Dragonflies!ĚýBut not soon enough!Ěý

Quick and dirty dragonfly phenology (phenology – the study of Mother Nature’s calendar.ĚýCliff 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).ĚýMigrating Variegated Meadowhawks show up in early May – or they don’t.ĚýThe 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 genusĚýSomatochlora, the Striped or Green-eyed Emeralds (). SomatochloraĚýcomes from the Greek for “green body.”ĚýEmeralds are called emeralds because in many species, the adults, especially the adult males, have emerald-green eyes.ĚýThe 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 !ĚýThe 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 outĚý“uncommonly seen, but this may be largely due to their secretive nature.”ĚýIt 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.”ĚýWhile some species live in the South, many are dragonflies of the North country, even living above the treeline.Ěý

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 inĚýDragonflies of the North Woods,Ěý“the whiskered tips of the male Brush-tipped’s abdominal appendages are unlike those of any other North American species”Ěý´Ç´ÚĚýSomatochloraĚý“ (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.ĚýAdult 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.ĚýFemales 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).ĚýWhen the eggs hatch, the naiads hide in the vegetation. They sometimes oviposit into muck or wet moss.Ěý

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.ĚýFemales fly above small woody clearings and along roads and trails.ĚýThey may forage for food away from water, but they remain attached to their natal wetland.ĚýThe naiads ambush any aquatic critters they can, including tiny tadpoles and fish, and they’re preyed on by bigger aquatic insects, fish, and frogs.ĚýSpiders and birds catch the adults.Ěý

The BugLady

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

2026Ěý– When the BugLady wrote this episode in February of 2013, she kicked it off by griping about the weather – a favorite, February, indoor sport.ĚýThis year, we’ve had many days of below average, below freezing, and below zero temperatures.ĚýHow cold is it?ĚýThree 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.ĚýThey’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.

2013Ěý– 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.ĚýFirst, 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 (PerithemisĚýtenera) is the second smallest dragonfly in Wisconsin (the very-uncommon Elfin Skimmer is a bit smaller and is not yellow).ĚýSome damselflies, like this Spreadwing , are longer than Amberwings, but damselflies are slim and dragonflies are bulky.ĚýTheir flashy wings make them look bigger than an inch to the BugLady.ĚýThe 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).ĚýMales and females have yellowish legs and have rings around the segments of their abdomens.ĚýThe abdomens of both are thick (the female’s looks especially swollen).Ěý

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

Where do you find them, entomologically speaking?ĚýIn the order Odonata (the dragonflies and damselflies) and in the family Libellulidae (the Skimmers).ĚýPerithemisĚýapparently is a reference to Themis, a figure in Greek mythology, and a number of other Skimmer genera incorporate Themis’s name.ĚýAccording to Berger and Hanson inĚýDragonflies,ĚýteneraĚýis Latin for “tender,” “delicate,” or “soft” and implies youth (a dragonfly is called aĚýteneralĚýduring the first few days of adult life).

They are “perchers,” and unlike most dragonflies, may be seen sitting on flowers (they areĚýnotĚýconsidered pollinators, despite the picture caption in one photo site).ĚýOn 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.ĚýFemales often raise their abdomens while in flight.Ěý

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.ĚýFor their carnivorous ways, Eastern Amberwings and other dragonflies are given a thumbs-up by a Florida pest control service, which says, “From the tinyĚýEastern Amberwing, to the flamboyantĚýHalloween 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.”Ěý

Eastern Amberwings sure know how to court a gal.ĚýA 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.ĚýWhen a female approaches, he follows and courts her, swaying back and forth, abdomen raised. If she’s agreeable, she follows him home.ĚýHe hovers over his territory while she evaluates it, and if she likes it, she gets him along with it.ĚýAfter 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.ĚýIn 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.Ěý

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.ĚýA 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 fidelityĚý– 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).ĚýHe will defend it for days, especially if he has mated there.ĚýIf he deliberately changes territories, he “moves up” to a higher quality site.ĚýHe can be evicted from his territory by a feistier male.Ěý

• Heterospecific pursuitĚý– Besides chasing each other, male Eastern Amberwings chase after any flying insect that could be mistaken for another Eastern Amberwing (that’s heterospecific pursuit).Ěý They’ve been observed pursuing large horse flies and small skipper butterflies, but they ignore larger dragonflies.Ěý 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. Ěý

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

• Home field advantageĚý– Unlike those of some other Skimmers, Eastern Amberwing’s territorial disputes may escalate, but they are non-contact sports.ĚýIf the aggression does not build, the territory-holder tends to win, but if the conflict escalates, victory often goes to the younger Eastern Amberwing.ĚýMales 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.Ěý

• Spatial learningĚý– Dragonflies can remember the locations within their habitat where they find food, breed, and roost, and they know the routes between those places.ĚýA 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.

There has been a paucity of dragonflies and damselflies on the BugLady’s landscapes this season (and they’re urgently needed to eat mosquitoesĚýright now).ĚýShe has, though, seen more Gliders than usual this summer (or maybe she’s finally developed an eye for IDing them in flight). Compared to darners, they are compact and bullet-shaped, with (mostly) undecorated wings.

