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.”&�Բ�����;

Carpe diem,

The BugLady

The post Goldenrod Watch redux appeared first on Field Station.

The BugLady took to the trails this summer as much as her shiny, new knee and the oppressive heat and humidity allowed (her preferred maximum temperature is 72 degrees.��The gods didn’t cooperate).��Here are some of the bugs she found.��

BLUE DASHER OVIPOSITING – A female Blue Dasher bobs up and down as she looses eggs into the water. Blue Dashers don’t oviposit “in tandem,” with the male guarding her by maintaining his grip at the back of her head, but the male stays close, flying around her as she dips the tip of her abdomen into the water, and chasing off rival males that would carry her away.

CICADA – When the BugLady was little, the treetops sizzled with cicada calls in August (she called them “hot bugs,” because when they emerged, it was). The only species she heard back then was the dog day cicada��Dogday Cicada (Family Cicadidae) – Field Station, but for the past decade, she has heard fewer and fewer of them each year .��

This year, she has been enjoying the songs of a Linne’s cicada and an dusk-calling Scissor-grinder cicada , too, both of whom are southern/southeastern species that are inching north. Welcome!

CABBAGE BUTTERFLY ON PURPLE LOOSESTRIFE – A dainty, white butterfly on a pretty, fuchsia flower.��Both are non-native (hint: the butterfly’s caterpillar is known as the European cabbage worm), and both are “naturalized,” that is, having been introduced and/or having escaped into the wild, they are doing very well on their own, thank you.��Only a very small percentage of non-native, naturalized species go on to create problems and to get a third label – “invasive.”��For a nice discussion, see .��

EASTERN PONDHAWK AND MEADOWHAWK – It’s a dragonfly-eat-dragonfly world out there.

MILKWEED TUSSOCK MOTH AND CRAB SPIDER – The BugLady has been receiving some queries recently from BugFans whose milkweed is looking pretty ratty.��The culprit?��The Milkweed tussock moth , whose caterpillar is sometimes called the Harlequin caterpillar.��Mom lays masses of eggs, and the caterpillars feed gregariously for a while, skeletonizing leaves by eating the tender tissue between the leaf veins.��Then they go their separate ways and eat the leaves down to their midribs.��Bugguide.net says, in an understatement, that the caterpillars “May defoliate patches of milkweed.”��

Allegedly, they don’t interfere with Monarch caterpillars because they eat the old, leathery leaves that the monarchs don’t, and because they’re gearing up as the Gen 5 Monarchs are readying themselves for their trip south.

No, the BugLady did not see the crab spider, and what looks like an egg sac, when she took the picture.

PICTURE-WINGED FLY – This spiffy fly (genus��Rivelli, family Platystomatidae) walks around, twitching its wings constantly, sending semaphore signals to nearby females. For its story, see Signal Fly (Family Platystomatidae) – Field Station (only, the BugLady misspelled the family name).��What a treat to watch this little fly strutting his stuff!

WOOD/AMERICAN DOG TICK – Yes, they’re everywhere (they prefer grassy areas and forest edges), and yes, most people feel creepy just looking at a picture of one, feeling the phantom feet of phantom ticks tickling their skin. Dog ticks need three different hosts to get through their life cycles, and they can spread Rocky Mountain spotted fever as well as Tularemia (but if your dog comes down with Tularemia, it may be playing with the local bunnies). Various sources say that Wood ticks in Wisconsin don’t often carry diseases and that Rocky Mountain spotted fever (or any Spotted fever rickettsiosis) are (for now) rare here.��They don’t spread Lyme disease.

VIRGINIA CTENUCHA CATERPILLAR –Lepidopterists say that the more spectacular the caterpillar, the more homely the adult, and vice versa. The Virginia Ctenucha moth is one of the exceptions that proves the rule .

The caterpillars are out and about early – this one was photographed in May, but they overwinter as caterpillars, and the BugLady encounters them strolling along on the warm road on a warm day in late winter or early spring.��Adults are large-ish, day-or-night-flying moths that tuck in under a leaf when alarmed.��The “C” is silent. –

WOOLLY ALDER APHIDS AND THEIR ANTS – We’ve seen it before – aphids going about their business, assisted by ants that protect them them in exchange for being able to “milk” them for honeydew, a sugary fluid that is a byproduct of the sap that flows through the aphids when they eat. Honeydew is an important carbohydrate for the ants that farm aphids and treehoppers.��If you’ve ever seen a leaf whose upper surface looks shiny and sticky, look up under the overhead leaves – they’re probably occupied by aphids.��Bees, wasps, flies, and other insects will visit the leaf to eat honeydew. The woolly aphid’s wool consists of waterproof, waxy filaments made in glands in the aphid’s abdomen.

