The BugLady loves crab spiders, so she’s been thrilled to find two, new (to her) species in the last few years.��One, the Whitebanded crab spider, is in the family Thomisidae, a family of, well, crab-shaped spiders, many of whom make their living on flower tops, and many of whom, in the genera��Misumena, Misumenoides, and Misumenops��(Mecaphesa), can be tricky to ID. We’ll meet the other one next week.��

Whitebanded crab spiders (Misumenoides formosipes) (formosipes��is from the Latin for “beautiful leg/foot”) are named for a white band that crosses their face, right below the level of the eyes (depending, of course, on whether the spider is right-side-up or up-side-down). But there’s a catch.��Like the very common Goldenrod crab spider (Misumena viata), female WBCSs can change colors depending on where they’re sitting – from white to yellow and back – by secreting or excreting yellow pigment from their normally-white outer cell layer (cuticle).��Turning yellow takes longer – up to three weeks – than does reverting to white.��In its yellow form, it could be called the Yellow-banded crab spider .��Other common names include Red banded crab spider and Ridge-faced flower spider.

They’re widespread, found in Ontario and much of the US, excepting the Northwest quadrant.��

WBCSs have eight eyes – four are arranged in a straight line, two are above that, and the other two are around the edges.��As is common in spiders, females are much larger than males, and they have dark markings on their legs, which separates them from some of the other genera of flower crab spiders.��Females come in a variety of colors , , and .��Males typically have a red/orange/gold abdomen, and their four front legs are dark , but they can’t switch colors.

WBCSs don’t make trap webs; they’re ambush predators that hang out on flowers and attempt to grab any visitor to the flower that looks toothsome, even if it’s slightly larger than they are.��They are frequently collected by various mud dauber wasps – stung, paralyzed, and used to provision the wasp’s egg chambers – food for eventual wasp larvae. Spider eggs and spiderlings provide food for lots of predators.��

Males, especially when they are actively hunting for a mate, are nectivores, feeding on pollen and nectar, especially on Queen Anne’s lace.��Searching for a mate takes up a good deal of a male’s time, so he employs a “Bird in the Hand” strategy.��He locates a female before she becomes fully mature (unmated penultimate female), and he guards her until she is old enough to reproduce.��He lives on her inflorescence and takes on rival males, but despite his devotion – and energy investment – whichever male is closest after she undergoes her final molt will likely be the lucky spider, although the resident male does have the home-field advantage.��

Female WBCSs like Black-eyed Susans, and males search for likely flowers by their smells.��His small size and light weight allow him to jump from one flower head to another or to loose a line of web into the wind and to tightrope across it after it sticks to the next flower.

Females create silk sacs holding 80 to 180 eggs, attach them to leaves, and guard them until she eventually freezes.��The spiderlings exit the egg sac in spring.��

Yes – they do eat pollinators, and everyone loves pollinators.��But these are native spiders feeding on native pollinators, and they worked all that out a long time ago – their food habits don’t upset the Balance of Nature, and they supply protein for larger critters. Some apologists point to the fact that the presence of predators improves the defenses of prey species over time.��

Go outside, look for bugs!��The BugLady visited a wetland on a warm day recently and saw some Common Green Darners messing around in a stand of last year’s cattails.

The BugLady

The post Whitebanded Crab Spider appeared first on Field Station.

Dragonflies!��But not soon enough!��

Quick and dirty dragonfly phenology (phenology – the study of Mother Nature’s calendar.��Cliff notes version – things appear/bloom/disappear/migrate in pretty much the same order every year, we just can’t predict the start date). Common Green Darners lead the parade, their arrival from the south governed by temperature and by the same weather fronts that bring migratory birds north (coinciding, hopefully, with the emergence of some insect prey for both).��Migrating Variegated Meadowhawks show up in early May – or they don’t.��The next tier, usually airborne by mid-May, includes Common Baskettails, Common Whitetails, Chalk-fronted Corporals, Four-spotted Skimmers, and the aptly-named Springtime Darners.

Brush-tipped Emeralds (Somatochlora walshii) are summer dragonflies. 

They’re in the Emerald family (Corduliidae), represented in Wisconsin by the baskettails, shadowdragons, boghaunters, a couple of smaller emeralds (Racket-tailed and American), and thirteen members of the genus��Somatochlora, the Striped or Green-eyed Emeralds (). Somatochlora��comes from the Greek for “green body.”��Emeralds are called emeralds because in many species, the adults, especially the adult males, have emerald-green eyes.��The BugLady can testify that when you’re walking down the trail with the sun at your back and you encounter an emerald that’s flying toward you, the glow of those eyes is a religious experience !��The most famous emerald here in God’s Country is the Federally Endangered Hine’s Emerald Hine’s Emerald Dragonfly—the Backstory – Field Station.