Spot-winged Gliders (Pantala hymenaea) (family Libellulidae) are one of two species in the world that are in the Rainpool glider genusĚýPantala. The other, the Wandering Glider, aka the Globe Skimmer or the Globe Wanderer, is a world traveler, but the Spot-winged Glider is only found in the Americas – North, Central, and South.ĚýIn North America, they’re dragonflies of open areas with shallow and/or temporary waters from the Great Plains, east, along with a sprinkling of western states. According to the Wisconsin Odonata Survey () (a great sourceĚýof information), “It is infrequently seen at scattered locations throughout Wisconsin.”

Wandering Gliders are golden , and Spot-winged Gliders are gray/tan-to-reddish in color and more distinctly patterned, and although they are small, the spots that give them their name are visible in flight, especially when the dragonfly is circling overhead (which they often do, because they seem to be curious about us).ĚýThey’re about 2” in length, with long, broad wings designed for sustained flight .

Of all the places where dragonflies deposit their eggs – ponds, lakes, ephemeral ponds, quiet bays in rivers, etc. – rainpool gliders pick the most transient, fish-free waters, including garden water features and rain puddles (hence their name), and sometimes they mistake the shiny hood of a car for water and lob some eggs down onto it!ĚýThe adults are constantly on the move, looking for favorable spots to oviposit.ĚýTheir naiads develop quickly, in just weeks.Ěý

Like other dragonflies (and damselflies) they are carnivores both as aquatic naiads and as airborne adults. They are aerial feeders, finding and catching their prey in the air.ĚýOne source calls them important predators of mosquitoes, which they will hunt until the light gets too dim to see them, and they often join dragonflies like saddlebags and darners in feeding swarms.ĚýLike birds, they fuel their long (days-long) flights, sometimes over oceans, by laying in fat deposits.Ěý

If you want to see gliders, look up – they spend the vast majority of their time foraging for mosquitoes and gnats as high as 100 feet above fields, marshes, and parking lots, and when they land, they are well-concealed, perching vertically at the tip of a twig with abdomen curved .Ěý

In the “Notes from the field” section of his account of the Spot-winged Glider in his Dragonflies of Northern Virginia blog, Kevin Munroe writes about trying to photograph them – â€śThe two female gliders to your right were caught after much running and leaping; set down to photograph, they soon caught their breath and flew.”

Both Wandering and Spot-winged Gliders are on the list of about 16 species of North American dragonflies that are considered migratory , and they join the migratory swarms of Common Green Darners and Black Saddlebags that fly south along Lake Michigan’s shoreline – right about now.ĚýA northbound migration from tropical areas repopulates God’s Country in summer.

For information about the Wandering Glider, see Wandering Glider (Family Libellulidae) – Field Station.

The BugLady is tardy in commemorating the twentieth anniversary of the death of her Major Professor, Dr. Richard B. Fischer, the content of whose fantastic natural history courses she uses Every! Single! Day!Ěý(right BugFan Mike?)ĚýHe would have enjoyed BOTW.Ěý

The BugLady

The post Spot-winged Glider Dragonfly appeared first on Field Station.

Greetings, BugFans,

Last year, BugFan Nancy told the BugLady that she was making a quilt with a dragonfly motif, and asked what colors dragonflies came in.ĚýAll of them. The BugLady sent her pictures of blue, green, purple, orange, red, and a variety of multi-colored dragons and damsels.ĚýThe BugLady promises that BOTW is not going to march through the entire list of North American dragonflies and damselflies, but, oh my, isn’t this a handsome dragonfly!Ěý Plus, it’s being photobombed in one shot by a brilliantly-orange Eastern Amberwing dragonfly (interestingly, one of the BugLady’s Facebook friends also posted a shot of an Amberwing perched on a Jade Clubtail). ĚýĚý

The BugLady hasn’t seen this species yet – thanks, as always, to BugFan Freda for sharing her pictures.

Clubtails are called Clubtails because the males of many (but not all) species have noticeably flattened and widened segments that form “clubs” on the distal end of their abdomen.ĚýFemales’ clubs are minimal-to-absent.ĚýClubtails are in the family Gomphidae – as a group, the Gomphidae (which also includes Dragonhunters, Snaketails, Spinylegs, and Sanddragons) are medium-sized (1 ½” to 2 ½”), speedy, early-flying dragonflies, some of which like moving water and others of which prefer their water still.ĚýUnlike most other dragonflies, whose eyes meet or nearly meet at the tops of their heads, Clubtails’ .Ěý

Immature Gomphids (naiads) burrow into the muck, with eyes protruding (the better to see their prey, small invertebrates, swimming by, and with the tip of the abdomen exposed, for breathing.

“Gomphos” is from the Greek for nail or bolt, an allusion to their abdomens.ĚýThere are about 100 species in the family in North America and some can be tricky to tell apart (the males’ claspers are diagnostic).

