Category: Bug of the Week

Bug o’the Week – And Now for Something a Little Different III – Timberdoodle redux

Bug o’the Week
by Kate Redmond

And Now for Something a Little Different III Timberdoodle redux

Howdy, BugFans,

This episode was originally adapted from the Spring, 2010 issue of the BogHaunter, the newsletter of the Friends of the Cedarburg Bog, written by the BugLady wearing a different hat.  It’s further revised from a BOTW of seven years ago – new words and new pictures.

Woodcocks are wonderful birds with a great story.  They were a big part of the BugLady’s childhood – their return to our brushy fields was celebrated each year and it was (and still is) a race to see who would hear the first one (thanks, Mom, thanks, Dad).

American Woodcocks (Scolopax minor), family Scolopacidae, are long-billed, big-eyed, short-legged, round-winged, Robin-sized birds.  The Cornell University All about Birds website says “Their large heads, short necks, and short tails give them a bulbous look on the ground and in flight.”  Woodcocks are a dumpling of a bird – about 10 inches long, weighing up to a half-pound, with big eyes, very short legs, and a very long bill (2 ½” to 2 ¾ “).  Females are larger than males and have longer bills, too. 

Woodcocks are shorebirds that are not tied to the shoreline – upland game birds, the “Landlubbers” of the shorebird family.  These odd-looking birds (the BugLady has read that hunting dogs find them odd-smelling, too) have many nicknames, like “timberdoodle” “mudbat,” “brush snipe,” “bog-sucker,” “hokumpoke,” and “night partridge.”  

A look at where a woodcock lives and what it eats explains its adaptations.  Short, wide wings are perfect for flight through close, brushy areas.  A woodcock is a bundle of adaptations.  Short wings make it easier to maneuver in the brushy fields, woody edges, wet meadows, and open woodlands that they call home, and the fact that they are able to fly slower than any other bird – 5 MPH – serves them well in those spots. 

Their superb camouflage makes it impossible to spot them before they fly, so most views are rear views as they exit the scene.  The BugLady once unknowingly stood near two young birds for about five minutes until they couldn’t stand it anymore and departed, startling her with their whistling wings (there have been some interesting studies of birds’ tolerance of nearby humans – birds are more distressed by someone who stops than by someone who strolls by). 

Most of their adaptations have to do with their feeding habits.  That long bill allows a woodcock to extract earthworms and other invertebrates (snails, millipedes, spiders, flies, beetles, and ants) from deep in the moist soil.  The tip of the bill is both flexible and sensitive and can be opened without opening the base.  Worms are slippery little devils, and roughened surfaces on the tongue and upper bill help the bird to get a grip.  Which is a good thing – a woodcock may eat its weight (about a half-pound) in worms daily.  They also eat some plant material – seeds, sedges, and ferns.  They feed during the day, solo, during breeding season and at night on their winter grounds.  Here’s a video of a woodcock foraging https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swHtEAEfGXM&ab_channel=CornellLabofOrnithology.   

The woodcock’s typical rocking walk was explained by early ornithologists as a tactic to produce vibrations that would rouse earthworms into motion so that the woodcock could hear them.  Later biologists speculate that the slow gait tells potential predators that the Woodcock knows they’re there (and is in no hurry).  See https://whyevolutionistrue.com/2021/02/28/why-do-woodcocks-rock-when-they-rock/ (but don’t turn on the audio).

Any animal that feeds with its head down runs the risk of becoming a meal while having a meal.  Over time, woodcock eyes have migrated toward the top of their head.  As a result, woodcocks have good vision both in back and to the sides while they probe for worms (as opposed to a robin, which has eyes on each side of its skull and can’t see much to the fore or aft).  Because their eyes have thus migrated, their brains have been rearranged and are upside down. 

But, they’re famous for something besides their looks. 

Woodcocks make their presence known in early spring – often by mid-March – when males take to the air to perform their amazing “sky dance.”  They begin around sunset and continue into the wee hours, especially if the moon is full – the BugLady has heard them in her field at 1:00 AM.  The dance is repeated at dawn.