The Striped emeralds are, as the Wisconsin Odonata Survey website points out��“uncommonly seen, but this may be largely due to their secretive nature.”��It goes on to say that “the medium-sized, dark brown striped emeralds have some pale markings on the thorax and abdomen, black legs, clear wings and brilliant green eyes. The thorax has a metallic bronze-green sheen and the abdomen is dark metallic black-green.”��While some species live in the South, many are dragonflies of the North country, even living above the treeline.��

Look for Brush-tipped Emeralds near bogs, fens, marshes, and lake outlets, near slow streams, and over meadows and at the edges of coniferous woods in Canada and across the northern tier of the US (though small populations are found at higher elevations in the Appalachians). 

Emerald species are hard to tell apart in flight, but male Brush-tipped Emeralds have, well, a brushy tip that can be imagined as it flies by – as Kurt Mead says in��Dragonflies of the North Woods,��“the whiskered tips of the male Brush-tipped’s abdominal appendages are unlike those of any other North American species”���Ǵ���Somatochlora��“ (though the appendages of other species are not hairless). If they sit still long enough, you can see that the metallic-green abdomen has pale yellow spots that can help narrow down the identification.��Adult Brush-tipped Emeralds are about two inches long; males have short abdomens and females have proportionately longer abdomens than males.

Males are strong flyers, patrolling territories by flying low (less than three feet off the ground) along the edges of cool-water wetlands, abdomen arched, putting on aerial displays, chasing rivals, and looking for females.��Females lack the kind of ovipositor that would allow them to insert eggs into a plant stem, so they locate an area with lots of floating-leaved and submerged aquatic plants and they fly slowly, close to the water’s surface, dipping into or tapping it with the tip of their abdomen to release eggs (200 to 500 in all).��When the eggs hatch, the naiads hide in the vegetation. They sometimes oviposit into muck or wet moss.��

The BugLady got some Hail Mary shots of a female Brush-tipped Emerald (probably) who was considering a small lake inlet for ovipositing.

Adults hawk small, soft-bodied, easy-to-eat insects from the air (including mosquitoes) and consume them in flight.��Females fly above small woody clearings and along roads and trails.��They may forage for food away from water, but they remain attached to their natal wetland.��The naiads ambush any aquatic critters they can, including tiny tadpoles and fish, and they’re preyed on by bigger aquatic insects, fish, and frogs.��Spiders and birds catch the adults.��

The BugLady

The post Brush-tipped Emerald appeared first on Field Station.

Way back in 2008, deer flies appeared briefly (two paragraphs) in a BOTW episode called “A few Flies,” sharing the spotlight with mosquitoes and horse flies. Amazingly, that’s the only time deer flies have appeared in BOTW, and it’s past time to flesh out their story.

Deer flies are in the family Tabanidae, the horse and deer flies, and they’re in the subfamily Chrysopsinae, the deer/sheep/yellow flies (although one source says that they should be called “human flies”). There are 120 species of deer flies in North America, with more abroad, and a combined total of 30 species of horse and deer flies live in Wisconsin (lots of write-ups treat deer and horse flies together, because their life stories are similar).

They are found worldwide, and although the fast-flying adults may wander away from them, they are tied to wetlands because their larvae grow up in the water or in adjacent, damp soils. Adults can also be found patrolling sun-dappled woodlands and edges.

How do you know you’re looking at a deer fly?��There are some scientific/microscopic measurements involved, but in general, deer flies are smaller than horse flies but larger than house flies, and many have yellow and black-striped bodies, wings with pigmented splotches on them, colorful eyes that are adapted to function well in the bright sun of late spring and early summer, and noticeable mouthparts.

��

Famously/infamously, deer flies use those mouthparts to bite people and other mammals.��Only the females bite – she needs the blood to facilitate the development of her eggs.��Males are vegetarians who use their mouthparts to take nectar and pollen from flowers (she will also feed on nectar and pollen when she’s not in egg-laying mode).��The female’s mouthparts are described as “scissor like” – she uses them to make an x-shaped cut, and then she laps up the resulting blood, keeping it flowing with anticoagulants in her saliva.��Deer fly larvae are mainly carnivores that clean up on smaller invertebrates they find in water or moist soil.

Deer fly larvae are eaten by larger, aquatic carnivores like fish, predaceous diving beetles, and dragonfly naiads, and the adults fall prey to toads, killdeer, aerial insectivores like flycatchers and swallows, and dragonflies, and to wasps and hornets looking to stash them in their egg chambers as food for their eventual offspring. 

Science word of the Day: deer flies are “hydrobionts,” which means they need wet areas in order to reproduce. The dance may start with a breeding swarm where boy meets/pursues girl (in most species, the boys hatch out a couple of days before the girls). What starts in the air is consummated on the ground, and then females go looking for a blood meal before tucking masses of 100-plus eggs onto vegetation near/over water.��When the eggs hatch, the larvae (which come equipped with a “hatching spine” that helps facilitate their exit) drop into the water or onto damp soil. They may take more than a year to mature, depending on the size of the adults.