EMERALD ASH BORER – They really are lovely, little beetles, with a surprise splash of crimson when their wings are spread .��But the extensive tunnels (called galleries ) that the larvae make below the bark disrupt the ash tree’s plumbing so that it can’t pump nutrients between its roots and crown.��

SEDGE SPRITES – One of the BugLady’s favorite damselflies, these little beauties are scarcely an inch long. 

WEEVILS ON PURPLE PRAIRIE CLOVER – Purple prairie clover is a lovely, native tallgrass prairie plant. The early settlers on the Great Plains nicknamed it “Devil’s shoelaces” because this skinny, two-foot-high plant may have roots that are six feet long – roots that grew deep enough to reach through the thick prairie sod to find water. That magnificent sod resisted the settlers attempts to plow it with their small, cast-iron plows until 1837, when John Deere invented the steel moldboard plow, which he fashioned from an old sawmill saw.��

At the top of the flower, there are two weevils, probably seed weevils in the genus��Apion, making whoopie.��Here’s a BOTW about seed weevils Baptisia Seed Pod Weevils (Family Curculionidae) – Field Station. No, the BugLady did not see the weevils when she took the picture.

STAG BEETLE – Yes, the BugLady���徱����see this Stag beetle as it emerged from her lawn one evening in July – the beetle looks big enough to trip over, and she moves like a tank.��Here’s her story Stag Beetle Lucanus Placidus – Field Station.

ROBBER FLY – Remember, bumble bees are vegetarians, so if you see a bumble bee with prey, it’s not a bumble bee.��Mimicking a bumble bee is a pretty good survival strategy – no one messes with bumble bees. This fly is in the genus��Laphria,��one of the “bee-like” robber flies. Their larvae live in rotten wood and feed on insects they find there, and the adults often prey on beetles (though the BugLady saw one make a pass at a Sulphur butterfly once).��Robber flies come in a variety of sizes and shapes – for information about Wisconsin robber flies (and butterflies and tiger beetles) see .

RED-BELTED BUMBLE BEES – are found west of the great plains and across southern Canada and our northern tier of states.��They are one of the short-tongued bumble bees, which means that they prefer “flatter” flowers like clovers, thistles, goldenrods, and asters. The BugLady doesn’t know where this one was hiking to – she saw several others on flowers in the area. A little rusty on bumble bees?��Here’s a great bumble bee guide from the Xerces Society:

Go outside, look at bugs,

The BugLady

The post Summer Sights – and Sounds appeared first on Field Station.

(with apologies to the Irish Folk Band “Cherish the Ladies”)

2025: The BugLady recently added an American Lady to her butterfly property list. It’s a lovely butterfly that can be mistaken for the Painted Lady, in the same genus (Vanessa). When she decided to rerun this episode (with some new pictures), the BugLady thought she should include a link to a BOTW about the Red Admiral, another genus member and world traveler��Red Admiral Butterfly (Family Nymphalidae) – Field Station, but she realized that she had somehow dropped the second last paragraph from the rewritten Red Admiral episode, and the final sentence makes no sense without it.��Here it is:

“One older source says that butterflies and moths void a drop of liquid (red, in some species) soon after leaving their pupal cases. They sometimes do this while airborne, and when large numbers of butterflies emerged simultaneously, the phenomenon, called “Red Rain” was in ancient times and is today the subject of wild religious fear, superstition, repentance and/or massacre.”

2016: The BugLady added the American Lady butterfly to this episode, originally posted in 2010, about Painted Lady butterflies. 

