beetles, which, with about 6,400 species worldwide (1,230 in North America) is the largest subfamily of Ground beetles.��Lots of species, lots of variety, and lots of lifestyles, and some species are considered biological controls for nuisance insects.��Like other Ground beetles, Harp ground beetles defend themselves chemically with noxious or odorous secretions from pygidial glands located toward the rear of the abdomen. According to Wikipedia, the members of another Carabid subfamily, the Anthini, “can mechanically squirt their defensive secretions for considerable distances and are able to aim with a startling degree of accuracy; in Afrikaans, they are known as oogpisters (“eye-pissers).“

Members of the genus Chlaenius are called “Vivid Metallic Ground Beetles.” Chlaeri comes from a Greek word for “cloak” and refers to the pubescence (fine hairs) on the dorsal side of the elytra (wing covers). The pubescence that may wear off as the beetle moves through its world.��Here are some close relatives: 

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A really, big Chlaenius beetle would approach an inch in length.��

Tri-colored Harp Ground Beetles (Chlaenius tricolor) aka Yellow and Green Harp Ground Beetles, are divided into two subspecies.��One (Chlaenius tricolor tricolor) is found east of the Rockies from Canada south to Georgia, and the other one (Chlaenius tricolor vigilans) lives west of the Rockies from Canada to Guatemala.��They’re found under leaf litter or logs in damp areas and shores of rivers and bottomlands. They go through life at a run.��

They’re about a half-inch long and iridescent, and one source speculated about the need for/use of iridescence in a nocturnal beetle, noting that their bodies reflect moonlight, but drawing no conclusions about it.��

In their “Guess the Pest” feature (the spirit of which the BugLady objects to on principle), the University of Delaware Cooperative Extension calls TCHGBs “a beneficial predator of slugs and caterpillars.” Their diet also includes a variety of insects including Japanese beetles and some corn borers and armyworms. 

The beetles overwinter as adults and breed in spring. Females place their eggs in mud cells that they attach to vegetation.��

The BugLady has trust issues—she tries to get her information from sources she knows are reliable, and she rarely looks at the AI summary that tops all her search results. In the case of the TCHGB, AI presented a long and very generic (but well-organized) collection of information about the Ground beetle family, disguised as a write-up about TCHGBs, along with the tiny disclaimer “AI responses may include mistakes.” Another site, “Picture Insect” (an “Entomologist in your pocket“), one that doesn’t pop up often in her searches and that seems to have been AI’s primary source (and that spelled “Tricolored” the British way) stated that the “Tricoloured harp ground beetle can emit a bright, bioluminescent glow from its abdomen, a rare trait within its family not primarily known for light production.” Just the kind of tidbit that the BugLady lives for, except that she couldn’t find any other sources to back that up.��She searched online for “ground beetle bioluminescence” with no results.

Caveat emptor! A motto for our times.

The BugLady

The post Tri-colored Harp Ground Beetle appeared first on Field Station.

It’s that time of year again—time to put our feet up, sip adult beverages by the light of the tree, hum “The Twelve Bugs Days of Christmas,” and dream of spring. (The days are getting longer, you know.) Here are a Baker’s Dozen from 2025.

Polyphemus Moth Caterpillar

This glorious polyphemus moth caterpillar, in the giant silk moth family Saturniidae (not the same family as the moths that produce silk for textiles), is huge! And it’s going to grow up to be .    

American Rubyspot

One of the lovely River damsels.��, but this female is pretty spectacular in her own right. (The BugLady wishes she knew how she got that halo effect—probably a random sparkle off the Milwaukee River beyond—she’d employ it in more pictures.)

Ambush Bug

Seasoned BugFans can attest to the BugLady’s fascination with Ambush bugs, which lay in wait on flowers until lunch arrives.��When she took this shot, the Ambush bug reminded her of another fascinating insect, . Read here for .

Dogbane Leaf Beetles

They are – except when they aren’t.��The beetle’s color and incandescence are the result of the play of light on exceedingly small, tilted plates that overlay its pigment layer. As you walk around it, the light bouncing off both the pigment and the plates causes the colors to change with your angle (and sometimes bring up Christmas colors).��Life is physics. .��

Oblong-Winged Katydid

A splendid katydid, splendidly in tune with its surroundings!