While she was doing her research, BugLady came across a few “Where are the deer flies this year?” articles (not that anyone was complaining). One attributed the low number of flies in their area to a very wet summer that flooded the breeding areas, and the other to a very dry summer that shrank the breeding areas. Deer fly pupae crawl up on plant stems or moist wetland edges just before they emerge, so too much or too little water can affect them.��One article asked why there were so many deer flies that year, and the answer circled back to a wet spring and a hot summer (apparently, when it comes to precipitation, deer flies are like Mama Bear).��Happily, they aren’t on the scene long – if mosquito season is a marathon; deer fly season is a sprint.��

Much has been written about a female mosquito’s use of our individual cocktail of odors as she zeros in on potential targets – that personal��jean es se qua��that’s made up of our CO_2,��sweat, fruity-smelling shampoo, and scented laundry detergent, deodorant, and hand lotion (it’s difficult to be unscented in the 21^st��century).��But deer flies hunt largely by eye, stimulated by the sight of large, dark, warm, moving objects (including cars), so the repellants that deter mosquitoes don’t work on deer flies. The good news is that although a number of microbes have been identified in a deer fly’s “mouth,” there’s only one disease they are known to transmit in North America – tularemia (aka rabbit fever) is spread by deer flies in the western US.��

The pain from a deer fly’s bite is in bee sting territory (it’s been described as “poking a red-hot needle into your skin”).��Her saliva may cause further pain and itching, and some people are allergic to deer fly bites.��If DEET won’t do it, what will?��Dressing for success helps, in light-colored, loose-fitting long sleeves, long pants, and a hat (because when deer flies check us out, they start at the top), and some folks add mesh netting over the cap.��Some swear that deer flies are attracted to the color blue.��Several sources promised that deer flies are inactive at temperatures under 70 degrees F, but others laughed at that notion.

People have gotten pretty creative in aid of avoiding deer flies, using devices that are homemade and store-bought, sacred and profane, and just plain embarrassing.��Sticky patches to attach to your hat, and hats with built-in sticky patches are easy to find in sporting goods stores (see picture ), or you can DIY with loops of duct tape.��One author wrote of spreading sticky stuff like Tanglefoot on a cup (think red or blue 16 oz Solo cup) and taping the cup to the top of his hat on his walks.����

The BugLady wears a hat on her perambulations, and she enjoys listening to the deer flies bouncing off of it. 

Here are a few gems that the BugLady found while she was Googling.

From the Missouri Department of Conservation:

“In the 1800s, the upland prairies of Missouri’s Audrain County were late to be settled in large part due to the presence of these insects. The WPA-produced Missouri: A Guide to the “Show-Me” State (1941) put it this way: ‘At certain times of the year, the flies made day travel impossible, and even plowing and other farm work had to be done at night.’ Many other prairie regions in the American Midwest had similar problems with tabanid flies; in some cases, horses were said to be driven mad by the incessant attacks of horse and deer flies.”

From the Audubon Beidler Forest website:

“If you were to ask me which cloud of biting insects I would prefer, mosquitoes or deer flies? Well, you can outrun mosquitoes. Running away from deer flies just gets them excited.

A deer fly is also characterized by its ability to withstand a fairly good smack after it lands on a person and begins to bite. Often the fly falls lifelessly to the ground after being struck, yet within a few seconds uprights itself and then eventually takes to the air again in an attempt to make another attack.”

From Michigan State University Extension:

Deer flies “apparently have their place in U.S. history: Ross Arnett, author of , reports the following. ‘It is said the Declaration of Independence was signed by July 4, 1776 instead of a later date that would have permitted further discussion because the horse flies in Philadelphia were biting so fiercely at the time that the delegates decided to adjourn just to get away from them.’�ĝ

And finally, from “the World Around Us” podcast and blog, which “seeks to arouse your sense of wonder and motivate you to act on behalf of nature at every opportunity.”:

Blogger Sarah O’Malley reminds us that every organism has a job to do, and that deer flies do theirs very well.��She concludes that, “No body likes hanging out with deer flies. But all the same, I prefer a world where they exist, a world as full as it can be with as many different kinds of organisms as possible, a world rich and damp and squirming with life. That is truly the point of it all, and we can’t do it without the biters and scratcher anymore than we can do without the cute furry babies and the fluffy little birds. They all count, every last knife like mouthpart wielding one.”

Thanks to BugFan Sophie for taking the picture of the cute little deer fly on the BugLady’s hat.