�ճ����PAINTED LADY��(Vanessa cardui) is a lovely, unpredictable summer visitor here in God’s Country. Also called the Thistle Butterfly and the Cosmopolitan, it can be seen in temperate areas on five continents and may have the biggest range of any butterfly. Not only does it live in a lot of places, it migrates to even more. Consequently, it is a very popular butterfly about which much is posted on-line (lots of sites about rearing them, too), and it is a butterfly with fan clubs and a research site (visit the Vanessa Migration Project at:����and find out how your observations as a Citizen Scientist can add to our knowledge about the���ղ��Ա��������).��

Painted Ladies are members of the Brush-footed butterfly family, Nymphalidae, a large group of (usually) medium-sized, often orangey butterflies. The Nymphalids are called “Brush-foots” – their front pair of legs is so reduced in size that they only use the back four feet to walk/stand on, and the vestigial front legs are tipped with bristles/brushes instead of feet (the bristles are sensory and incorporate the senses of smell and taste).��There are about 6,000 Nymphalid species worldwide.��Here in the Lower 48, the genus���ղ��Ա��������includes the Red Admiral (which has its own BOTW), the Painted Lady, and the American Lady, all of which wander, and the West Coast Lady, which pretty much doesn’t.��

Look for Painted Ladies in open, sunny areas – fields, road edges, gardens, dunes.��There the adults sip nectar, especially from thistle and clover flowers, and males defend their territories from perches. They also extract minerals from clay using their proboscis. Painted Ladies fly north in mid-spring and there are probably two broods per summer here. Eggs are laid on caterpillar food plants like hollyhock, nettle, and lupine, plus thistle and many other plants in the aster family (its catholic eating habits explain its five-continent range).��The solitary caterpillars����. When they are ready to pupate, they hang upside-down from a leaf, using a silk fastener, and there they .��

There’s a good deal of discussion about the “cold-hardiness” of the��Vanessas.��It’s agreed that it’s too cold here for any of the life stages to overwinter, though American Ladies are said to hibernate in the Southern US, and the Iowa State site reports that adult Red Admirals overwinter in hibernation almost as far north as New York State. And throw in Climate Change.��Stay tuned.��

Painted Ladies fly year-round in the southern and western US and Mexico.��They are seen in Wisconsin in small numbers every summer, but some years, when southern populations boom or the weather conditions are right, Painted Ladies head north in dramatic flights (they’re “irruptive migrants”).��

There are some interesting theories about a possible/partial correlation between��el Nino��weather cycles and Painted Lady migrations, both here and on the other continents where both the butterflies and the��el Ninos��occur.��Some populations of Painted Ladies live in very dry or in very rainy areas. Because a series of bad/low caterpillar years could devastate such a population, spreading out to different landscapes seems like a good idea, and migration is “built-in” to the butterflies’ behavior.��Storm patterns change during��el Nino��years, often bringing more rain to the desert. The desert responds with a spectacular array of flowers, Painted Ladies breed like bunnies, and the resulting caterpillars strip the vegetation. When those caterpillars emerge as adults, the green is gone (reduced to pieces of��frass) (bug poop), so they pick up and move elsewhere.��Many die, but enough find a habitable breeding area where their “food-generalist” caterpillars can thrive.

Is there comparable a southward migration by the offspring of the springtime travelers?��The scribes disagree on both the “whether” and the “why.” One source speculated that their southward migrations simply may not be as dramatic.��Painted Ladies are permanent residents along the southern tier of states, so a southern migration isn’t necessary to maintain those populations.��One researcher questions whether, if they���徱���’t��fly south, there would be any individuals left that retained a migratory instinct.��Since any Painted Lady north of the Mason-Dixon Line is a goner come winter, migrators, the theory goes, need to head south again so there will be more migrators to head north again.��The BugLady doesn’t know how the Migratory Instinct Theory jibes with the��el Nino��Plant Boom/Bust Theory and the Random Migration theory.

�ճ����AMERICAN LADY��(Vanessa virginiensis) looks very similar to the Painted Lady, but the American Lady has smaller white patches in its forewings and less-fancy hind wings. Its exquisitely-etched underside sports two large eyespots in the hind wings compared to the Painted Lady’s four small ones (see them side-by-side at��. The BugLady photographed an American Lady that became fatally stuck on the water when a gust of wind or a miscalculation about the solidity of algae brought it too close to the sticky surface film.

While it’s a year-round resident of the southern US (south into South America and even the Galapagos), its summer wanderings bring it here to God’s country. Like the Painted Lady, it likes sunny, open spaces, and like the Painted Lady, it is an early migrant from the south that re-establishes populations in the North and East annually (it was recorded in Wisconsin in the first week of May this year).��Unlike the Painted Lady, its caterpillars are tied to a smaller list of host plants, including the everlastings and pussytoes, and a few other species. American Lady caterpillars also construct “tents,” but instead of pure silk, the American Lady .��They feed outside the shelter.��When disturbed, the caterpillars curl up tightly.