After calling from the ground for a while – a nasal sound described as a “peent” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Owj52XhoxI – the male takes off.  Specially-shaped wing feathers produce a twittering sound as he spirals into the air, sometimes more than 300 feet up.  From high in the sky, he zigzags back down, vocalizing a rich “chirp, chirp, chirp, chirp” sound.

Let Aldo Leopold tell it: “Up and up he goes, the spirals steeper and smaller, the twittering louder and louder, until the performer is only a speck in the sky. Then, without warning, he tumbles like a crippled plane, giving voice in a soft liquid warble that a March bluebird might envy. At a few feet from the ground, he levels off and returns to his peenting ground, usually to the exact spot where the performance began, and there resumes his peenting.” 

There, the theory goes, the enamored female woodcock will find him. 

The first sound on this audio is the chirping call of a descending bird https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/American_Woodcock/sounds, and if you listen, after he’s landed and is peenting, you can hear the faint “Whoop – Whoop” sound that apparently is a communication between two birds that are on the ground.  More vocalizations can be heard in the “Sound and Calls” section at http://www.audubon.org/field-guide/bird/american-woodcock.

Once she finds him, he struts and bows with outstretched wings.  Females may make the acquaintance of several males, and vice versa, but by the end of April, the show’s about over.  Males will continue their sky dance into early May – even though most of their potentially appreciative audience is sitting on eggs.  They are often incubating during the final snowstorms of spring.  Hope springs eternal, and some females will join the dance even while they’re caring for young. 

Woodcocks nest on the ground; females line a shallow depression with leaves and deposit (usually) four mottled, tan eggs in it.  She will sit on them for about three weeks, but the male does no incubation or child care.  The young are “precocial,” (think “precocious”) – unlike the blind and naked young of songbirds, woodcock nestlings are dried off and running around within hours of hatching.  Although she continues to feed them for a week or so, the young are probing for food when they’re just three or four days old, and flying after two weeks.  Fun Fact – newly-hatched Woodcocks have adult-sized feet. 

As ground-nesting birds, woodcocks are preyed on by dogs, cats, skunks, possums, and snakes.  The BugLady once saw a woodcock fluttering across a field, just above the grass tops, pursued by a raccoon; it may have been a female, leading the raccoon away from her nest. 

Many birds undertake epic migrations, but not the Woodcock.  As the ground chills and worms migrate vertically to escape the frost, woodcocks need only travel to the Southeastern and Gulf States, where unfrozen ground allows them access to food.  Woodcocks migrate at night, at low altitudes, alone or in small groups, usually starting in October.  The trip is unhurried, with the birds’ cruising along at about 25 MPH.  They start the return trip in February.

Around the beginning of the 20th century, books were being cranked out by “nature-fakers,” who romanticized and anthropomorphized the daily lives of the animals they wrote about.  They wrote that a woodcock was able to set its own leg if one got broken – the proof being the crusted mud often seen on woodcocks’ legs. 

Lots of Nature Centers offer Woodcock Walks at this time of year, or you can drive out into the countryside and find a brushy field.  The show usually starts about 45 minutes before sunset.first&year=2025.Fritillary https://bugguide.net/node/view/1990523/bgimage, https://bugguide.net/node/view/1887246/bgimage, give it a second look, just to be sure. 

Kate Redmond, The BugLady

Bug of the Week archives:
http://uwm.edu/field-station/category/bug-of-the-week/

Bug o’the Week – Monarch Butterfly Status Update

Bug o’the Week
by Kate Redmond

Monarch Butterfly Status Update

Howdy, BugFans,

This is a Good-News-Bad News-Stay-Tuned kind of story.

But first, a little background.  Besides being large and lovely, Monarch butterflies, of course, catch our fancy because of the death-defying migrations they undertake twice a year.  Migrations – fueled by flowers – that carry some of them 3,000 miles from central Mexica into Canada.

Monarchs have a wide geographical range today, but only part of it is historic.  They’ve been introduced or have found their way to and established populations in Hawaii (there’s a white subspecies in Oahu), some Caribbean Islands, Australia, New Zealand, and more, and they are accidental migrants to other spots on the globe. 