The BugLady

PS – BOTW was born (as a joke) back in August of 2007.��What with the reruns and the time-outs, it’s taken a while to get here, but this is, by the BugLady’s count, episode #800.�� Thanks, BugFan Patrick – and we’re both still going strong! (-ish)

The post Deer Fly at Last appeared first on Field Station.

It’s almost time for Snowbirds to head back north to rejoin us here in God’s Country for the final days/weeks/months of winter. The BugLady read recently that the number of days below freezing in March here in God’s Country has��drastically��decreased in the past 25 years, and March is increasingly considered a spring month rather than a winter month (but when the BugLady was a kid……..). The temperature may be moderating, but March still has plenty of tricks up her sleeve, and most of them involve snow.

BugFan Tom supplied the pictures of this big, beautiful spider that inhabits the South from Virginia to Texas (and beyond, to Argentina and Peru).��Thanks, Tom.��

The brightly-patterned females may be more than two inches long with a five-inch leg span, (males are much smaller ). A spider this big (probably our largest orb weaver) that makes big webs necessarily gets noticed and collects lots of names, like Banana Spider, Golden Orb Weaver, Calico Spider, Golden Silk Spider, and Giant golden Orbweaver, and people who walk into the webs while hiking probably have other names for them.��MUCH has been written about their golden silk ��– more about that later.

The Golden silk orb weaver (Trichonephila��clavipes) was formerly known as��Nephila clavipes. Nephila��means “fond of spinning” and��clavipes��means “club-footed,” possibly a reference by Linnaeus to the dark tufts of hair on six of the female’s legs.��Recently, it and a dozen other genus members were moved to the genus��Trichonephila��– the Golden orb weavers.��Historically, GSOWs were the only member of that genus in North America, but in 2014, an East Asian species called the Joro spider found its way to Georgia, and it’s been spreading out through the Southeast .������

Look for GSOWs in open areas in woods or edges, preferably near wetlands or coastal areas. 

Male GSOWs spin trap webs until they reach maturity, but then they set off to find a mate.��When they find a female’s web, they quietly move onto its periphery and feed on some of the prey she catches, and a female’s web may host a number of males.��Dewdrop spiders Dewdrop Spider – Field Station and Spiney-backed orb weavers Spinybacked Orbweaver– A Spider for Snowbirds – Field Station also live on the web’s outskirts and share in the bounty.��An amorous male will approach the female while she is distracted by a meal, and he signals by vibrating both the web and his abdomen (he’s cautious, but there’s not a lot of sexual cannibalism in this species).��Males don’t produce much sperm, and they replace it slowly, so they favor newly-molted females who have not mated yet.��After he mates/attempts to mate, a male may move on to a new web.��

Females place two or more egg sacs, each containing a few hundred eggs, on surfaces near their web .��Hatching may be triggered by environmental cues in their damp habitats. The spiderlings stick together for about a week after hatching , and then they disperse.��By late summer, the tiny spiderlings of spring have reached full size and are making conspicuous webs.

This is a big spider that builds a big, strong web (up to six feet in diameter) that is capable of snagging some big prey, like moths, fast-flying horse flies, dragonflies (which are both GSOW eaters and eat-ees), butterflies , beetles (this one is June-beetle-size) , cicadas, and grasshoppers.��Though they trap both small and large prey, they prefer to eat the bigger insects.��

The webs are sturdy enough to capture birds. Daniel M. Brooks, in an article titled “Birds Caught in Spider Webs: A Synthesis of Patterns” published in the Wilson Journal of Ornithology (2012), wrote that a review of international literature and list servers found 69 accounts of birds trapped in webs.��Nephila��species, especially GSOWs, accounted for half of the reports of mostly hummingbird-sized birds (though a small dove was reported, and the author personally observed a Swainson’s thrush tangled in a web), and while some were able to free themselves, a significant number had been killed and wrapped by the spider.

The asymmetrical, orb-type web is usually located between two and eight feet off the ground (but may be at treetop height). When prey is abundant, GSOWs may cache as many as 15 wrapped insects in a “barrier web” – a debris-strewn area along one side that serves to warn/block predators and help keep the web clean.��One source said that the organic waste held in the barrier web may attract insect prey by its odor.��

GSOWs’ main predators are wasps that collect them to provision their egg chambers, and birds. 

Unlike many species of orb weavers that replace their webs daily, eating the old web to harvest its protein, GSOWs repair damaged webs.��Researchers believe that the yellow tint, the intensity of which the spiders can control, may attract bees, and it may also help to camouflage a web in the shade.��A number of females may make webs close to each other .

This is some serious silk!!!��Nephila/Trichonephila��silk has a high thermal conductivity, is stronger, by weight, than steel (it’s being studied with hopes of replicating its extreme strength), and it has some interesting medical applications.��Wikipedia reports that it may be beneficial in surgeries involving the nervous system because it may guide and encourage neuronal regeneration.��

Wikipedia also reports that hunters in New Guinea make fishing nets from the silk.