The American Lady has at least two broods here in the North Country, and like the Red Admiral, the summer adult is brighter in color than the winter form.��If the spring individuals look travel-worn, like they’ve flown hundreds of miles to get here, it’s because they have.

Go outside – find some butterflies!��And don’t forget to check .

The BugLady

The post Cherish the (Butterfly) Ladies Again 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.

When the BugLady was on the trail recently, a small, yellow butterfly flew by, just above the ground.��It was noticeably smaller than the ubiquitous Orange and Clouded Sulphurs, but it zipped out of sight pretty fast. Mike Reese, host of the excellent describes similar experiences��“It has not been the easiest butterfly for me to observe. I have seen this butterfly in central Wisconsin several years and have attempted to photograph it. All the individuals I saw took off on a beeline for other areas, dancing calmly but surely away from me, never to be seen again.”��Fortunately, the BugLady’s butterfly turned around, came back, and posed nicely.��

It was a Little Yellow/Little Sulphur/Lisa Yellow (Pyristia lisa) (formerly��Eurema lisa).�� Like the larger Sulphurs and the “Whites,” it’s in the family Pieridae. Its wingspread measures 1 ¼” to 1 ¾” (females are slightly larger than males, but otherwise males and females are very similar), and there are pale and dark forms, depending on the time of summer [and]. The BugLady’s butterfly snapped its wings shut immediately; view .

Little Yellows are southern butterflies, abundant in grasslands, open areas and along woodland and road edges and railroad tracks as far south as Central America and Costa Rica, but they migrate north in summer and are found from the Great Plains as far west as New Mexico and South Dakota, to the Atlantic Coast as far north as Canada.��Their numbers in Wisconsin vary from year to year, and they may persist into October here, but the final generation of the summer turns around and heads back south again.��

Males keep an eye out for females, and when they see one, they court by touching her with their legs and wings.��The female responds by spreading her antennae so she can sense his pheromones. If she’s not interested, she ; if she is.

She lays her eggs on the midveins of the leaves of a host plant, and when the eggs hatch, the larvae feed on the tender leaf tissue between the veins, resting along the midrib (). Adults live a brief 10 days.�� ��

Little Yellows may produce five generations in their southern breeding range, and those that reach Wisconsin and beyond will breed if they can find host plants, but they are too sensitive to the cold to survive winters above 40 degrees north latitude (Philadelphia, PA to Columbus, OH to Boulder, CO).

Most sources only list a few caterpillar host plants in the Pea/Legume family, specifically Partridge Pea, Wild Senna, and��Mimosa strigulosa, a small mimosa shrub.��Ebner, in his��Butterflies of Wisconsin��(1970), writes that clovers in the genus��Trifolium��are undoubtedly used as host plants by the Wisconsin populations.��The butterflies nectar on aster and goldenrod, and crowds of . Little Yellows are preyed on by crab spiders and ambush bugs and in the south, native praying mantises.

Little Yellows are small but mighty – they’re famous for mass migrations that take them far from home.  In 1874, Samuel Scudder described a swarm that reached the Bermuda Islands, “Early in the morning, several persons living on the north side of the island perceived, as they thought, a cloud coming over from the northwest, which drew nearer and nearer to shore, on reaching which it divided into two parts, one of which went eastward and the other westward, gradually falling upon the land.  They were not long in ascertaining that what they had taken for a cloud was an immense concourse of small yellow butterflies, which flitted about all the open, grassy surfaces in a lazy manner, as if fatigued after their long voyage over the deep.  Fishermen out near the reefs, some miles to the north of the islands very early that morning, stated that numbers of these insects fell upon their boats, literally covering them.”&�Բ�����;

Magic.

The BugLady

The post Little Yellow Butterfly appeared first on Field Station.

The BugLady found this beautiful little butterfly in the dunes at Kohler-Andrae State Park recently. She doesn’t see coppers often, and she always forgets how small they are — a tad smaller than a Pearl Crescent. Coppers are in the family Lycaenidae along with the Blues, Hairstreaks, and Harvesters.��

The first thing to know about the American Copper (Lycaena phlaeas) is that it probably isn’t native.��Some researchers believe that it’s the same species as a European-Eurasian-North African butterfly called the Small, Flame, or Common Copper in English,��Lille Ildfugl��in Danish,��Acobreada��in Portuguese, and��Manto Bicolor��in Spanish.��Bugguide.net calls it the “the most widespread species of the genus Lycaena, and among the most widespread of all butterfly species.” It is believed that the ancestors of the American Coppers in the Eastern US came over on the boat with the early settlers, probably from Scandinavia, probably in shipments of hay.��The other guess is that it’s a Holarctic species — one that is native to the whole top of the world.��DNA analysis would answer that question.��

Adults nectar on a variety of flowers, many of them in the composite/aster family.��This butterfly found something to like about Spotted knapweed, an invasive that likes poor soils.��Caterpillar host plants are two non-native members of the buckwheat/smartweed family — Sheep sorrel (sour dock) and, to a lesser extent, curly dock.��The fact that the American Copper’s two main food plants also came over on the boat is considered proof of its non-native status, though some native butterflies do adopt introduced plants.��Further, the native plants that are related to Sheep sorrel and curly dock are wetland plants, and this is a butterfly of dry habitats. As their host plants followed the edge of the frontier west, it is said, the American Copper trailed behind. ��

In North America,��American Coppers are��mostly found east of the Rockies, north to the Tundra.��They’re not found in the Deep South, except in the mountains, where they eat Mountain sorrel.��

[Quick botanical aside:��Mountain sorrel is an alpine plant with its own origin story. Researchers found that it originated in China at least 11 million years ago, moved east into Russia and then into North America by 4 million years ago, west into Western Europe by two million years ago, and that it entered Greenland from both east and west — a circum-arctic species.]��

American Coppers frequent��the habitats of their caterpillar food plants — barrens, abandoned fields, powerline and railroad rights-of-way, and especially dry, disturbed spots like vacant lots and road edges. And dunes.��The fabulous “Butterflies of Massachusetts” website notes that this is a species that benefited from the clearing of forests for agriculture and timber in the 1700s and 1800s and that it does not do well in heavily developed or landscaped areas.������

They are active, especially on sunny days — fast and erratic butterflies that fly a foot or two above the ground and may also hover or glide — strong flyers that can show up quite a ways from home.��They also bask on the ground.��Clarence Weed, in��Butterflies Worth Knowing��(1922) says that they “begin their day’s work early in the morning and continue well into evening.��Then they find a roosting-place, head downward on a blade of grass, where they sleep until wakened by the morning sunshine.” ��

Females and males look similar, with wingspans of 7/8” to 1¼”.��They’re beautiful with their wings closed, and .��The downy caterpillars are about ¾” long and may be .����������

Males are territorial and feisty, watching for females from perches on vegetation and chasing any insects that fly by. Sources said that they react to the shadows of birds, and renowned lepidopterist Alexander Klots reported seeing a male American Copper go after an airplane.��Females select males by landing nearby and displaying their wings, and .��If they fly while coupled,��she��totes��him, rather than the other more common way around. ��

Eggs are laid on the upper surface of the host plant’s leaves or stem, and the sluglike caterpillars shelter near the base of the plant by day and feed by night on the underside of the leaf.��There are several generations per year, and the final brood overwinters as larvae in leaf litter at the base of the plant, pupating for three weeks in the following spring (though some sources say that they overwinter in the pupal stage).��Adults live for two, all-too-brief weeks.

Caterpillars of some of the other Lycaenids consort with ants (they are��myrmecophiles) – ants care for them in return for a honeydew-like substance made by the caterpillar. A few sources speculated that American Copper caterpillars might enjoy such a relationship, too, producing chemicals that attract ants.��

Three other items of business:

• Are you a mosquito magnet?��
• Tis the season – the BugLady walked slowly through a gigantic feeding swarm of Common Green Darners the other day, with .
• Finally, long, long ago, when she was about eight years old, the BugLady was enthralled by a picture of a Black Witch moth and wished she could see one.��Saturday, one flew through her yard — twice — and it was well worth the wait!��Watch for more Black Witches if the Atlantic hurricane season heats up.

The BugLady

The post American Copper Butterfly appeared first on Field Station.

Here are some of the bugs that the BugLady found in June, which was, overall, a hot and wet month (7.97” of rain at the BugLady’s cottage).

Lizzard Beetle – the BugLady doesn’t know why these striking beetles are called Lizard beetles, unless it’s a nod to their long, slender shapes.��She usually sees them in the prairie on Indian Plantain plants.��The adults eat various parts of the plant, including pollen, while their larvae feed within the plant stems (the Clover stem borer is persona non grata in commercial clover fields).��

According to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, many species of Lizard beetles “make squeaking sounds using well-developed stridulatory organs on top of the head.”