Most of the North American Monarch population is divided between the Western Monarchs that occupy the Pacific Coast west of the Rockies and overwinter in the southern half of California, and the Eastern Monarchs that range from the Rockies to the Atlantic Coast and overwinter in the oyamel fir forests in a mountainous area west of Mexico City.  There are also pockets of Monarchs that are permanent residents in Arizona, around the Gulf Coast through Florida, and along the Eastern Seaboard as far north as Virginia.

FIRST, THE GOOD(-ISH) NEWS.  Every winter the population of Eastern Monarchs that overwinters in the Mariposa Monarca Biosphere Reserve is censused by counting how many acres/hectares of the Reserve that they occupy (one hectare equals a little less than 2.5 acres or about two football fields).  The 2024 survey found Monarchs on only 2.22 acres, one of the lowest densities since the count began in 1993, but in-2025, 4.42 acres were occupied.  Good news but not great news – the population is still very low, and some researchers say that in order to be sustainable, the population should cover about 15 acres. 

Better weather, less drought, and better protections for the fir forests against illegal logging are credited with the increase (although, according to the Center for Biological Diversity, an ongoing threat to the forests is cutting trees in order to grow avocados for American tables).

Will this year’s boost become a trend?  Monarch numbers tend to see-saw.  On the negative side, a warming climate is rendering the mountainous Reserve less habitable for the firs and is making larger swatches of the South too warm for Monarch reproduction.  And then there are the pesticides that affect both the plants and the insects themselves.  On the positive side, citizens along the butterflies’ path are getting the message about planting the milkweed needed by Monarch caterpillars and a variety of nectar plants for the adults.  For more background on Monarch populations, see https://uwm.edu/field-station/bug-of-the-week/the-monarch-butterfly-problem/.

THEN THE BAD NEWS.  Western Monarchs, historically numbered in the millions and whose numbers had exceeded 200,000 in recent counts, suffered a major crash this year, with the 2024-2025 survey finding just over 9,000 butterflies.  The “break-even” number for survival of the Western Monarch may be as high as 30,000, and some scientists put them at a 99% probability of being extinct by 2080.

A recent study shows a 22% decline in butterfly numbers across multiple species over the past twenty years.

AND THE STAY-TUNED NEWS.  A few years ago, there was some momentum to list Monarchs as Threatened under the Endangered Species Act (ESA).  An “Endangered” designation means that a species is in danger of going extinct over all or part of its range, and a “Threatened” species is one that is likely to become Endangered within the foreseeable future over all or a significant portion of its range.  For that story, see https://uwm.edu/field-station/bug-of-the-week/listing-the-monarch/.  

For various reasons, among them the fact that Monarch numbers can vary dramatically from year to year, the decision was kicked down the road.  Then, in 2024, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) again proposed listing the Monarch.  The deadline for public comment, initially set to expire in March, was extended until May 19, with a possible decision to be announced by the end of 2025.  If accepted, the Monarch would be the “most common” Threatened species ever listed, which causes some observers to say that it’s still too early to bring them  under the ESA umbrella.   

Monarchs are already listed as Endangered in Canada and are recognized as a Species of Special Protection in Mexico.

Listing a Threatened or Endangered Species has far-reaching ripples, both monetary and regulatory (land use restrictions, for example), and requires a Solomon-like crafting of the law.  Any species added to the list must have a budget and a realistic game plan for recovery – one that, in the case of the Monarch, would attempt to turn back the clock on decades of habitat loss and degradation, pesticide use, and the effects of climate change.  Changing weather patterns have exposed spring migrants to stormy weather, and warmer falls have caused many Monarchs to linger in the north.  

Ideally, people should embrace the conservation goals of a recovery plan voluntarily, and any plan should allow for the continuation of state and local efforts by individuals, agencies, and organizations.  Too rigorous, and people will resent it and it will become a political hot-potato; not rigorous enough and the plan will fail the species.  In the case of the Monarch, both the butterfly and its remarkable migration are in peril. 

Fun Fact about Monarchs: they were the first butterfly species to have its genome sequenced.