Finally, enterprising folks have experimented with it as a textile, creating garments (thanks to the labors of millions of spiders) .��

FUN FACT ABOUT SPIDERS: the tips of the legs of spiders that wander around and don’t make trap webs point outwards, and the tips of the legs of trap-web-spinners point inwards.

FUN FACT ABOUT NEPHILA/TRICHONEPHILA SPIDERS: The genus Nephila is not only the oldest-known surviving spider genus (165 million years), but it includes the largest-known fossil spider.

The BugLady

The post Golden Silk Orb Weaver – A Snowbird Special appeared first on Field Station.

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.

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.

2026��– When the BugLady wrote this episode in February of 2013, she kicked it off by griping about the weather – a favorite, February, indoor sport.��This year, we’ve had many days of below average, below freezing, and below zero temperatures.��How cold is it?��Three weeks ago, one of her water pipes froze and burst, and when she tossed the sodden beach towels out the door into the yard, they froze instantly.��They’re still stuck solidly to the ground.

This rerun contains a few new words (because who can look at a 13-year-old manuscript and not tweak it?), but all new pictures, because the Eastern Amberwing is a wondrous creature to photograph, even when it’s hovering just out of range.

2013��– The weatherman keeps saying “Mixed precipitation” and it’s making the BugLady plenty crabby, so she’s going to think about dragonflies, instead. Here’s a little bit of sunshine on the wing.

Several BugFans have asked the BugLady how she selects the stars of BOTW.��First, she needs a decent picture to spin the tale around, and Eastern Amberwings have posed prettily (some of them). This tiny dragonfly has some interesting stories to tell.

At a hair under an inch in length, the Eastern Amberwing (Perithemis��tenera) is the second smallest dragonfly in Wisconsin (the very-uncommon Elfin Skimmer is a bit smaller and is not yellow).��Some damselflies, like this Spreadwing , are longer than Amberwings, but damselflies are slim and dragonflies are bulky.��Their flashy wings make them look bigger than an inch to the BugLady.��The male EA’s wings are pure gold; the female’s wings are brown-spotted on a sometimes-amber background (she resembles a tiny Halloween Pennant, of previous BOTW fame).��Males and females have yellowish legs and have rings around the segments of their abdomens.��The abdomens of both are thick (the female’s looks especially swollen).��

Because of their coloring, their rapid, erratic flight, and the way they twitch their wings and abdomens when at rest, EAs are considered wasp mimics.��Their wasp “disguise” may save them from aerial and terrestrial predators, but the BugLady found a website instructing fly fishermen on how to tie an EA fly, so apparently fish are willing to take a chance.

Where do you find them?��Over most of the US, east of the Great Plains and south into Mexico.��Here in God’s Country, they fly in mid-summer, but they grace the landscape year-round in the southernmost parts of their range.��Look for them near quiet or��very��slowly-moving waters (the BugLady often sees them in the bays and inlets along the shore of the Milwaukee River).��Look for them, too, far from water, hunting at grass-top-height over weedy fields or perched on vegetation at a woodland’s edge.��

Where do you find them, entomologically speaking?��In the order Odonata (the dragonflies and damselflies) and in the family Libellulidae (the Skimmers).��Perithemis��apparently is a reference to Themis, a figure in Greek mythology, and a number of other Skimmer genera incorporate Themis’s name.��According to Berger and Hanson in��Dragonflies,��tenera��is Latin for “tender,” “delicate,” or “soft” and implies youth (a dragonfly is called a��teneral��during the first few days of adult life).

They are “perchers,” and unlike most dragonflies, may be seen sitting on flowers (they are��not��considered pollinators, despite the picture caption in one photo site).��On hot, summer days, they may lower their wings to shade their thorax and point their abdomens skyward to reduce direct contact by the sun’s rays. Eastern Amberwings find food by patrolling or by perching and watching; they catch insects in flight, but they generally perch to eat them.��Females often raise their abdomens while in flight.��

The aquatic young (naiads) eat tiny fellow-aquatic invertebrates, and unlike the more specialized naiads of other dragonflies, they use all parts of their habitat, hunting at any depth in their pond’s water column.��For their carnivorous ways, Eastern Amberwings and other dragonflies are given a thumbs-up by a Florida pest control service, which says, “From the tiny��Eastern Amberwing, to the flamboyant��Halloween Pennant, dragonflies are some of the most important and charismatic beneficial bugs. They’re indiscriminate predators of many pest insects, including mosquitoes, flies, ants and wasps…… Next time you see one zip across your yard, consider saying thanks to the dragonfly for helping to control the pest population.”��

