{"id":11402,"date":"2020-03-18T10:08:01","date_gmt":"2020-03-18T15:08:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/uwm.edu\/field-station\/?p=11402"},"modified":"2020-03-18T10:08:01","modified_gmt":"2020-03-18T15:08:01","slug":"bugs-without-bios-ix-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/uwm.edu\/field-station\/bug-of-the-week\/bugs-without-bios-ix-3\/","title":{"rendered":"Bugs without Bios IX"},"content":{"rendered":"

Howdy, BugFans,<\/p>\n

Bugs without Bios celebrates the small-but-mighty insects that, mostly unsung, sneak below our radar daily. Today\u2019s catch have three things in common \u2013 their identifications are all \u201cprobable;\u201d they\u2019re all carnivores; and on each of the three, the BugLady\u2019s Google search ran out in fewer than ten pages.<\/p>\n

CALLEIDA PUNCTATA<\/strong><\/p>\n

This metallic beetle is Calleida punctata<\/em> (probably \u2013 there\u2019s a very similar species that\u2019s more southerly in range and we are north of the overlap zone). No common name. It\u2019s a tiny beetle in a large family, Carabidae<\/em> \u2013 the Ground beetles – that includes some rather substantial species, like the 1 \u00bc\u201d Fiery Searcher, Green Beetle<\/a>, and Caterpillar Hunter<\/a>. There are about 34,000 species of Ground beetles worldwide; about 2,500 in North America. While there are a few herbivores and omnivores in the crowd, and some larvae that are herbivores or parasitoids, most species are predators. Here\u2019s a better shot<\/a> of one.<\/p>\n

\"Beetle<\/p>\n

Calleida punctata<\/em> (Calleida means \u201cbeautiful form\u201d) is about 1\/3 inch long (for scale, here\u2019s one on a single milkweed flower<\/a>). It\u2019s found in the northeastern quadrant of North America from Quebec to South Carolina to Kansas to Manitoba (though they were listed in Panama and in a paper about insects found on a college campus in Pakistan, too. Our North American fauna includes 64 non-native carabids, and that door opens both ways).<\/p>\n

As their name suggests, ground beetles are often found on the ground, where they\u2019re harder to spot<\/a>, but members of this genus also tend to be more arboreal and are seen on leaves and flowers (OK, they\u2019re sometimes \u201cplanticolous,\u201d from the Latin \u201ccolous\u201d meaning to inhabit, live in\/on, dwell, etc.). The Illinois Wildflowers website associates them with goldenrods. Their prey is small insects, including beetles<\/a>, and in a paper about the first Minnesota record of the beetle in 2000, author Paul Tinerella noted that the adults are said to eat caterpillars.<\/p>\n

BRANDED PINION<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Branded<\/p>\n

First off, the name. Please do not ask the BugLady where these moths in the Owlet family (Noctuidae<\/em>) and the Cutworm\/Dart subfamily (Noctuinae<\/em>) and the genus Lithophane<\/em> got the name Pinion moths. Pinion pine? Pinion feathers? Rack and pinion? Don\u2019t know. But \u2013 the BugLady has long said that the people who name moths (and tiger beetles) seem to love their work. For proof, check the names of tiger beetles and of underwing moths. Along with common names that describe their colors and patterns and discoverers, there are Nameless, Immigrant, Wanton, Shivering (they shiver before flight on cool days to warm the muscles in their thorax), Singed, Luke-warm, Dowdy, and Anti-pinions.<\/p>\n

Adult pinions tend to be drab, with a noticeably \u201csquare-shouldered\u201d look, and because of their phenology, many of them are loosely called \u201cwinter moths.\u201d Overall, they are northern moths, associated with woodlands and edges. Pinions are active late in fall, but they overwinter as adults and then fly, mate, and lay eggs early in the next spring. Pinion larvae eat the leaves of woody plants; some are generalists and some are host-specific – and some supplement their diet of plants with a caterpillar or two, even those of their own species (and isn\u2019t this a dynamite picture<\/a>).<\/p>\n

The caterpillar on the tree trunk is (probably) a Branded\/Dimorphic Pinion (Lithophane patefacta) (\u201cLitho\u201d means \u201cstone\u201d and \u201cphane\u201d means \u201clooks like\u201d). It\u2019s found in eastern Canada, south to the Carolinas and west to Wisconsin, and there are some records for British Columbia, Louisiana, and maybe northern Florida. Wagner, in Caterpillars of Eastern North America calls the Branded pinion \u201cperhaps the most widespread and abundant pinion in the Southeast.\u201d Adults come in light or dark forms<\/a> \u2013 northern moths are commonly lighter than the darker, southern forms. Caterpillars come in different colors, too:<\/p>\n