Another Fun Fact about Monarchs:  the name “Monarch” is thought to be a reference to 17th century British King William III, also called the Prince of Orange (the British royalty/peerage also figured into the naming of the Baltimore Oriole and the Baltimore Checkerspot butterfly after Lord Baltimore, whose servants sported orange and black livery). 

Yet Another Fun Fact about Monarchs: according to Wikipedia, they’re the state insect of Alabama, Idaho, Illinois, Minnesota, Texas, Vermont, and West Virginia, and there were unsuccessful attempts in 1989 and 1991 to name them the National Insect of the United States.  

Final Fun Fact about Monarchs: THEY’RE COMING!   https://maps.journeynorth.org/map/?map=monarch-adult-first&year=2025.Fritillary https://bugguide.net/node/view/1990523/bgimage, https://bugguide.net/node/view/1887246/bgimage, give it a second look, just to be sure. 

Kate Redmond, The BugLady

Bug of the Week archives:
http://uwm.edu/field-station/category/bug-of-the-week/

Bug o’the Week – Gulf Fritillary – a Snowbird Special

Bug o’the Week
by Kate Redmond

Gulf Fritillary a Snowbird Special

Howdy, BugFans,

Life is busy – here’s a not-so-Golden Oldie, from the BugLady’s favorites list.

First of all, it’s a stunning butterfly https://bugguide.net/node/view/1734606/bgimage, https://bugguide.net/node/view/1926994/bgimage (the BugLady’s picture doesn’t do it justice – the original slide, taken in Texas, was fine, but the scanned slide, not so much).  Second, unlike many of BOTW’s featured bugs, there was an abundance of information about this species, some of which sent the BugLady traipsing happily down a few rabbit holes.

This is not your grandfather’s fritillary (unless your grandfather is a Southerner).  Gulf Fritillaries are in the Brush-footed butterfly family Nymphalidae, along with a whole bunch of familiar Wisconsin butterflies, and they’re with the fritillaries in the subfamily Heliconiinae (which used to be its own family).  But, unlike our familiar fritillaries https://bugguide.net/node/view/2164671/bgimage, they’re in the tribe Heliconiini, aka the Heliconians or Longwings, many of which occur in tropical climes and have long, slim, spectacular wings https://bugguide.net/node/view/1480877/bgpage, https://bugguide.net/node/view/1478862/bgpage, https://bugguide.net/node/view/309768/bgimage. 

The larvae of many Heliconians feed on parts of passion vines and leaves, and the adults eat the nectar, fruit and sap of a number of plants, and many make or save toxic chemicals for defense.  Adults often spend the night in communal roosts https://bugguide.net/node/view/6260/bgimage (a group of butterflies is called a roost or bivouac).  

The Gulf Fritillary (Agraulis vanillae) (Dione vanillae in some books) is also known as the Passion butterfly because of its caterpillar host plant, and the Online Guide to the Animals of Trinidad and Tobago refers to it as the Silver Spotted Flambeau.  Carl Linnaeus gave it the species name “vanillae” based on a life cycle painting of the butterfly on a vanilla plant done by the amazing 18th century naturalist/painter Maria Sibylla Merian, but the species doesn’t use vanilla plants.  If you’re not familiar with her, here she is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Sibylla_Merian. 

Its range is described as Neotropical, which covers the ground from central Mexico and the Caribbean to southern South America.  In North America it is most common across our southern tier of states and the West Indies, and is harder to find as you travel north http://mothphotographersgroup.msstate.edu/species.php?hodges=4413.  It’s one of the most common butterflies in some parts of Florida, where it has multiple generations per year; it was introduced to Southern California in the late 1800’s and is established there; it’s also established in Hawaii; and it has been recorded in Guam.  Gulf Fritillaries fly north in spring, breeding across the Southeast, and move back south again in fall, with Florida seeing dramatic migrations in both directions.   

It has a wingspan of two-and-one-half to almost four dazzling inches; females are larger than males and may have darker markings https://bugguide.net/node/view/666672/bgimage.