Bee Fly

This Bee fly deposits her eggs in the egg tunnels of solitary wasps that live in sandy/bare areas, though “deposit” doesn’t quite describe the process.��She  and lobs an egg down into the opening.��But, there’s a secret sauce.��She dips her rear end into the sand in order to take up some sand grains which she will store in a special receptacle. As an egg emerges, it gets a gritty coating that may help camouflage it and may also make it heavier so that her” throw” will be more accurate.

Bumble Bee

The BugLady has pictures of a number of insects nectaring on the spiny center of Purple coneflower (Echinacea sp.), and it always looks like an iffy proposition.��The name “Echinacea” comes from the Greek word for hedgehog.

Crab Spider

Crab spiders like orchids. This one is on a Small Yellow Lady’s Slipper! They don’t spin trap webs, and orchids give them a nice platform on which to wait for pollinators, though some might have a long wait because not all orchids are pollinated by insects.��The BugLady has a color slide of a Bog candle orchid with a white crab spider fitting neatly onto a horizontal flower.��Just as there is an orchid-mimic mantis, .

Tufted Bird Lime/Bird-Dropping Moths

Tufted Bird Lime/Bird-Dropping Moths look marbled to the BugLady.��Jim Sogarrd, author of Moths and Caterpillars of the North Woods, tells a story about attempting to collect a bird-dropping moth from the side of a building, only to discover that it actually was a bird dropping.

Robber Fly

Robber flies are carnivorous flies that come in quite .��Larger species, , can gather bees, butterflies, grasshoppers, dragonflies, and even cicadas for lunch.��Others are great , and still others, like this small fly sitting on a daisy fleabane, capture mosquitoes and gnats.

Hackberry Emperor Butterflies

Some kinds of caterpillars feed on a variety of plants, but Hackberry Emperor caterpillars eat only one thing and so can live only where Hackberry trees grow—.��This one was posing under the roof overhang of the Barn, at Riveredge.��Adults rarely feed on flowers, preferring tree sap, rotting fruit, carrion, and dung, and they collect minerals from damp/muddy soil with their proboscis. . They’re not pollinators. When they do visit flowers, they don’t touch down with their feet, and they avoid putting their antennae on the flower. They only extend their proboscis into the flower, and so do not pick up nor spread pollen.  

Jumping Spider

Even people who don’t like spiders like Jumping spiders, and some keep them as pets. This one looks like the Bold jumper,��Phidippus audax.

Blue Dasher

When the BugLady was a kid, Angie the Christmas Tree Angel (BugFans who are old enough can hum a few bars here) used to smile benignly from the top of the tree.��That was before the BugLady knew about dragonflies.��This guy makes an excellent substitute for Angie or for the Partridge in the Pear Tree.

May your days be merry and bright,

The BugLady

The post The Twelve Bugs of Christmas appeared first on Field Station.

The Long-horned beetle family Cerambycidae is a large family that contains some spectacular beetles , ,��, , and .��It includes some lunkers , and , and some with shorter antennae that are pretty impressive, too  (so many cool beetles……).��Bugguide.net says that there are “1000 spp. in 300+ genera in our area(), >11,300 spp. in almost 2,000 genera in the Western Hemisphere() and >30,000 spp. in >5000 genera worldwide.”

Thirty thousand-plus species of Long-horned beetles worldwide is a lot of species to keep track of, so it’s no surprise that, unless they are “pest species,” the biographies of many species are incomplete/barely there. In general, Cerambycids are classified as decomposers and recyclers. Some have a tendency to be a bit nippy when handled.  

LONG-HORNED BEETLE #1 Etorofus subhamatus is a member of the Flower longhorn subfamily Lepturinae.��Lepturines are typically slim and long-legged, with a narrow thorax and wedge-shaped elytra (hard wing covers) that give some an exaggerated “big shouldered” look . Male and female Lepturines may be different colors – an unusual trait in a family where the length of the antennae is often the best way to tell males from females.��Lepturines are often found on flowers, where nectar is sweet and pollen is high in protein, and where they are considered minor pollinators.��One author said that the Flower longhorns are especially fond of plants in the carrot family.