Eastern Amberwings sure know how to court a gal.��A male flies low over the water, patrolling a territory of choice egg-laying turf (weedy aquatic sites) about 20 feet wide and defending it vigorously – darting out at intruders and displaying with those spectacular wings.��When a female approaches, he follows and courts her, swaying back and forth, abdomen raised. If she’s agreeable, she follows him home.��He hovers over his territory while she evaluates it, and if she likes it, she gets him along with it.��After mating, she lays eggs – usually alone, but sometimes under his watchful eye. The blob that she releases from the tip of her abdomen explodes as it enters the water, releasing as many as 150 eggs over the water’s surface.��In his zeal to protect his “investment,” the male sometimes grabs an intruding male and flies in tandem with him, keeping him away from the female.��

It’s not surprising that a critter that’s as flashy, as unmistakable, as widely distributed, and that has so many interesting behaviors has attracted the scientific community.��A number of different studies have demonstrated, at least, that Eastern Amberwings have attitude. Here are some of the things that have been discovered about them:

• Site fidelity��– Once a male finds what he thinks is a high-quality spot to lay eggs (an oviposition site), he protects it by day (he leaves at night to roost in a tree).��He will defend it for days, especially if he has mated there.��If he deliberately changes territories, he “moves up” to a higher quality site.��He can be evicted from his territory by a feistier male.��

• Heterospecific pursuit��– Besides chasing each other, male Eastern Amberwings chase after any flying insect that could be mistaken for another Eastern Amberwing (that’s heterospecific pursuit).�� They’ve been observed pursuing large horse flies and small skipper butterflies, but they ignore larger dragonflies.�� Researchers concluded that following a horsefly was simply a case of mistaken identity of a similar-sized insect, but there may be something about the skipper’s coloration that pushed the Eastern Amberwings’ buttons. ��

• The cost of doing business��– Defending a territory is “expensive,” and the more “close neighbors” an Eastern Amberwing has, the costlier it is for him.��Having more neighbors results in more intrusions.��More intrusions mean more energy spent chasing intruders or simply darting around being territorial.��Expensive? Yes, but non-territorial males rarely get to pass on their genetic material.��

• Home field advantage��– Unlike those of some other Skimmers, Eastern Amberwing’s territorial disputes may escalate, but they are non-contact sports.��If the aggression does not build, the territory-holder tends to win, but if the conflict escalates, victory often goes to the younger Eastern Amberwing.��Males who had fewer interactions overall tended to have more energy and win low-key conflicts. The territory-holder may win other face-offs because he psyches out the competition or because the intruder decides he doesn’t like the territory enough to fight for it.��

• Spatial learning��– Dragonflies can remember the locations within their habitat where they find food, breed, and roost, and they know the routes between those places.��A male will be more faithful to a territory where he has mated and less interested in a territory where he’s been beaten by a rival.

The BugLady

The post Eastern Amberwing Redux appeared first on Field Station.

BugFan Dave shared these spectacular pictures of a very cool beetle that he found last summer – a ground beetle in the family Carabidae, a huge family with 40,000+ species. It’s in the subfamily Scaritinae, the “Pedunculate ground beetles,” so-named for the constriction – peduncle – between the wider thorax and abdomen.��The wonderful “MOBugs” blogspot (“Missouri’s Majority”) suggests that they should be called “Scary pincher ground beetles.”��It’s in the genus��Scarites��(skar-EYE-tees), a genus that numbers about 190 species worldwide with seven or eight (or nine) species in North America, most of them with very small, very southern ranges.��

More about the ID of this beetle in a sec. 

SCARITES – THE GENUS

Scarites��beetles are often found under loose rocks and bark, boards, mulch, leaf litter, and debris, on forest��floors, on or burrowing into moist, sandy soil, in gardens, in residential areas, and at the edge of agricultural fields.��They’re common, though, alas, the BugLady’s never seen one – she needs to turn over more logs.��Their mandibles and general air of invincibility cause some people to mistake them for stag beetles , which are in a different family.

They are shiny and black, with spiky legs and an armored-looking head.��The elytra (hard wing covers) are ridged/grooved, and a couple of “creases” on the shield that covers the thorax form a “T.” Males tend to be larger and “toothier” than females, with a slightly more bulging head.��Some sources describe the larvae as looking like “fast-moving millipedes with large jaws” .

Like many ground beetles, they are fierce and speedy predators that shelter during the day and hunt at night.��Pedunculate ground beetles –��La mère, le père et les enfants��– eat a variety of surface and soil-dwelling invertebrates like earthworms, slugs and snails, caterpillars, maggots, ants, etc.��It’s also reported that they eat insect eggs and that they scavenge on dead insects, including dead��Scarites, and that they may eat some plant material.��They’re considered beneficial around gardens and agricultural fields, though they don’t discriminate between pest and non-pest prey. At an inch-or-so long, they’re big enough so that researchers have attached transmitters to their abdomens to track their activities in agricultural fields! Some ground-foraging songbirds eat them.��

In fact, several Extension publications offered tips about attracting Scarites beetles to your garden, creating a refuge by leaving a portion of lawn bare and/or un-mowed and/or brushy (all of which benefits solitary wasps, too), and, as always, by limiting/eliminating pesticides.