Courtship is exotic.  As a male and female circle each other in the air, he calms her flight response by releasing aphrodisiac courtship pheromones from “hair pencils” on his abdomen, and after she perches, he may hover above her, dusting her with more pheromones.  He perches beside her, they shift to face each other at a 45-degree angle, and he claps his wings open and closed, enveloping her antennae with each clap, delivering more pheromones from structures on the top side of his front wings and letting her know he is the same species (butterfly eyesight isn’t that great).  For Gulf Fritillaries, it’s “Ladies’ Choice” – females actively pick the males they mate with, so he really has to sell it. 

Rabbit hole #1: If she accepts his advances, his sperm packet, delivered when they mate, includes what’s called a nuptial gift.  The BugLady has written about nuptial gifts in spiders, katydids, tree crickets, and dance flies, but she had no idea that some butterflies produce them (they’re an energy-intensive investment for the male).  The sperm packet includes nutrients that will help her form eggs.  In the case of one of the European Comma butterflies (Polygonia c-album), the spermatophores are edible, containing both food and sperm, and the female, who mates with multiple males, can rate a male by the quality of plants he ate as a caterpillar (nettle is preferred) (Toto, I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore). 

She lays her eggs, one by one, on or near a passion vine (purple passionflower has the best flower ever https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passiflora#/media/File:OQ_Passion_flower.jpg), usually on the top surface of a leaf.  When they hatch, the caterpillars eat their egg shells – and sometimes neighboring eggs – and then start in on the leaves, often feeding in small groups. 

In the far southern US, Gulf fritillaries are in the air all year long, producing multiple generations.  They are said to overwinter only as adults, but one researcher concluded that after passion vines die back in Florida in early winter, caterpillars can survive in diapause (dormancy – they halt development and resume when conditions improve).  They can also enter diapause in the chrysalis stage, though temperatures under 30 degrees are not good for them (or for most Floridians).  Here’s a nice series of a caterpillar forming a chrysalis https://bugguide.net/node/view/1589936/bgimage. 

Gulf Fritillaries are well-defended.  Adults can produce stinky fluids when alarmed.  The vegetation of many passion vine species is chock full of chemicals including glycosides that release cyanide when eaten, alkaloids, and strychnine and nicotine relatives, making their caterpillars a bad choice for predators.  And if that weren’t enough, the caterpillars are spiny https://bugguide.net/node/view/2047275/bgimage. 

Rabbit hole #2 was peripheral and was kind of like when you find out that deer eat baby birds (yes, deer eat baby birds, and so do chipmunks). 

In order to produce mating pheromones and “build” nuptial gifts, male butterflies in some species in the subfamily Danainae (the Milkweed and Glasswing butterflies) may want to boost their alkaloid load.  They can get extra alkaloids by scratching toxic leaves with claws on their tarsi (feet) and sipping the resulting sap, but researchers in the Sulawesi area of Indonesia noticed that some Danaine upped the ante by ingesting chemicals from caterpillars that had been feeding on plants in the dogbane family (which is closely related to milkweed).  Seven species were observed scratching dead or dying caterpillars and sipping the fluid (researchers don’t know if the scratching part had contributed to the dead and dying part).  They went after healthy caterpillars too (“subdued them,” said the researchers), to harvest the toxic chemicals that the caterpillars sequester from their food plants for their own protection.  In their defense, it may be that the butterflies were attracted to leaves that were already scratched and oozing, and the caterpillars were just in the neighborhood.  Scientists had to coin a new term for this unique practice – “Kleptopharmacophagy” – literally “stealing chemicals for consumption.” 

One of the researchers, Yi-Kai Tea, referred to caterpillars as “essentially bags of macerated leaves; the same leaves that contain these potent chemicals the milkweed butterflies seek out.” Fortunately, our iconic Monarch has not (yet) been implicated in this behavior, which is a good thing because the BugLady wouldn’t be able to look one in the eye.

The great Roger Tory Peterson once said that a good birder always looks twice.  In his 1970 book Butterflies of Wisconsin, Ebner dismissed some early Gulf Fritillary records as “rather dubious,” and the Wisconsinbutterflies.org website lists it as a rare stray to the state.  Gulf Fritillaries are pretty distinct, but if you glance at a large fritillary and are about to write it off as another Great Spangled Fritillary https://bugguide.net/node/view/1990523/bgimage, https://bugguide.net/node/view/1887246/bgimage, give it a second look, just to be sure. 