Only one source listed a common name for Etorofus subhamatus – the Hemlock long-horned beetle (there are no hemlock trees where the BugLady found it but pine is an alternative food plant). They are found in mixed and coniferous woods in eastern North America where their larvae bore beneath the bark of dead and dying trees, eating wood and friendly wood fungi that help them break down the cellulose. They are not considered pests because the trees are already going or gone.

LONG-HORNED BEETLE #2,��Clytus ruricola (also no common name), is in the subfamily Cerambycinae, the round-necked longhorns (so-named because of their rounded pronotum, the first segment of the thorax). Of the eight genus members in North America, it has the largest range, and six of the eight genus members are western. It’s about a half-inch long and is a wasp mimic (visually) that enhances its performance by making a buzzing sound with its wings when it flies.��Like some other Cerambycids, it can stridulate (make noise via friction) by rubbing the bottom surface of its head against its thorax. Says Tim Eisele in his “Backyard Arthropod Project” blog, “when I held it, I could feel it vibrating as it moved its head up and down in a nodding motion, and if I held it next to my ear I could hear a faint “eeeeee-eeeeee-eeeeee-eeeee” noise”.

The larvae of Clytus ruricola make burrows (galleries) in decaying deciduous trees (fallen or cut) – they are especially fond of maple – and the tunnels they make set the stage for decomposition by allowing water and fungal spores to get into the dead wood. 

That’s all, Folks!

The BugLady would be remiss if she didn’t mention the floodwater mosquitoes. In case you haven’t been in the field in the past week, the torrential rains of a few weeks ago have faded and the rivers are receding, but the heat-plus-rain created the perfect storm for floodwater mosquitoes. The BugLady visited a local nature preserve a few days ago.��It was OK when she was out on the prairie, but the second she passed by any woody vegetation tall enough to create shade, she was engulfed by a cloud of mosquitoes that was aimed at her face (and, of course, they have to get really close to be repelled by the insect repellant).��Here’s their story Floodwater Mosquito – an homage – Field Station.

The BugLady

The post Beetles without Bios appeared first on Field Station.

2025:��The BugLady has been prowling the landscape recently, both in wet areas and dry, and she’s been seeing Japanese beetles or evidence of their feeding.��It used to be that their populations cycled between boom and not-boom, but the last few years all seem to deliver a fairly constant number of the beetles.��This slightly revised episode has some new words and pictures.

2009: For those of us of “a certain age,” (and before the notoriety of these new-fangled aliens like kudzu, zebra mussels, fire ants, and the emerald ash borer) the Japanese beetle will always be the poster child for Invasive Species.

Their story is classic.��They arrived in New Jersey from Japan in 1912 hidden in a shipment of iris bulbs, but they weren’t noticed until 1916. When Japanese beetles came to North America, they left their natural enemies at home.��In their first 8 years in the Land of the Free, and despite the control methods of the time, their range expanded to an astounding 2500 square miles.��They are presently well-established east of the Mississippi except Florida and are making inroads into the West via shipments of plants.��Like the mutants in horror movies, they just keep coming, despite the heavy fire power we lob at them (and in the case of the Japanese beetle, that includes imported pathogens, parasites, and predators).

Like all successful invaders, they are generalists.��They have been recorded as eating some 300 species of plants (sources give numbers between 200 and 400).��Woody? Herbaceous? Vine? Flower? Doesn’t matter.��

The Japanese beetle (Popilla janponca) is in the Scarab family, Scarabaeidae. If it weren’t the Beetle from Hell, we would admire its beauty and survival powers. It’s a chunky half inch of beetle with a shiny green thorax and burnished bronze elytra (wing covers).��Five short, vertical, bright-white stripes of hair decorate the abdomen, and it sports two more white tufts like twin exhaust pipes.��It is diurnal (active during the day) and likes to feed in groups.

The adults are primarily leaf skeletonizers, eating the soft tissue that lies between the tougher leaf veins, creating green lace (there are native leaf skeletonizers on the landscape, too). To the distress of gardeners, the adults’ Top 50 menu choices includes roses and members of the rose family.��The larvae (grubs) feed underground on a variety of roots, especially those of horticultural and agricultural plants and turf grass (they’re a pain at golf courses).��When they are working on a lawn in good numbers (1,500 grubs per square yard of sod have been recorded), the ground may feel a bit spongy underfoot.