Adult Gomphids often perch and hunt on and near the ground, where despite their spectacular patterns, they can be hard to spot – their sometimes-. Ěý

Both males and females are seen “obelisking” – , which is thought to help with temperature controlĚýand which is also used by males as an aggressive posture.

JADE CLUBTAILS (Arigomphus submedianus)are in the genusĚýArigomphusĚý(the Pond Clubtails), an exclusively North American genus.ĚýArigomphus, prefer their water still.ĚýThey’re a pretty landlocked species, ranging from Texas, north through mid-continent to Wisconsin and Minnesota, where they’re found in lakes, rivers, streams, and mud-bottomed ponds and sloughs.ĚýThey are common in Illinois but have been recorded only in the southern third of Wisconsin.Ěý

Pairs gather on shoreline vegetation.ĚýMales don’t guard females as they oviposit, which, because she lacks a real ovipositor, she accomplishes by allowing water to wash eggs from the tip of her abdomen. A gelatinous sac causes the eggs to stick to rocks and plants.Ěý. They prefer water that is unpolluted and well-oxygenated.Ěý

Spring is coming!

The BugLady

The post Jade Clubtail Dragonfly appeared first on Field Station.

Greetings, BugFans,

The BugLady has been scouring the landscape and aiming her camera at anything that will sit still (and some that won’t). And without going too overboard on dragonflies and damselflies, here are some of her bug adventures.  

Leafcutter Bee

Ah, the one that got away.  The BugLady saw a lump on a boardwalk in front of her and automatically aimed her camera at it (a long lens is a good substitute for a pair of binoculars). The lump – a leafcutter bee – flew off after one, out-of-focus shot. The bee had paused while she was cutting and collecting pieces of vegetation to line the tunnel and chambers where she’ll lay her eggs.   

Japanese Beetle

Lots of the vegetation that the BugLady sees these days is pockmarked with small holes — evidence of feeding by Japanese beetles. (Of course, she’s also been seeing conspicuous, beetle mĂ©nages a trois on the tops of those leaves, too.) Japanese beetles made their North American debut in New Jersey in 1916, and their menu now includes more than 350 plant species. But, they are a handsome beetle!   

Water Striders

They create art wherever they go.  

Appalachian Brown Butterfly (probably)

The part of the hindwing that has the squiggly line that helps distinguish the Eyed Brown from the Appalachian Brown is gone. Life in the wild isn’t all beer and skittles. The chunks missing from this butterfly’s wings suggest that a bird chased it and that most of the butterfly got away.

Powdered Dancer

In an episode a month ago, the BugLady lamented that the river was so high and fast that Powdered Dancers couldn’t find any aquatic vegetation to oviposit in.Ěý A dry spell revealed some weed patches, and the dancers hopped right onboard.Ěý

Eastern Pondhawk Dragonfly

This male Eastern Pondhawk was hugging the cattail stalk, a posture that’s not characteristic of this usually-horizontal species. Turns out that it had captured a Violet/Variable Dancer damselfly and was holding it closely between its body and the cattail.  

Crab Spider

What would a summer summary be without one of the BugLady’s favorite spiders, the Crab spider? Where’s Waldo? Bonus points if you know the name of the plant.  

Honey Bee with Aphids

It’s not surprising to see yellowjackets browsing among herds of water lily aphids. Adult yellowjackets are (mostly) vegetarians, but they collect, masticate, and regurgitate small insects for their larvae. Honey bees are hard-core vegans, so what’s going on here?  

Aphids overeat — they have to. The plant sap they suck in has very low concentrations of sugars and proteins, so they need to process a lot of it in order to get enough calories. Sap comes out of the plant under pressure, which forces the sap through the aphid smartly, and the extra liquids (in the form of a sweet substance called honeydew), exit to the rear of the aphid (or it would explode). Honeydew drops onto the surrounding leaves and attracts other insects that harvest it. The bee is no threat to the aphids, she’s just collecting honeydew.  

Fun Fact: According to Master beekeeper Rusty Burlew, writing in her blog “Honey Bee Suite,” The bees treat the substance like nectar so it is often mixed together with the nectar from flowers. As such, it is not really noticeable in the finished honey. Honey made almost exclusively from honeydew is known as honeydew honey, forest honey, bug honey, flea honey, or tree honey. Sometimes it is named after its primary component, such as pine honey, fir honey, oak honey, etc. It is generally dark, strongly flavored, less acidic, and less sweet than floral honey.

Eastern Amberwing

At barely an inch long, this improbably-colored dragonfly is one of our flashiest. 

Mosquitoes

Mosquito Control 101: “Get rid of standing water in your yard!” Check. But, the BugLady has a bird bath (her “vintage” childhood saucer sled) that she washes out and refills at least once a week… or so she thought. She was surprised the other day to see a whole mess of mosquito “wigglers” (larvae) in the water.  Worse, they probably were the small-but-mighty Floodwater mosquitoes that can make August miserable because they emerge in Biblical numbers and because they seem to be biting with one end even before the other end has fully landed. They develop at warp speed — a week from egg to wiggler, and another week from wiggler to adult. Get rid of standing water in your yard. Check. 