Two (counterintuitively-named) Orange Bluets, ensuring the next generation.��He “contact guards” her as she oviposits in submerged vegetation, lest a rival male come along and swipe her.��When the eggs hatch, the naiads can swim right out into the water.

Baltimore Checkerspot – the BugLady has seen more of these spectacular butterflies than usual this year.��The ��feed in fall on a late-blooming wildflower called Turtlehead (and sometimes broad-leaved plantain); turtlehead leaves (and plantain, to a lesser extent) contain growth-enhancing chemicals called iridoid glycosides that also discourage birds. The caterpillars tuck in for the winter and emerge the next year into a landscape empty of Turtlehead.��

In spring, Baltimore Checkerspot caterpillars 2.0 feed on leaves of a variety of flowers and shrubs – the BugLady has seen them on goldenrod and on wood betony – and especially on leaves of the (doomed) white ash. 

Crayfish – the BugLady came across this crayfish and its companion when all three of us were negotiating a muddy trail (so many muddy trails this year!). It waved its pincers at her to make sure she was terrified.

Doodlebugs (aka antlions) got going early this year – the BugLady found more than 100 excavations (pits) at the southeast corner of her house at the end of April, and more along the path leading to the beach.��They’ve had a rough go of it – it doesn’t take much rain to ruin a pit, and it takes a day or so to repair one.����

Doodlebug watchers sometimes catch a glimpse of pincers at the bottom of a pit, or of a doodlebug tossing sand around.��The BugLady witnessed an ant going to its final reward, and found a pit with a small beetle in it, one with a box elder bug, and one with a beetle and a small jumping spider.��She will look for the adults, which look kind of like damselflies, in August.

Donacia��– a ��on a golden flower.

Common Spring Moth – the BugLady loves finding bugs she’s never seen before, especially when she doesn’t have to leave home to do it!! (She does get a little bewildered, though, when the “new” insect is named the “Common something” and she’s never seen it before).��The occurrence of this one should be no surprise – its caterpillars feed on Black locust leaves.��

Petrophilia��Moths are dainty moths that are tied to water.��The BugLady and BugFan Joan spotted mobs of moths on milkweed (yes, there’s a milkweed under there) on the bank of the Milwaukee River.�� “Petrophila” means “rock lover” – for that story, read the BOTW about a (probably) different species. ��

Green Lacewing Eggs – the BugLady wrote about Green lacewings and their eggs a few months ago, and she recently found this amazing bunch of tiny, glistening eggs.��She has always associated Green lacewings with the end of summer.��Guess not.

Eight-Spotted Forester Moths are small, spiffy, day-flying moths that are often mistaken for butterflies.�� The one that the BugLady found recently was not as gaudy as most – most have brilliant .��There’s a saying among Lepidopterists – the plainer the caterpillar, the more spectacular the adult.��.��

Powdered Dancers oviposit at this time of year in the slightly-submerged stems of aquatic vegetation, especially��.��They’ve been pictured here before.��This year, the river is running high and fast – there are no mats of��Potamogeton��leaves with Ebony Jewelwings, American Rubyspots, Stream Bluets, and Powdered Dancers flickering above them.��Do they have a Plan B?

These two Brilliant Jumping Spiders (aka Red & Black jumping spiders), a male and a female, were perched a respectful distance from each other on the prairie.��Jumping spiders, as their name suggests, jump, and depending on species, can cover from 10 to 50 times their body length.��They don’t spin trap webs, but they do spin a drag line while jumping to guard against mishaps.��They hunt by day.

The great MObugs website (Missouri’s Majority) says that “By late July or August mating is on their mind. Males begin to compete with other males for the right to mate with nearby females. Larger males typically win these competitions which include loud vibrations and some unique footwork. Males choose the larger females to mate with as they produce the most eggs.” She will place her egg sac in a silken nest in a leaf shelter and guard it, dying shortly after the spiderlings emerge from the sac.

Zelus Luridus��(aka the Pale green assassin bug) is the BugLady’s favorite Assassin bug.��They mostly wait patiently for their prey to wander by, but when it does, they reveal their super power. Glands on their legs produce a sticky resin that they smear over the hairs on their legs. When they grab their prey, it stays grabbed.��

They make ��(nice series of shots) – the BugLady has found them on the undersides of leaves, and the are pretty cool, too.

Although “lurid” now means shocking, vivid, or overly bright, it originally meant ghastly, horrifying, pale, sallow, or sickly yellow – its meaning began to change in the 1700’s.  

There – all caught up! 