Mom lays her eggs in sod in mid-summer.��The kids hatch and spend the next 10 months as grubs.��They are full-grown when winter comes, and they overwinter as grubs in the soil, burrowing farther down as the frost line reaches deeper. They pupate in spring and emerge in mid-summer (they prefer warm, sunny, calm, moderately humid days). As the first Japanese beetles emerge and start to feed, they emit a scent – a pheromone – that attracts more and more adults. Females release a different pheromone to lure males.��During their two months as adults, they can wreak havoc.��

Some aggregations of beetles are initiated (inadvertently) by the food plant itself. Research suggests that a female Japanese beetle chews on a leaf, and the leaf gives off signature chemicals (OK – feeding-induced plant volatiles), and that instead of repelling the beetles, the scent attracts more beetles, both male and female, to feed (and, of course, while all those guys and gals are in the same neighborhood…).

The adults are eaten by starlings (another alien), and when there are large numbers of grubs in your lawn, moles, skunks, Canada geese and raccoons may make an appearance to excavate for them.��Biological controls that are being used include parasitic tachinid flies and tiphiid wasps (whose larvae go after – literally – the Japanese beetle larvae)

And now, in the Don’t-Put-Anything-in-Your-Ear-Smaller-Than-Your-Elbow category, a cautionary tale. A friend had a very Close Encounter with a Japanese beetle that flew into his ear while he was mowing the lawn (not normal behavior for Japanese beetles, as far as the BugLady knows).��This one’s for you, Mike.��Instead of cutting its losses and backing out (perhaps Japanese beetles don’t do “reverse”), it burrowed farther in, grabbing the inside of Mike’s ear canal with its bristly tarsi, heading for the eardrum and the gray matter beyond. Painful? Oh, you betcha! The folks in the ER (who were, initially, skeptical because the beetle was so far down the ear canal that they could not actually see������!) probably dined out on that story for months.

Just when you thought it was safe…. 

But they really are a spiffy-looking beetle.

The BugLady

The post Japanese Beetle Rerun appeared first on Field Station.

2025 – The BugLady has been seeing her first firefly around the 4^th of July. She stands on the riprap, enjoying the fireworks shows launched by her neighbors and the more distant municipal displays while the fireflies fly around her, putting on their own, equally magical shows. 

Fireflies are one of the BugLady’s “nemesis groups” – they refuse to be in focus when she photographs them. Like sowbug/roly-poly/pill bug/woodlouse, your choice of lightning beetle/bug or firefly is a regional thing. 

Enjoy this rerun – a few new words (because who can resist rewriting?) and new pictures. Genus IDs are tentative.

2018  OK – this is a love story of sorts. It’s an episode that originated in 2009, and it has already been rerun once and now rewritten again. But…..the BugLady just returned from southern Ohio, where she co-led a workshop about Bugs and Wonder (Wonder – an unappreciated, sometimes suspect, and insufficiently-entertained state of mind) (and mostly we could say that about the bugs, too). We trawled the prairies and woods for bugs during the day, and at dusk and into the night, we hunted for fireflies. 

Do you call them lightning bugs or fireflies? Carl Linnaeus coined the latter term in 1767. The more arid, western parts of North America are either “firefly-lite” or their fireflies are day-flying and therefore “mute,” as evidenced by the lack of names for them.

Lightning bugs float silently (but brilliantly) over the dark fields, woods, and wetlands of June and July, inspiring poets and children of all ages. They are neither flies nor true bugs; they are members of the Order Coleoptera and the family Lampyridae and are more correctly called Lightning beetles. And yes, their ethereal light show is all about sex. 

Their path to the skies starts in late summer of the previous year. Mid-summer eggs hatch into carnivorous larvae that eat insects, snails, and other small critters (the BugLady thinks that the larvae look like tiny pangolins). They like damp conditions (remember –a thatch of grasses, especially tall grasses, creates a microclimate that’s generally moister than the air five feet above it), and there are even a few species whose larvae are aquatic. 

They overwinter as larvae, buried in the soil, and when spring comes, they wake up and keep on eating (the natural history of firefly larvae needs more study). They pupate in early summer, also in the earth, before emerging for their brief-but-dazzling stint as adults. 