Scorpionflies

These are odd-looking insects from a whole order of odd-looking insects (Mecoptera). This guy is in the Common scorpionfly family Panorpidae and in the genus Panorpa â€” a corruption of the Greek word for locust. The appendage at the end of the male’s abdomen explains its name, but these are harmless insects, fore and aft. One site mentioned they are wary and hard to photograph. Amen! 

Panorpa uses chewing mouthparts at the tip of its elongated rostrum/snout to eat dead and dying insects, and it may liberate insects from spider webs (and sometimes the spider, too). It is also said to eat some nectar and rotting fruits. 

He courts by releasing pheromones to attract her, quivering his wings when she comes near, and then offering a gift — a dead insect, or maybe some gelatinous goo manufactured in his salivary gland. He shares bodily fluids with her as she eats.

Carolina Locust

What a lovely, chunky little nymph!  

Autumn Meadowhawk

The dragonfly scene changes after mid-summer, with the early clubtails, emeralds, corporals, whitefaces, and skimmers being replaced by darners, saddlebags, and a handful of meadowhawk species. This newly-minted (teneral) Autumn Meadowhawk has just left its watery nursery on its way to becoming — for the next six weeks or so — a creature of the air.  

Katydid Nymph

The BugLady was photographing leafcutter bees that were visiting birdsfoot trefoil flowers. (Birdsfoot trefoil is a non-native member of the pea family that was introduced for animal fodder and erosion control and that can become invasive in grasslands. There’s probably some blooming along a road edge near you). She noticed that when the bees approached one particular flower, they reversed course and didn’t land, and when she checked, she found the tiniest katydid nymph she has ever seen. This one will grow up considerably to be a 1½” to 2” long Fork-tailed bush katydid… .  How do you find bush katydids? The “Listening to Insects” website advises us to “Watch for a leaf that moves on its own, or a leaf with antennae.” They are a favorite of Great golden digger wasps, which collect and cache them for their eventual larvae, and another website said “This is what bird food looks like.”&˛Ô˛ú˛ő±č;&˛Ô˛ú˛ő±č;

The BugLady found a recording of their call. They don’t say “Katy-did, Katy-didn’t” they say “tsp” or “pffft,” and they don’t say it very loudly. Bush Katydids are busiest at night, when their long, highly sensory antennae help them to find their way around. Although adult females are equipped with a wicked-looking ovipositor, they don’t sting, but they do nip if you handle them wrong. Memorably, it’s said.   

Go outside, look at bugs!

The BugLady

The post Summer Sights appeared first on Field Station.

Summer has reached its half-way point, and the BugLady has been recording the changing of the guard. The adult lives of most insects are brief – four to six weeks for many, and considerably less for some. Bluet damselflies are fading, but meadowhawk dragonflies are taking the stage. Little Wood Satyr butterflies are hard to find, but Common wood nymphs now flit through the fields. You get the picture. Here are some bugs that the BugLady found in the first half of summer.

ARROW CLUBTAIL: In early July, the BugLady came across this just-emerged dragonfly sitting on a stalk in the Milwaukee River. She photographed it for half an hour as it lengthened and strengthened and spread its wings and grew its abdomen. She guarded it from marauding geese and grackles. And she watched as it took its maiden voyage, eight feet straight up and true – into the beak of a swooping Cedar Waxwing. She may have used a few bad words.

JAPANESE BEETLE: Precarious as this bundle of beetles looked, it kept its shape as it fell off and into the grasses. In order to jump-start her love life, a female Japanese beetle may use “come hither” pheromones, but this aggregation of beetles was probably initiated (inadvertently) by the plant itself. Research suggests that a female Japanese beetle chewed on a leaf, and the leaf gave off signature chemicals (OK – feeding-induced plant volatiles), and that instead of repelling the beetles, the scent attracted more beetles, both male and female, to feed. And, since all those guys and gals are in the same neighborhood…

MAYFLY MOLT: BugFan Freda sent this amazing “What-is-it?” picture recently, taken from a canoe on the Milwaukee river. Mayflies (called “lake flies” regionally) emerge from their watery cradles by the googol. Their lives are brief, averaging only three days (not coincidentally, the name of the mayfly order is Ephemeroptera).

Mayflies are the only insects that shed their skins after they reach the winged adult stage (silverfish shed as adults, too, but they’re spindle-shaped and wingless). The crawls out onto a plant or rock and sheds its final skin (exuvia), emerging as a form called a subimago (or a “dun” if you’re a fly fisherman) that is cloudy-winged, dull in color, weak-flying, and not ready to reproduce. The sub-imago rests (often overnight) and then sheds again, this time into a mature adult/imago with shiny wings (a “spinner” to fishermen). Here’s a . No – scientists do not know how this pre-adult stage benefits the mayflies – lots of insect groups apparently has a subimago stage in ancient times, and most have dropped it from their repertory.

Freda’s picture shows the exuviae of lots of sub-imagoes – it must have been an amazing sight to see! Scroll down this series of of that final shed.