Go outside – look at bugs!

The BugLady

(Just before this episode was launched,  was inexplicably offline – if it still is, check the links later)

The post Stirrings of Summer appeared first on Field Station.

The BugLady and her camera have been out scouring the uplands and wetlands for insects that will sit still long enough to have their portrait made.��Many of today’s bugs have starred in their own BOTWs over the years, and you can find them by Googling “51���� Field Station followed by the name of the insect. Her gut continues to tell her that there simply aren’t as many insects to point her camera at as there were a decade ago.��

What did she find in April and May?

Woodland Lucy (Lucidota atra), aka the Black firefly (atra��means black).��If a lightning bug doesn’t light, is it still a Lightning bug? Yup.��Most lightning bugs flash their species-specific light signals at females by night, but some, like the Woodland Lucy, are day flyers (the BugLady starts seeing them in swamps in May, but she usually doesn’t see a light show by their nocturnal relatives until the very end of June).��It would be a waste of energy to try to produce a light that competes with the sun, so diurnal lightning bugs communicate via pheromones (perfumes).��But, all fireflies make light at some point in their lives, and always as a larva (and even the adult Woodland Lucy makes a weak light for a brief time after emerging as an adult).�� ��

Who says “lightning bug” and who says “firefly?”��Lightning bug is heard most often in the South and Midwest, and firefly belongs to New England and the West (and Southeastern Wisconsin is close to the border of the two).��Someone did a study and hypothesized that people who live in wildfire country prefer firefly, and people who live in thunderstorm country say lightning beetle. The BugLady likes the alternate theory – that you call them whatever your Grandmother called them.

Disonycha Beetle – isn’t this a neat beetle! The BugLady photographed another member of the genus years ago when she was photographing visitors to her pussy willow shrub. It’s in the (huge) leaf beetle family Chrysomelidae, many of whose members are pretty specific about the host plants for their larvae. This one is (probably) a member of the confusing Smartweed��Disonycha��bunch. ��

Grouse Locusts are in the family Tetrigidae (the pygmy grasshoppers), and at a half-inch and less when full grown, pygmy they are!��The BugLady usually sees them in wetlands, and some are actually known to swim. They feed on tiny diatoms and algae and aquatic vegetation at the water’s edge.

A Centipede works the boardwalk at Spruce Lake Bog in April.

Ground Beetle Larva – Ground beetles (family Carabidae) are a bunch of mainly nocturnal, sometimes-sizeable, mostly predaceous beetles.��Some of the big ones have no-nonsense names like Fiery Searcher and Caterpillar Hunter, and although they are called Ground beetles, they may climb trees to find their prey.��They’re long-lived, spending a year or two as larvae and then two or three more as adults.��No – the BugLady was not inclined to pick this one up.�� ��

The White-Striped Black Moth (Trichodezia albovittata) is a small (1” wingspan) day-flying moth that’s often mistaken for a butterfly.��It’s found in wetlands because its caterpillar’s food is Impatiens/Jewelweed/Touch-me-not.��Like other members of the moth family Geometridae, it has tympanal organs (ears) at the base of its abdomen so that it can hear the echolocation calls of bats.�� Since it’s diurnal, its ears are superfluous, but it��can��hear ultrasound (which suggests to evolutionary biologists that its day-flying habit is a recent one).��

Chalk-Fronted Corpals are one of our earliest dragonflies – the BugLady recalls seeing recently-emerged corporals by the hundreds over a dirt road on warm, spring days.

Daddy Longlegs (aka Harvestmen) are not true spiders, though they do have eight legs.��The best description that the BugLady has read is that lacking a sharp division between their two body parts (cephalothorax and abdomen), they look like Rice Krispies with legs.��This one is well-camouflaged on the fertile stalk of a cinnamon fern.

The BugLady may have to have this engraved on her gravestone (oh wait, she’s being scattered) – Daddy Longlegs Do No Bite People! Also, counter to both urban and rural legend, they are NOT the most venomous animal on earth!!!��The BugLady does not care what your cousin told you, or the person who claims to be allergic to their bite. They have tiny jaws, and unlike the true spiders, they do not pierce their prey and then pump in chemicals from venom glands (no venom glands) (and they have no stinging apparatus).��They just sit there and chew off tiny (tiny) pieces. Got it?

The Beautify Bee Fly (Bombylius pulchellus) truly is (pulchellos��means “little beauty”)!��This small fly (maybe ¼”) was photographed in a wetland in mid-May.��Bee fly larvae are parasitoids of a variety of insect eggs and larvae – this one targets the sweat bees, which are among our earliest pollinators (not to worry – the system is in balance).