The BugLady couldn’t find much about their biographies other than the fact they overwinter as both larvae or adults, and the fact that when they’re alarmed, they will fall over, pull in their antennae and legs, stiffen, and play dead.��One blogger reported a strange, but not unpleasant odor when he handled a “dead” one. The mandibles appear to be Defense Option B.

There’s a video of a��Scarites��beetle on the “All Bugs Go to Kevin” blog , and one of a larva at the original Bug of the Week site��, where Professor Raup reports seeing them in his garden, “On several occasions I have seen Scarites larvae dashing across patios and walkways as they move from one planting bed to the next.”

So – which Scarites is this?

THE LONG-JAWED PEDUNCULATE GROUND BEETLE (Probably)

The two most common, most widely-distributed genus members in North America are the Big-headed/Pedunculate ground beetle (Scarites subterraneus)����and��Scarites vicinus , which most sources said has no common name but that one source called the Long-jawed pedunculate ground beetle.��The two are tough to tell apart, even by experts.��The BugLady is going to take her usual taxonomic leap and say that this is��Scarites vicinus, based on her reading of the shape of the three antennal segments (antennomeres) – slightly elongated vs round . Scarites vicinus��is also larger than��Scarites subterraneus, with a broader head, and the shield on the thorax is “rounder.” All of which can be somewhat subjective – the eye of the beholder.��There’s more information available about the Big-headed ground beetle than there is about the Long-jawed pedunculate ground beetle.��

They’re found in a few mid-Atlantic states, a couple of Gulf states, and some Great Lakes states – and South Dakota.

Thanks, Dave.��

The BugLady

The post Long-jawed Pedunculate Ground Beetle appeared first on Field Station.

BugFan Danielle sent these shots and wondered if the moth might be a Bee moth (Aphomia sociella) (the Bee moth is not to be mistaken for the amazing little Moth fly, of previous BOTW fame -?). The BugLady agreed that it could very well be, but she emphasized that if there is a secret handshake for moth identification, she hasn’t learned it yet.

Bee moths are in the family Pyralidae, the Grass or Snout moths (the family Crambidae shares the name “Snout moths,” and for the same reason – because the sensory mouthparts (labial palps) of some members are prominent and protruding ). This is the BugLady’s favorite Pyralid moth . 

Pyralids are mostly small, drab moths, some of which, like the Bee moth, take a toll on economically important plants or pollinators, some of which control unwanted plants, some of which are bred commercially as pet foods and bait, and many of which simply live out their lives under our radar. Pyralid moths may hold their wings flat at rest or may roll them () or may hold them out to the sides. They have tymbals (hearing organs), presumably so they can detect bats’ echolocation signals and dodge them. Their larvae live concealed lives in stems, fruits, or seeds, within tied leaf shelters, in the soil, or in nests of bees and wasps and sometimes mice. 

BEE MOTHS, also called Bumble bee wax moths, aren’t from around here. They were first reported in North America in 1864, and like the BugLady’s ancestors, they came over on the boat from Europe. They’re found in the northeastern quadrant of North America from Tennessee, north (plus Mississippi), and in a few western states and British Columbia. 

Their wingspan is listed as about 0.70 to 1.50 inches, which is quite a range in a species this size, especially since females are not much larger than males. They may be tan, reddish , or greenish . Males are more intensely-colored and patterned, and females have a dark spot in the middle of each fore (top) wing. They seem to have a little iridescence going on.

Courtship is complicated, involving wing-fanning and the deployment of pheromones by both females and males (whose scents may also repel competitors, but if that doesn’t work, fisticuffs may ensue). Males also produce ultrasonic sounds (songs). One source suggested that the pheromones are biosynthesized from the Aspergillus fungus eaten by the larvae in nests and hives. Using her sense of smell, a female locates exposed, above-ground nests of some social bees and wasps like honey bees, bumble bees, German yellowjackets, and bald-faced hornets and lays as many as 100 eggs there. She arrives in early summer, before the hive/nest population peaks and the hosts’ defenses strengthen. 

Several sources labeled the small, yellow larvae as “inquilines,” feeding on the nest detritus, waste, dead bodies, pollen and honey, wax, and fungus from within a tough tent of silk. But they’re not just harmless guests – they cross the line by damaging the nest structure with their tunneling and later with their dense webs and galleries , and as they get older, by eating the eggs, larvae, and pupae of their hosts (unusual because most moth larvae are vegetarians). In some cases, the larvae may end up relegated to a small section of a nest as it expands. They exit the nest in fall, overwinter as larvae, and pupate in spring. They are not welcome in commercial bee operations, and they seem more able to get a foothold in honey bee hives that are already compromised.