DOGBANE LEAF BEETLE: Its fabulous, shimmering exterior is all done with mirrors (complex nanoarchitecture). Light is bent when it hits small, randomly-tilted plates that sit between the pigment layer and the top layer of the beetle’s cuticle, and the beetle’s color changes depending on the angle of the eye of the beholder. What good is that glow? Rather than being an aid in courtship or a warning of the beetle’s toxicity (and this particular beetle is, but not all iridescent insects are), this fiery iridescence actually camouflages it. To test the hypothesis, researchers disguised meal worms with beetle elytra (the hard outer wings) – some shiny and some not – and then hid them. Birds found and ate 85% of the “dull-winged meal worms,” but only 60% of the “iridescent meal worms,” and the scientists themselves found it difficult to locate the shiny ones.

STREAM BLUET AND MAYFLY: In order to make it to adulthood, a mayfly naiad must avoid being eaten by fish and a variety of insects during its aquatic stage, and by fish, birds, fishing spiders, frogs, and other predators as it completes both of its molts. When it takes to the air, more predators await. This mayfly became lunch for a Stream Bluet damselfly.

DOODLEBUG: The BugLady found this doodlebug on the dunes at Kohler-Andrae State Park in mid-July, plying its trade. She looked into lots of inverted, sandy cones before she found one that held prey – in this case, a small spider. The doodlebug will grow up to be an antlion . For an account of the life of a doodlebug, see this former post.

SAWFLY: Sawflies are not flies, but are primitive wasps with no stingers (as she did when she wrote her first episode about sawflies in 2009, the BugLady recommends reading the sawfly chapter in David W. Stokes’ excellentĚýA Guide to Observing Insect Lives). Sawfly larvae look a lot like butterfly and moth caterpillars, but there’s a difference in the arrangement and types of legs. This beauty just might be the , whose pretty cute offspring, the BugLady is going to have to keep a cautious eye out for. “Sawfly” because the female uses a saw-like structure at the end of her abdomen to cut slots in vegetation to lay her eggs in.

BLACK SWALLOWTAIL CATERPILLAR: While the BugLady was photographing the sawfly, she noticed a prickly head among the Queen Anne’s lace florets, so she bent the stem sideways to see what it was. There was a cute little jumping spider under there, too, which she hoped did not have designs on the caterpillar. Black Swallowtails lay their eggs on plants in the carrot family, and most gardeners who plant dill are familiar with them (and, the BugLady hopes, are generous enough to share).

BLUE MUD DAUBERS: They are all over the Queen Anne’s lace these days. Adults cruise the flower tops, sipping nectar and looking for spiders to cache in the egg chambers of their offspring, who will grow up on protein but eschew it as adults. Sometimes the wasps pick spiders right off of their webs, and they especially like to collect (which are here in God’s Country but are rare). They grab spiders with their and paralyze them with a sting, but they don’t bite people, and you have to rough one up considerably before she’ll sting you.

EMERALD ASH BORER: The BugLady loves ash trees, but these days, the landscape is littered with their skeletons. The first Emerald ash borer was detected in Wisconsin in Ozaukee County during the summer of 2008, though the EABs had undoubtedly been around for a few years before that. The picture shows an ash that is fighting for its life, a battle that it will not win. The top of this ash is dead, because the EAB larvae’s tunnels (galleries) just below the bark interfere with the flow of nutrients between the crown of the tree and its roots. The stressed tree responds by growing a bunch of shoots (called epicormic sprouts) from dormant buds in the bark of the trunk. The leafy sprouts, which are below the EAB damage, will allow the tree to photosynthesize – for a while. Read about EABs in a previous BOTW. EABs are, undeniably, beautiful beetles: , , .

SIX-SPOTTED FISHING SPIDER: Moving from a “solid” water lily leaf to a liquid substrate is no trick at all for a Six-spotted Fishing spider (the six spots that give it its name are on its underside) – in fact, it has more moves on the water than it does on dry land. It can walk, run, sail, or skate over the surface film and can dive under it, too.

GIANT SWALLOWTAIL: If there’s anything more stunning than a couple of Giant Swallowtails dancing in the air over purple coneflowers, the BugLady doesn’t know what it is.

The BugLady

The post Mid-Summer Scenes appeared first on Field Station.

Greetings, BugFans,

The BugLady got an email from BugFan Freda the other day saying that she had located two Painted Skimmers at a nearby natural area, and she’d be glad to show the BugLady where they were (and to wear footgear that could get wet or muddy, which pretty much describes all of the BugLady’s shoes). The BugLady is 95% sure that she saw the rear end of one of the skimmers while she and Freda were poking around – she flushed a dragonfly that was the right size and shape, but it popped up and over some cattails and kept going. Thanks for the use of your pictures, Freda.