Kate Redmond, The BugLady

Bug of the Week archives:
http://uwm.edu/field-station/category/bug-of-the-week/

Bug o’the Week – Jade Clubtail Dragonfly

Bug o’the Week
by Kate Redmond

Jade Clubtail Dragonfly

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.  All of them.  The BugLady sent her pictures of blue, green, purple, orange, red, and a variety of multi-colored dragons and damsels.  The 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!  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).

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.  Females’ clubs are minimal-to-absent.  Clubtails 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.  Unlike most other dragonflies, whose eyes meet or nearly meet at the tops of their heads, Clubtails’ eyes are distinctly separated https://bugguide.net/node/view/741140. 

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.  There 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-bold color patterns resulting in disruptive coloration https://bugguide.net/node/view/970474.  

Both males and females are seen “obelisking” – perching with the tip of the abdomen raised, which is thought to help with temperature control https://bugguide.net/node/view/1218643/bgimage and which is also used by males as an aggressive posture.

JADE CLUBTAILS (Arigomphus submedianus)are in the genus Arigomphus (the Pond Clubtails), an exclusively North American genus.  Arigomphus, prefer their water still.  They’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.  They are common in Illinois but have been recorded only in the southern third of Wisconsin. 

Pairs gather on shoreline vegetation.  Males 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.  Naiads are sturdy https://bugguide.net/node/view/1455474/bgimage. They prefer water that is unpolluted and well-oxygenated. 

Spring is coming!

Kate Redmond, The BugLady

Bug of the Week archives:
http://uwm.edu/field-station/category/bug-of-the-week/

Bug o’the Week – Bugs in the News XV

Bug o’the Week
by Kate Redmond

Bugs in the News XV

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?  https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/hibernating-bumblebee-queens-can-survive-underwater-for-up-to-a-week-study-finds-180984175/?utm_source=smithsoniandaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=editorial&spMailingID=49668960&spUserID=ODg4Mzc3MzY0MTUyS0&spJobID=2682036985&spReportId=MjY4MjAzNjk4NQS2.

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  https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/us-butterflies-are-disappearing-at-drastic-rates-with-one-in-five-gone-since-2000-180986188/?utm_source=smithsoniandaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=editorial&lctg=91269370.   

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 https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/intrepid-team-bee-lovers-doing-everything-save-rare-native-species-extinction-180986181/?utm_source=smithsoniandaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=editorial&lctg=91269370

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.”  https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/why-do-so-many-beetle-species-exist-180984100/?utm_source=smithsoniandaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=editorial&spMailingID=49646610&spUserID=ODg4Mzc3MzY0MTUyS0&spJobID=2681166215&spReportId=MjY4MTE2NjIxNQS2

Kate Redmond, The BugLady

Bug of the Week archives:
http://uwm.edu/field-station/category/bug-of-the-week/

Bug o’the Week – Eastern Lubber Grasshopper – a Snowbird Special rerun

Bug o’the Week
by Kate Redmond

Eastern Lubber Grasshopper a Snowbird Special rerun

Greetings, BugFans,

Here’s another episode from the BugLady’s favorites file (yeah, yeah – Mom shouldn’t have favorites).

When BugFan Mary sent “what-is-it?” pictures from Florida of this wildly handsome grasshopper nymph, the BugLady said “More, please,” sending Mary back out into the palmettos to stalk grasshoppers with her Smartphone.  Thanks, Mary!!!  With luck, the neighbors weren’t watching.

This is one serious grasshopper!  It’s hard to ignore a grasshopper that’s large enough to trip over and too large to fly.

Big grasshopper?  Big story.  Put your feet up.

Lubber grasshoppers are in the family Romaleidae, a family that’s having a taxonomic “Pardon our Dust” moment because some experts suspect that a few of the genera now included may not belong there.  One reputable source lists only four species north of the Rio Grande, but Bugguide.net includes nine species in seven genera.  Even the star of today’s show can be found under two scientific names – Romalea microptera and Romalea guttata.