Crane Fly – there are a number of families of crane flies, plus some near-relatives, and they are often collectively called daddy longlegs (though they’re not spiders) and mosquito hawks and skeeter-eaters (though they don’t catch or eat mosquitoes).��What they do, is when they land on the other side of your window screen at night, but they’re completely harmless.��The “crane” in crane fly reflects their long, long legs – they’re somewhat awkward flyers and even more awkward landers. Like the Daddy longlegs, they’re reputedly extremely venomous (and now it’s time to introduce the third member of our “daddy longlegs trio,” the cellar spider. , but, alas, cellar spiders only have very weak venom).��

How do these things get started, anyway?

Soldier Fly – it’s always a little startling to come across a lime-green fly!��

This Virginia Ctenucha Moth Caterpillar was photographed in April, but the BugLady has found them walking around on mild winter days.��The cute caterpillar will morph into a ��that looks butterfly-ish until it lands on a leaf and immediately crawls underneath.��Despite its name, it’s a moth with more northerly affiliations.��

The (great) Minnesota Seasons website lists three defense strategies:

• Aposematism: The metallic blue color of the thorax and abdomen mimics wasps which may be noxious to predators.
• Sound production: A specialized (tymbal), corrugated region on the third section of the thorax (metathorax) produces ultrasonic sounds which interfere with (“jam”) the sonar of moth-eating bats.
• Pyrrolizidine alkaloid sequestration: Caterpillars acquire and retain naturally produced toxic chemicals (pyrrolizidine alkaloids) from the plants they eat.

Red-Spotted Purple Caterpillars are hard to distinguish from those of the very-closely-related Viceroy and White Admiral caterpillars, and their food plants overlap, too.��The caterpillars overwinter in a leaf that’s still attached to the tree, rolled up and fastened with silk.��

Red-spotted Purple? The , and the .

Hobomok Skippers (once called the Northern Golden Skipper) are an early butterfly, often decorating the wild geraniums that bloom by the bushel in May. One source says that they are strong flyers that take off quickly when startled. Amen!��They are a butterfly of woodland, wetland and grassland edges, where males perch in the sun and fly out to chase intruders.

“Hobomok” is a nod to an early Wampanoag chief.    

Crab Spider on White trillium – as we all know, the BugLady has a thing for crab spiders because of their ability to hide in plain sight.�� This one was photographed in early May.��

Go outside – Look for Bugs!

The BugLady

The post Slices of Spring appeared first on Field Station.

June is waning, and pretty soon the BugLady will have to stop eating chocolates and watching soaps and get up off the couch and start writing. Actually, with a way warmer and wetter June than normal (more than 7” of rain at the BugLady’s house for the month), the trail hasn’t been as much fun as usual, and the bugs are slow to reappear (not surprisingly, she has gotten some nice dragonfly shots). 

So – your reading list for the week includes bumble bees, butterflies, leeches, and spiders.

��are sandwich plate-sized immigrants from East Asia that are making themselves at home in parts of the eastern part of the country.�� Although they are startling (to say the least), they are reportedly benign.�� It will be a while before they get here to God’s Country, but here’s one of our larger spiders, a slightly-related .

.

And they are specialized .

And .

And are big-time travelers, which was determined by an analysis of their pollen.

Stay cool,

The BugLady

The post Closed for June 4 – A Potpourri of Invertebrates appeared first on Field Station.

A pollinator is an animal (not all pollinators are insects) that visits flowers and carries their pollen to other flowers.�� Bees, butterflies, moths, flies, beetles, and wasps are all practitioners to some degree.��Hummingbirds pollinate a few flowers (like wild columbine), and in the Southwest, a few bats do, too.��

We’re well into National Pollinator Week now, and the news isn’t wonderful, so the BugLady is off-setting it with pictures of some really spiffy pollinators.

How can we help insects, including pollinators? Plant an array of native wildflowers, shrubs, and trees that will bloom from spring through fall, reduce or eliminate pesticides, provide brush piles and other shelter, don’t be a tidy gardener, and set out a bird bath (birds will appreciate this, too). In Wisconsin, plug into our ��and monitoring programs.

Meanwhile – it’s National Pollinator Week – celebrate appropriately.

The BugLady

The post Closed for June 3 – More Pollinators appeared first on Field Station.