Painted Skimmers are in the Skimmer family Libellulidae, which contains many of our more common and more colorful dragonflies, and they’re in the genus Libellula – large, sturdy, showy dragonflies, often with dramatically-patterned wings, that are often referred to as the King skimmers. King skimmers have appeared in these pages before

• /field-station/bug-of-the-week/closed-for-june-spectacular-summer-dragonflies/,
• /field-station/bug-of-the-week/four-spotted-skimmer/, and
• /field-station/bug-of-the-week/slaty-skimmer-dragonfly/ (Chalk-fronted Corporals are sometimes included in the group, too /field-station/bug-of-the-week/chalk-fronted-corporal-dragonfly/)

They look like a dragonfly that was put together by a committee. Their wing spots are similar to, but fainter than, those of a (all the Painted Skimmer write-ups say “see also: Halloween Pennant”), and their abdomen looks a lot like that of a Four-spotted Skimmer, an early-flying whose wing spots are much smaller. are duller in color, with wider abdomens than . They often look golden in flight. There are many wonderful photos of Painted Skimmers online, but not much in the way of biographies.

Painted Skimmers (Libellula semifasciata) occur only rarely in Wisconsin (they’re a “Most Wanted” species here). They’re on dragonfly checklists from Texas to Florida to Maine to Ontario, becoming rarer as you travel farther north, and they’re at the edge of their range here in Wisconsin. They’re one of the fifteen-or-so species of North American Odonates that migrate (out of our 450-ish species), moving both north and south along the Atlantic Coast as well as inland. They arrive in the north early (one source said that many of the first arrivals are mature males); they often stay just long enough to get people excited (birders will sympathize); and they’re more numerous some years than others. According to the , they’ve been recorded in only seven of the years since 2000, and 2022 is the only year that they’ve been seen in multiple locations (five so far). When the Bug Lady was looking into that, she found this .

One source described them as widespread and relatively common but not often seen, due to their early flight period (they usually show up in June and July, so the influx of Painted Skimmers in 2022 is early) and to their habitat preferences. They frequent shallow, plant-filled, marshy, woodland ponds, pools, seasonal puddles, and sometimes bogs and slow-moving streams, but they may hunt for food far from water. Like all dragonflies, their aquatic young (naiads) (“nymphs,” if you must, but never “larvae”) eat the small invertebrates that they find next to them below the water’s surface, and the adults feed on flying insects. Painted Skimmer dragonflies perch on twigs and fly out to “hawk” small insects.

The Dragonflies of Northern Virginia website calls them both less aggressive and more wary than other King skimmers.

Males patrol territories and watch for females from perches on twigs or grass tips three to six feet above the water. They mate (briefly) in mid-air, he releases her, and Paulson, in Dragonflies and Damselflies of the East, tells us that “Females oviposit in low flight by vigorous and well-spaced tapping and moving some distance between groups of a few taps.” Males often patrol as she oviposits in order to protect her (and his genetic material) from being nabbed by rival males.

In her search for information, the BugLady turned up the comment on the Northern Virginia Dragonfly website (on two different pages) that “Some dragonflies have partially translucent abdomens (Painted Skimmers) and many others have dark wing patches at the base of their wings (saddlebags and pennants) – both may be anatomical adaptations to absorbing sunlight and channeling that heat to their organs and wing muscles.” She suspects that means that the dragonfly’s cuticle allows some light to pass through, and not that you can hold up a Painted Skimmer and see daylight through it. She couldn’t find any other sources to back that up.

Go outside – keep your eyes peeled. Things are popping!

The BugLady

The post Painted Skimmer Dragonflies appeared first on Field Station.

It’s spring, and it’s time to brush up on our bluet damselfly IDs because they’re starting to hit the airways. Most bluets are 1″ to 1.3″ long and, as their name suggests, males are at least partly blue with a blue tip at the rear. Visually, our 20-ish Wisconsin species are split into the (males with abdomens that are mostly black), the (with abdomens mostly blue), the (with roughly equal blue and black—sometimes a judgement call), and “other”—the very-colorful Orange, Vesper, and Rainbow Bluets. Identification can be a bear, but the claspers at the tip of the male’s abdomen are diagnostic. Bring your hand lens (or your macro lens). Females are tricky, too, often having several color forms.

Taxonomically, there are two groups of bluets—the American bluets, in the genus Enallagma, and the Eurasian bluets, in the genus Coenagrion. There are about 30 species Eurasian bluets, but only three species are found here, at the northern edges of the New World (or at higher elevations slightly farther south), and the rest live in the Old World. Bluets are in the Pond Damsel family Coenagrionidae.

TAIGA (pronounced TY’ gah) BLUETS (Coenagrion resolutum) are a lovely, early, black-type bluet that is common in Wisconsin and very common across Canada. They’re usually the first damselfly the BugLady sees each spring, reminding her that she has spent the winter forgetting anything she ever knew about bluets. It’s our northernmost-flying damselfly, found in the northern half of North America all the way up to the Arctic Ocean. (The resolutum part of its name is said to reflect its fortitude in the face of a cold climate.) It lives near quiet waters like bogs, marshes, ponds, and spruce and tamarack swamps. (The Taiga or Boreal forest biome is a swampy forest made up of conifers that covers a good part of the far (far) north, around the globe.)

Males are often green/aqua-tinged. (Bugfan Bob notes that juvenile males go through a lilac phase.)