Larvae subdue their much larger prey by injecting a paralyzing fluid, and they are considered important controls on snails and slugs. According to the Field Guide to Insects of North America, the larvae of the common genus Photinus are subterranean and “may hunt earthworms in packs.” The diet of adults varies by species – there are carnivores, omnivores, and non-eaters.

Most threats to their populations tend to be man-made – wetland loss, pesticides, light pollution that dims their displays, paving, and mowing (many adults, after all, are resting in the grass, waiting for sundown and setting lawn mowers at “scalp” cuts down fireflies, too). Populations of some species are shrinking, and more eyes are needed. For some Firefly Citizen/Community Science projects, see .

Light production is an uncommon talent in insects. There are semitropical click beetles that can (some of these, called cucujos, are worn as luminous decorations by partygoers south of the border, and their eggs and larvae also glow). Luminescence is achieved by others (including some springtails) (try to imagine a springtail, glowing green except for its ) because they harbor photogenic bacteria (here meaning that the bacteria are light-generating, not that they are picturesque, though the BugLady thinks they are both). 

Firefly light is a “cold” light. An incandescent light bulb is an inefficient energy-user, wasting 90% of its energy as heat. Less than 8% (some say less than 3%) of the energy that a lightning beetle expends on light is lost as heat. Light is produced at the south end of the abdomen, in a photogenic layer that is located beneath a white, reflecting layer. Chemical energy is converted to light energy by the action of an enzyme called luciferase on a chemical called luciferin (history buffs please note: some old friction matches were called Lucifers). 

Day-flying members of the Lampyridae like the Black firefly or Woodland Lucy (Lucidota atra) don’t glow – producing light would be a waste of energy for a diurnal insect. All lightning beetle larvae, some pupae, and even some eggs also glow, for reasons that are not fully understood. But lightning beetles don’t just gleam, they produce controlled flashes of light – strobes, aerial “J’s,” three-second horizontal dashes, and more. The various species of fireflies divide the landscape by altitude, habitat, light color and intensity, time of evening, and duration of flight. Each species has its own particular “Morse Code,” though male and female “codes” may be different. 

Males signal from the air, and females, which in some species are wingless, respond from on or near the ground (females and luminescent larvae are called glowworms). The signals continue until they find each other and romance ensues. Females of some species of lightning beetles resume flashing after mating, adopting the code of a different species. If she is successful in luring a male, this femme fatale will eat him (she, it seems, does eat as an adult!); this practice is called “aggressive mimicry,” but females generally do not eat males of their own species.

Lightning beetle family members have poisonous blood (they ooze toxic droplets from the base of the wing covers). Besides being an invitation to party, their light is probably also an advertisement to predators that the firefly is toxic (though apparently better-tolerated by some than by others) . In Discovering Nature at Sundown, a good source of lightning beetle information, Elizabeth Lawlor relates that a frog that eats enough LBs may glow temporarily but seems otherwise unaffected. 

Since this episode originally appeared, the BugLady has become increasingly aware of (and confused by) firefly look-alikes in the form of soldier beetles . Some net-winged beetles and click beetles are also mimics – BugFan Mary emailed the BugLady about a firefly on her window screen that had two lights in the front of its body – turned out to be a click beetle (), a far Southern specialty. Most lightning beetles have a shield-shaped thorax that covers most or all of their head, and a bunch of soldier beetles also have a widened and colorful thoracic shield, though a soldier beetle’s head may protrude from under the shield significantly more than a firefly’s. Every time she looks into this matter, the BugLady ends up relabeling a few pictures. For other glowy insects, .

Accounts abound of certain species of lightning beetles in Southeast Asia that gather by the thousands on specific trees. As dark falls, they begin to blink – first randomly, and then in complete synchronicity, illuminating the trees for hours. The cast reassembles nightly for months to produce a spectacular light show. Do you have to buy a steamer ticket to witness a similar spectacle? You do not – synchronous firefly displays occur in the Appalachians, but you’ll need to enter a lottery to see them . Here are two similar but different videos: and .

Just out is a book by Lynn Frierson Faust. In Fireflies, Glow-worms, and Lightning Bugs, she offers descriptions, ranges, photos, flash patterns, habitats, and terrific common names, names like the Woodland Lucy, Little gray, Big dipper, and Chinese lantern.