Quick Etymological Detour: Romaleidae comes from a New Latin word that’s based on a Greek word that means, appropriately, “strong of body.”  The word “lubber” (which rhymes with “blubber”) has negative connotations in a variety of languages – “lazy or clumsy (Old English), “plump and lazy” (Swedish), “clumsy and stupid” (other Scandinavians), “swindler and parasite” (Old French), and “bumpkin.”  Microptera means “micro wing” and guttata means “spotted.” 

[“Lubber” – a deeper dive: According to https://www.etymonline.com/word/lubber, “’Since 16c. mainly a sailors’ word for those inept or inexperienced at sea (as in ‘landlubber,’ but earliest attested use is of lazy monks (abbey-lubber). Compare also provincial English lubberwort, name of the mythical herb that produces laziness (1540s), Lubberland ‘imaginary land of plenty without work’ (1590s).”  Lubber is also a verb – “to sail clumsily; to loaf about,” 1520s, from lubber(n.).”]

Anyway, there are some pretty spiffy North American lubber grasshoppers, not all of which are super-sized and not all of which are flightless, including the aptly-named Dragon lubber https://bugguide.net/node/view/881398/bgimage, the Robust lubber https://bugguide.net/node/view/593170/bgimage, and the awesome Horse lubber https://bugguide.net/node/view/2038338/bgimage and https://bugguide.net/node/view/845442 (Arizona Road Trip!). 

An eye-catching insect like this is bound to have lots of common names.  Along with Eastern lubber grasshopper, it answers to Florida lubber, Southern lubber, Texas grasshopper, graveyard grasshopper, soldier boys, Georgia thumper, and devil’s horse.

It’s the only lubber in the East, and one author calls it an insect of the deep, deep South.  Look for it in the Southeastern US from East Texas around the Gulf Coast to Florida, north to North Carolina, and west to Tennessee and Missouri.  Because they’re flightless, they aren’t spread evenly within that range.  Adults prefer dryer habitats in pine woods and weedy fields, and nymphs like swamps, marshes, wet pastures, and ditches. 

Males grow to 2 ½ inches and females to 3+ inches https://bugguide.net/node/view/212661.  Part of bugguide.net’s description reads “Distinguished by huge size and vivid yellow/red/black coloration, with hind wings red bordered black.”  There’s a lot of variation in color https://bugguide.net/node/view/585300, and https://bugguide.net/node/view/1330153/bgimage, and https://bugguide.net/node/view/1264792/bgimage, and some color schemes get established regionally (the black morph https://bugguide.net/node/view/196209 is more common around the Gulf Coast).  Newly hatched https://bugguide.net/node/view/1954601/bgimage, and newly-molted https://bugguide.net/node/view/906521/bgimage lubber nymphs are red, but they darken quickly https://bugguide.net/node/view/170927/bgimage. 

There’s only one generation per year.  Guarded by a male, the female lays eggs in summer, depositing about three pods, each containing 30 to 50 eggs, an inch or two underground in easily-excavated soil (she digs a hole with the tip of her abdomen).  Each pod is plugged with a foamy cap that allows the nymphs to escape when they hatch.  The eggs overwinter and the nymphs emerge in late winter as air and soil warm.  Dramatic migrations of lubbers-on-the-hoof have been reported – some associated with overcrowded nymphs seeking food, and others associated with adults seeking romance.

Sources are divided about whether lubbers are a big agricultural pest or not.  They feed on about 100 different herbaceous and woody plants in 38 plant families, and unfortunately, their menu includes some thick-leaved ornamentals like amaryllis, a few fruit trees (including citrus), and some vegetable crops (they like peas, beans, kale, and cabbage but not eggplant, tomato, pepper celery, or sweet corn).  There’s evidence that they can locate food plants by detecting their odors on the wind.  Though flightless, lubbers are good climbers; their usual MO is to chew holes in leaves and move on, but the nymphs are gregarious, and a dedicated gang of nymphs can defoliate a branch https://bugguide.net/node/view/43432/bgimage. 