Females can be green or brown.

Like a lot of damselflies, Taiga Bluets often lurk in tall vegetation, where they can dodge both predators and the wind. According to Robert Dubois in Damselflies of the North Woods, males emerge in late May, when the water temperature reaches 54 degrees. Females lay eggs in submerged plant stems, in tandem with the male, and she may go completely underwater while ovipositing.

They overwinter as naiads in diapause (dormancy), “embedded in ice for one of the last three instars,” says Dubois. Not only can they survive being frozen, these cold-adapted naiads are so hardy that when researchers gave them warmer water to develop in, their growth lagged. Because of their chilly surroundings, they may take more than one season to mature. The aquatic naiads eat a lot of midge larvae and tiny crustaceans called daphnia.

In keeping with long-standing tradition, starting next week, BOTW will be CLOSED FOR JUNE, while the BugLady hits the trails with her camera. Each week she will send out a tasteful and/or timely item from her “Bugs in the News” file.

Go outside – look for dragonflies!

The BugLady

The post Taiga Bluet Damselfly appeared first on Field Station.

We’ve had a major emergence of migratory Common Green Darners in the past 10 days. They’ve been feeding along Lake Michigan’s western shoreline, zigzagging over the roadway and fields, socking away calories (those floodwater mosquitoes are good for something), and roosting in the cedars. Pushed south by cold fronts, they’ll cover seven or more miles a day, and it will take them weeks to get to their destination. They’re on their way, and maybe a little part of those of us who see them, goes with them.

Common Green Darners (Anax junius – “the Lord of June!”), hummingbird-sized dragonflies that, yes, sometimes attempt to prey on hummingbirds, have graced these pages before. Here are some links to past episodes /field-station/common-green-darner-rest-story-family-aeshnidae/ Ěý and /field-station/dragonfly-swarm/ , and a quick review.

Dragonflies have been around for 275 million years. Back in the day (the Carboniferous and Permian day) some dragonfly ancestors had wingspreads of two-and-a-half feet and weighed a pound – crow-sized, according to the University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s Entomology website. There was more oxygen in the air then, and that allowed insects and other invertebrates, which take in air passively through holes called spiracles, more oxygen to nourish their cells. Think six-foot millipedes.

Wisconsin has two populations of Common Green Darners (family Aeshnidae), and because of that, they can be seen in our skies from May through September. The migratory crew arrives in mid-spring, fresh from their winter range in the Southeastern US, Texas, and Mexico, one of about a dozen kinds of dragonflies that migrates out of the 400-ish species in North America. They mate, oviposit, and die off, but as they do, the resident population starts to emerge from the warming waters. There’s a big difference in the phenology of their offspring (called naiads – or nymphs, if you must – but never larvae). Naiads of the migrant darners mature quickly, ready to emerge from beneath the water by late August. Naiads from the eggs of the resident population, deposited in submerged plant stems throughout summer, take about 10 months to mature.

Big assemblages of Common Green Darners – swarms – may be seen from early August on, depending on the weather. An aquatic entomologist who blogs under the name of “Dragonfly Woman” collects reports of dragonfly swarms. Dragonfly Woman divides swarming behavior into low-altitude, static (mostly feeding) swarms and higher-altitude migratory swarms (and she wants to hear about both). Static swarms tend to be localized, with groups of dragonflies milling around no higher than about 20 feet off the ground. Migratory swarms are fast-moving “rivers of hundreds of thousands of dragonflies all flying in a single direction and covering large distances.” Both migratory and feeding swarms can contain a mixture of species.

Explanation: The BugLady’s first internet connection, back in the dawn of time, was dial-up, and she’s still traumatized by it (she used to start downloading a picture and go wash dishes until it was complete), so she tries not to send huge picture files. The attached “darner swarm” picture is a big file, but if you can zoom it, you can see a feeding swarm of darners glittering over a low, wet field at the end of August. How many?

At this time last year, the BugLady spent parts of three or four days on a hawk tower counting migrating raptors, surrounded by a river of dragonflies – tens and hundreds of thousands of dragonflies, from horizon to horizon, moving steadily south. It was a religious experience. Primordial. The fall dragonfly migration is no secret from the raptors, and several species of falcons grab the darners out of the air and dine on the wing.

The BugLady visited Forest Beach Migratory Preserve recently on a windy day when the Common Green Darners, various mosaic darners, and Black Saddlebags did not want to be aloft; they wanted to shelter in the grasses and trees. As she climbed a low hill, darners exploded from the conifers at the top, circled, and settled back down, and it seemed like every plant stem and tuft of grass hid a few. What a thrill! She walked around the trail apologizing to the darners for kicking them up, and laughing at herself, because even though she imagines that she has a pretty good “dragonfly search image,” they almost always see her long before she sees them (and she confesses that in one of the pictures with two darners in it, she didn’t see the second until she put the picture up on the monitor). In one shot, you can scan the edge of the mowed path, as the BugLady does, except that most darners aren’t pre-marked by red “X’s.”