At the other end of this love story is (shameless plug) the Arc of Appalachia, the organization that ran the Wonder Workshop, an organization that has been buying and providing stewardship for chunks of prairie, gorge and rich eastern forest, with its old growth beech and maple, sycamore, tulip tree, sassafras, and gum. Find their story at . 

The Lightning Beetle is a poster child for why the BugLady loves BOTW – the research begins innocently enough, and then WHAM! Cucujos! Glowing eggs! Glowing frogs! Glowing trees! Poisonous blood! Ravenous packs of LB larvae! Luciferase! 

Excellent!

The BugLady

The post Lightning Beetle Again and Again appeared first on Field Station.

2025 – One of the BugLady’s daughters gave her a subscription to Storyworth for her birthday, so she has been working her way through weekly questions. It’s sobering to realize that she and her sisters are the Keepers of the Family Lore. Anyway, a recent question asked if she believed in magic, and, if yes, what examples could she give? The BugLady finds magic everywhere – in sandhill cranes bugling far overhead, in the raucous chorus of a thousand spring peepers, in the icebergs that float by her cottage, in a cloud of Monarchs rising from a clump of goldenrod, in Tiger Swallowtails, Luna Moths, phantom crane flies – you get the picture.

Years ago, she was leading a Woodcock and Frog Walk on an unseasonably warm evening at the end of April, and as the group stood at the edge of the field in the dark, listening to the sky dance of a Woodcock, we could hear the sound of June bugs emerging from the ground and flying away. Magic.

2014 – June bug clarification: a number of different genera of beetles in various regions of America are also popularly called June bugs/May beetles. Some are and some are , but most are gray/brown/rust-colored. There’s even a conspicuous on-line image of a Japanese beetle, genus Popillia, labeled as a June beetle, and one exterminator website displays a picture of a beautiful Dogbane leaf beetle (possibly the most ) with a June beetle caption. Caveat emptor. OUR June bugs, in the genus Phyllophaga, are the real ones. Just sayin.’

So, today we will consider one of the BugLady’s favorite beetles, and not for the last time, revisit the word “bug.”&�Բ�����;The June “bug” is not a True Bug. True Bugs are in the order Hemiptera (“half-wings”) (because in the original order Hemiptera – not the new, improved, “lumped” order that combines Hemiptera and Homoptera – Hemipterans characteristically had forewings that were leathery on the proximal half, with the membranous distal half folded underneath. Beetles (the order Coleoptera – “sheath wings”), have two pairs of wings. The hardened front pair, called the elytra, cover and protect two membranous hind wings that are used for flying. In flight, the elytra are held out to the side, which causes beetles to look like tiny bi-planes and to fly and land awkwardly. After a beetle lands, its flying wings don’t always get tucked in neatly. 

If JBs are “clumsy;” they are also described as sticky-legged and “clingy.”&�Բ�����;They love grabbing screens, and they will hold onto clothing with their long, gangly legs (in a totally non-menacing way, of course). When JBs fall off the BugLady’s door and land on their backs, they spin around, glaring up at her, struggling to right themselves. 

JBs are members of the Scarab family (Scarabaeidae), renowned by ancient Egyptians. Scarabs, no matter what their species or size or shape or color, have small,  that they can open like a fan. June beetles have three plates, which are held at right angles to the antenna. There are roughly 400 members of the genus Phyllophaga north of Mexico, and many species cannot be distinguished without looking at their “naughty bits.”&�Բ�����;

When they are not eating leaves, the nocturnal June beetles come to lights. They are a group that carries on its affairs in darkness – in fact, Wikipedia cryptically states that adults die after being exposed to the light for too long. A number of years ago, the local June beetle population boomed, and the sounds of June bugs as they flew into and fed in the trees at night was loud enough to be mistaken for a breeze rustling the leaves. June bugs spend the day sheltered under the ground (or in the woven, front door mat) without tearing their flying wings, thanks to those elytra. They emerge after sunset over a period of several hours; yet at dawn, the whole population disappears within ten minutes. A June bug got into the BugLady’s house one night, and the cats found it the next day in the rug, burrowed under the foot of a chair. 

The diurnal manifestations of June beetles generally consist of individuals snagged in spider webs by the porch light (the BugLady can’t help but admire the pluck of these small spiders), or as high-fiber elytra, discarded on the ground, evidence of someone’s midnight snack. 