The feeding tent may protect larvae in case their hosts discover them; adult moths play possum when alarmed, which may serve them both outside and inside the host’s nest.

Sources danced around the severity of the impact that Bee moths might have on honey bees. They’re obviously a potential problem in commercial bee operations, but they’re not listed among the major offenders – various mites and lice and the larvae of another alien Pyralid called the Wax moth – and the internet didn’t light up with Bee moth Wanted posters. A blog from Yorkshire, England stated that “They are not a pest of honey bees.” An interesting point was made in one research paper about the connection between nearby commercial honey bee operations and the health of wild bumble bee nests. Researchers noted that competition with honey bees – sharing food resources – stresses bumble bees, and that having honey bees as close neighbors increases the risk of transferring disease organisms and parasites (like Bee moths) from honey bee hives to bumble bee nests, where their impact may be greater.

Thanks, Danielle! 

The BugLady

The post Bee Moth appeared first on Field Station.

It’s the start of December – and of meteorological winter – and it’s cold out, and the BugLady is still wondering what, exactly, happened to August. Here’s a little slice of August, from 15 years ago.

The BugLady’s advice for the day is: Find yourselves a big clump of goldenrod and start looking. Bring your camera. Bring a lawn chair. Bring Eaton & Kaufman’s Field Guide to Insects of North America and The Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Insects and Spiders by Lorus and Marjory Milne so you can find out what you’re looking at. Bring Donald W. Stokes’ excellent A Guide to Observing Insect Lives so you can find out what they’re doing there. You have time – one inscrutable species of goldenrod follows the next, from mid-August through the end of September (botanist Asa Gray once said that the 12 pages devoted to goldenrod taxonomy were the most boring in his book). Each critter has its own story, and it is in understanding the small stories that we start to get a handle on the big picture. 

Worried about pain? The BugLady has been photographing insects for 35 years, and she really, really gets in bugs’ faces, but she has never been bitten or stung in the process (well, except for some peripheral ants, but ants have been lying in wait for the BugLady all of her life). 

Worried about allergies? The pollen of goldenrod is large and is not spread through the air, but its showy flowers take the rap for the very airborne pollen produced by inconspicuous, green ragweed flowers.

What will you see? 

HONEYBEES who, if they start the day on a yellow flower, continue to visit yellow flowers (a phenomenon called flower constancy); 

Worker BUMBLE BEES who can “buzz pollinate” some flowers – set up a vibration that loosens the pollen so they can collect it and carry it to an underground nest to nourish their queen and siblings – with no inkling that when goldenrods bloom, bumblebee days are almost over; 

PENNSYLVANIA LEATHERWING (Soldier) beetles, seldom alone, who visit the flower tops to feed and frolic (count the antennae) and who discourage predators with poisonous chemicals that drip from the bases of their legs;

SOLITARY WASPS catching a light snack of pollen or nectar for themselves while hoping to catch a fellow arthropod to provision their offspring’s egg chamber;

BUTTERFLIES, the most graceful among us, who surround us with magic;

LADYBIRD BEETLES grazing on herds of aphids;

AMBUSH BUG – Insects that are sitting way too still, who may still be in the clutches of a well-camouflaged predator like the ambush bug (here with a Syrphid fly), who grabs and immobilizes them, injects a meat tenderizer, slurps out their innards, and discards the empties;

MOTHS – small, amorous, plain and fancy;

SPIDERS, who catch their prey using tools (an orb-weaver’s web) or ambush (jumping spiders);

BLISTER BEETLES, whose velvety, black coat contains an itch-and-lump-producing chemical that will bug you for a week.  Like the Pennsylvania, they are August specialties;

SYRPHID (HOVER, FLOWER) FLIES that come in sizes so small that their flight doesn’t even rustle the pollen grains;

GRASSHOPPERS AND KATYDIDS, who see us coming and launch themselves into the air with a thrust of legs and wings;

TACHINID FLIES, they of the bristly butts, who lay their eggs on flowers so that their young can climb aboard an unwary insect and eat it from the inside, out.

TIPHIID WASPS, whose larvae prey on soil-dwelling larvae of some scarab beetles like June beetles. The female doesn’t bring food to her egg; she brings her egg to food. When the female wasp locates a grub in the ground), she lays an egg on/near it

They’re all there, and more. Pollinators and predators. The drama of life and death playing out hundreds of times against the buttery backdrop of goldenrod, whose Ojibwe name means “sun medicine.” 

Carpe diem,

The BugLady

The post Goldenrod Watch redux appeared first on Field Station.