She has said it before and she’ll say it again – with apologies to major conservation organizations everywhere – she is more concerned about the fates of dragonflies and other insects than of giant pandas, cheetahs, elephants and grizzly bears.

Go outside, park yourself on the edge of Lake Michigan, and enjoy the show. .

The BugLady

The post Common Green Darners—A Love Affair appeared first on Field Station.

It’s High Summer, and a lot has been going on out there. Many species have already peaked and disappeared from the scene, assuming, until next year, whatever form they spend the majority of their lives in. Others are coming into their own. Here are some of the sights the BugLady has seen in local prairies and wetlands.

ANTS are everywhere, foraging for proteins and carbs, including milkweed nectar to take home to their families. Some species of ants have workers that are essentially tanker trucks.Ěý Ants are no great shakes as pollinators, due to their slippery little bodies and fastidious grooming habits, and besides that, they’re pedestrians, so the pollen doesn’t travel far. (Family Formicidae)

BLUE MUD DAUBER WASP – Cup plants have “perfoliate” leaves that look like two “conjoined leaves” but are actually a single leaf whose base is joined around the stem, making it look like the stem is piercing it. For a few days after a rain, reservoirs made by the cup plant’s leaves hold water that’s appreciated by all sorts of small animals. The wasp uses mud to construct chambers for her eggs, but she doesn’t carry water to dirt, spit on it, and stir. She may just be thirsty. (Family Sphecidae)

STRIPED HAIRSTREAK – The BugLady found this small butterfly of dappled woods and edges while she was surveying water hemlock plants for an up-coming episode. Adults nectar on available flowers, and Butterflies of the Great Lakes RegionĚýtells us that “Early in the morning, they will sip dew from leaves as they bask.” They’re not-very-common – “scattered lightly over our landscape,” says “The Butterflies of Massachusetts” website, “widely distributed although nowhere abundant.” The theory is that the eyespots on the hind wing confuse predators. (Family Lycaenidae)

HORSEFLY – Just a glamour shot of a horse fly, that’s all. (Family Tabanidae)

PARASITIZED – This dangling caterpillar was discovered in its infancy by a small, parasitic wasp that laid an egg in it. The wasp larva hatched, and then it ate and grew within the caterpillar, which was trying to do the same, but whose existence had been repurposed. When it was ready to pupate, the wasp dealt the coup de grace to its unfortunate host, exited, and spun a cocoon on the outside. As Darwin once said of parasitoids,Ěý“I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created the Ichneumonidae with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of Caterpillars.”

AMERICAN CARRION BEETLE – The BugLady has seen a number of adult carrion beetles flying around –black and yellow and big and buzzy – trying to convince her that they’re bumble bees, but she rarely sees the larvae. Adults lay their eggs on dead animals, and then stick around on the carcass doing “pest control” (eating the competition) before their well-armored larvae hatch and for a while afterward.Ěý The larvae will also eat other larvae they find on “their” carrion. (Family Silphidae)

EASTERN AMBERWING – The BugLady’s favorite insect is the Tiger Swallowtail, but the Eastern Amberwing is on her long list of second-favorites. This feisty 0.9” dragonfly has an attitude way bigger than its size. (Family Libellulidae)

A JUMPING SPIDER in the genusĚýPelegrina (thanks as always for the ID, BugFan Mike) is another critter with attitude. You can see why jumping spiders have fan clubs. (Family Salticidae)

COMMON BUCKEYE – The BugLady has way more shots of this beautiful butterfly sitting on the ground than on flowers (when it sits on flowers, it prefers composites); it typically flits along 6’ ahead of her on mowed paths. It’s a Southern migrant to God’s Country, arriving in early summer, but the migrants produce a brood once they’re here. The and theare different – if you’re lucky enough to see one with its wings closed. If the Striped Hairstreak’s eyespots are meant to confuse, the Buckeye’s are meant to intimidate. (Family Nymphalidae)

CINNAMON CLEARWING MOTH – So cool!Ěý So speedy! Clearwing moths are in the Sphinx moth family Sphingidae; we have two species around here, and the BugLady has plenty of out-of-focus shots of each. Like chasing sprites.

ROBBER FLY – Some robber flies are small and shy, butĚýPromachus vertebratus is neither. At about an inch long, it was almost the same size as the Halloween Pennant dragonflies the BugLady was photographing at the same time. It makes “annoyed” sounds when you kick it up in the fields (attitude again). These flies prey on anything they can catch – the BugLady has a shot of one holding a Clouded Sulphur butterfly. (Family Asilidae)

WHITEFACE AND BLUET – The BugLady was stalking dragonflies at Spruce Lake Bog when a Dot-tailed Whiteface dragonfly grabbed a Marsh Bluet damselfly and sat down beside her. Something buzzed the duo loudly – maybe a robber fly – and the startled dragonfly released its prey. As the whiteface moved to a different perch, the damselfly shook it off and flew away. No damselflies were harmed to make this picture. (Families Libellulidae and Coenagrionidae)

Go outside – look at bugs!

The BugLady

The post Summer Scenes appeared first on Field Station.