According to the excellent A Guide to Observing Insect Lives by Donald Stokes, the females of many species have such short wings that they are essentially flightless (so the beetle that crashes your party is probably a male). Females attract their mates via an airborne pheromone, which gives the old “Come hither” to males within twenty yards.

A female lays 50 to 100 eggs, a few at a time, in “cells” that she excavates in the soil. The eggs hatch soon afterward, and although some species of June beetles may live a total of three or four years, they spend most of that time as grubs. Insects that live longer than the usual eight or nine months must make plans to survive winters, and they also have the opportunity to develop an immune system.��The June beetle overwinters as a grub, below the frost line, for its first two years and although it pupates at the end of the next summer and emerges as an adult shortly afterward, it spends its third winter underground as an adult

June beetle larvae (the larvae of beetles are often called “grubs”) are known to people who grow lawns and gardens as “white grubs” (an inaccurate generic term). They are sometimes pests of grasses and agricultural crops (the BugLady has a color slide of a June beetle grub feeding on a newly-dug potato) and will move on down a row of plants, nibbling the roots of each plant as they go. Adults eat leaves of a variety of trees (“Phyllophaga” means “leaf eater”).

The larvae of the spectacular American  are parasitic on some ground-dwelling beetle grubs, including June beetles. Ms. Pelecinid bores her impressive ovipositor into the soil and deposits her eggs on her young’s larvae. A few flies are parasitoids of the adults. 

So, to summarize: June bugs are beetles (not bugs) that often appear at the end of May (and so are sometimes called May Beetles) and can be found through part of July (but are never called July Bugs).

The BugLady

The post June Beetle redux appeared first on Field Station.

Howdy BugFans,

Here are four articles about bugs from the excellent Smithsonian newsletter, which also covers archaeology, birds, current science news, creatures of the deep ocean, etc. Enjoy.

Many queen BUMBLE BEES overwinter in tunnels underground, and they develop these sites into nests in spring. What happens in wet spring?

Although preliminary reports say that MONARCHS overwintering in Mexico were found over a larger area this year than last year, there’s alarming news about some of our favorite insect ambassadors    

One problem with current surveys of insect species – indeed, surveys of any living thing – is that the people who conduct today’s counts may have little acquaintance with yesterday’s populations (remember all the bugs that used to hit the windshield in days of yore?). It’s called “Shifting Baseline Syndrome (SBS)” – what looks like a lot of butterflies may actually be only a fraction of what was counted 50 years ago. Insects are particularly susceptible to SBS because few people were interested enough in, say, bumble bees, a century ago to count them in any systematic way 

When asked what his studies had taught him about the nature of his Creator, the great British biologist J.B.S. Haldane is said to have replied that “God has an inordinate fondness for beetles.”&�Բ�����;

The BugLady

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

Greetings, BugFans,

The BugLady usually times the Wildflower Watch episodes so that BugFans can rush out and see the flower in bloom with its attendant bugs, but it’s the middle of January, and the BugLady is ready for spring. At least the Technicolor part of it (with apologies to the Cardinals and Blue Jays at the bird feeder but not to the Mourning Doves and Juncos).   

Cup-plant (Silphium perfoliatum) is one of four Silphium species (prairie dock, compass plant, rosinweed, and cup-plant) that are typically seen in our tallgrass prairies. The size and shape and arrangement of leaves varies with the species, but all are tough and gritty leaves that are difficult for insects to chew on. They are in the Aster family, related to sunflowers. Our shortest Silphium, rosinweed, may grow four or five feet tall, but the flowering stalks of the other species may be well over six feet.

It gets its name from the way the clasping, opposite leaves are fused around the stalk at their bases, forming a cup. They’re called perfoliate leaves, and the plant looks like its square stem is growing through a series of single leaves.

Cup-plant was used medicinally for colds, rheumatism, fevers, stomach ailments, and back pains, on burns, to prevent nausea, and more. Young leaves were cooked (and were rated by one author as “acceptable greens”), and the resin was used as a chewing gum. 

In Where the Sky Began, John Madson writes about compass plants that, “[Pioneers] found that [the compass plant] produced a pretty good brand of native chewing gum. Drops of clear sap exude from the upper third of the stem and solidify with exposure.

It has an odd, pine-resin taste that’s pleasant enough, but it must be firmed up before it’s chewed. A couple of summers ago I tried some of this sap while it was still liquid. It’s surely the stickiest stuff in all creation, and I literally had to clean it from my teeth with lighter fluid.” 

[DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME]

Insects land on plants to eat them, to rest for a bit, or to hunt for other insects, but there’s a fourth reason they land on cup-plant, and that’s to drink. After a rain, the cup contains water that attracts a variety of critters to drink and maybe to cool off. But despite what was once written in a prominent Midwestern seed catalog, the water in the cups does not digest the plant and animal debris that lands in it, like a pitcher plant does.

Cup-plant is what a gardening friend of the BugLady’s used to call, “a thug.” It can tolerate dry and rocky soils as well as rich, damp ones, and it “spreads vigorously” by both seeds and rhizomes (underground stems) – so much so that it’s considered an invasive in the Adirondacks and in some Northeastern states. Some people keep it in check by removing the flower heads before the seeds disperse, but its flowers are much appreciated by pollinators (especially, says the Xerces Society, “by honey bees, bumble bees, and big, showy butterflies ….. and leafcutter bees may use the hollow stems as nest sites”), and its seeds are eaten by birds. Because it is so easy to grow and grows so densely, it has been considered as a potential source of bio-fuel in recent years.

Cup-plants are a great place to find insects:

CUP-PLANT WATER collects after a rain and often lasts a few days before it dries out again. 

RED APHIDS come to cup-plants to eat (and be eaten). These are probably in the genus Urleucon, many of whose species feed on members of the Aster/Composite family. Multiple generations adorn the stalks and leaves of cup-plant, all wingless (unless, from an aphid’s point of view, things get really crowded and they need to disperse) and all are female (through the wonders of parthenogenesis – virgin birth) until they produce a winged generation with males at the end of the season. Watch the video and see “collective twitching and kicking response”, a.k.a. “CTKR” ().   

Click on image thumbnails below to view larger images.

A SMALL BIRD-DROPPING MOTH appears to be sipping the water.

And so does the RED or POLISHED LADYBUG, which is one of the BugLady’s favorite ladybugs/lady beetles because of the wonderful pattern on its . It’s one of three species of “Spotless Ladybugs” in the genus Cycloneda. Ladybugs are serious aphid predators both as .

The BROCHYMENA, or Rough stink bugs, of recent BOTW fame, are plant-eaters. Their camouflage was designed for tree trunks, not green leaves.

Although this DADDY LONGLEGS looks like it came for the water, its camouflage will allow it to nab some unsuspecting, visiting insect. 

A LAND SNAIL takes advantage of some water and maybe rasps the cup-plant’s leaves looking for algae, fungi, and leaf-bits to eat.

A DIMORPHIC JUMPING SPIDER subdued something that had very long, slender legs. Another daddy longlegs?

The CICADA is one of the Dog-day/Annual cicadas in the genus Neotibicen. Unlike the fancy , these are our everyday cicadas. They take several years to develop underground, but the generations overlap and so they are present every year (which is why they’re called “annual”). They get their liquid by poking their strong “beaks” into twigs and drinking the watery sap, so the cup was just a perch for it.

CANDY-STRIPED LEAFHOPPER – what a gem!

FORK-TAILED BUSH KATYDIDS are found in grasslands, woodlands, and thickets across most of North America from Mexico well north into Canada. There are some . The BugLady loves their . They don’t yell “Katy-did” – in fact, .

The PRAYING MANTIS did not just come for the view.

TIGER SWALLOWTAIL – the BugLady’s favorite large, showy butterfly.

Not all of the cup-plant’s visitors are invertebrates – the BugLady often sees TREE FROGS cooling off in cup-plant water on hot summer days, and small birds drink water there.. 

This is the second in the Cup-plant Cosmos series (for the first installment). The BugLady has also seen paper wasps, yellowjackets, a two-striped grasshopper, mirid plant bugs, a variety of flies, a land snail, and a spring peeper on its flowers and leaves. 

For Northern BugFans, those colors are Green and Yellow. You remember them. 

The BugLady

The post Wildflower Watch – Cup-Plant Cosmos II 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 �ǴDZ�ٳ�𳦲�����(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�����Ի���Araneus���ǰ����ɱ𲹱������., 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.