Nymphs also eat emergent aquatic vegetation in ditches, including some unwanted weeds, before they move into farm fields, and adults eat less than you’d think an insect of that size would eat.  On the plus side, an ingredient in a lubber’s saliva stimulates plant growth and can make a plant that’s rebounding from grasshopper foraging bushier and more desirable to four-legged-grazers (“compensatory plant growth”).   

Not much preys on Eastern lubbers.  Their bright (aposematic/warning) colors signal to predators that eating them would be a bad idea, and when something does try to make a meal of them, they launch a three-pronged attack – structural, behavioral, and chemical.  Seems like overkill, but remember, these guys are heavy and slow and flightless, and they don’t even hop well.  

An alarmed lubber first flares its wings https://bugguide.net/node/view/698151/bgimage, a strategy that’s especially effective with birds.  If that doesn’t work, it releases toxins.  Lubbers sequester some poisonous chemicals from the leaves they eat, and they synthesize others, and these chemicals come out of the spiracles (breathing tubes) of the thorax, first (with a hiss) as a noxious spray that can carry as far as 6 inches, and then as a foam that bubbles out (scroll down https://academic.oup.com/jipm/article/9/1/10/4938808).  Like other grasshoppers, it may also vomit “tobacco juice” – a fluid that’s made of recently eaten plant material and that may be repellent in itself (especially to ants) if the grasshopper has been dining on toxic plants. 

The array of plants that lubbers eat allows them to stockpile different chemicals at different times, and their predators can’t get acclimated to the poisons because the ingredients are always changing.  The chemicals deter invertebrates and vertebrates alike – frogs, lizards and most birds vomit strenuously and may even die after eating one, and even opossums can’t stomach them. 

The bubbly broth is stored in a gland within the thorax.  In an article called “Large size as an antipredator defense,” researchers Whitman and Vincent write that “As such, this unique defense gland serves as a toxic waste dump for potentially harmful, plant secondary compounds. When ejected, these low-weight substances quickly volatize, enveloping the grasshopper in a noxious chemical cloud, deterrent to many vertebrate predators,” and they add that “It appears that lubbers have evolved to occupy a relatively predator-free ecological space: they are too large to be attacked by most invertebrate predators and too toxic for most vertebrate predators.” 

They have legs that are heavily armed with spines that are sharp enough to pierce human skin, and the chitonous plates that make up their exoskeletons are extra-tough – these guys are armored tanks.  They are harmless to humans, but they have strong jaws, and one bugguide.net correspondent reported being nipped smartly by a nymph that was scaling his leg. 

Fun Facts about Eastern Lubber Grasshoppers

  • Most people’s first (and only) contact with them comes when they dissect one in a biology class.  The BugLady did so back in the ‘60’s, and she still remembers how stinky it was – a result of the synergy of the formalin preservative and the grasshopper’s special essence.
  • According to a Natural History Writings entry at Loyola University’s Institute of Environmental Communication, “A popular Louisiana childhood pastime before computer games was to harness lubbers to a matchbox and pretend they were horses pulling wagons.”
  • The only hungry bird that’s figured out a “work-around” is the Loggerhead Shrike, which impales a grasshopper on a thorn or barbed wire fence and then leaves.  After a few days, the toxic substances have neutralized, and the bird gets a sizeable meal.

This is really a spectacular insect, and lots of people like taking pictures of it (and it poses so nicely!).  Here are some gratuitous pictures from bugguide.net:

https://bugguide.net/node/view/101967, https://bugguide.net/node/view/1371814/bgimage,

https://bugguide.net/node/view/901444/bgimage

https://bugguide.net/node/view/682611/bgimage

https://bugguide.net/node/view/100841/bgimage

https://bugguide.net/node/view/81814/bgimage

https://bugguide.net/node/view/408028/bgimage

https://bugguide.net/node/view/1377304/bgimage

Kate Redmond, The BugLady

Bug of the Week archives:
http://uwm.edu/field-station/category/bug-of-the-week/

Bug o’the Week – Two-spotted Long-horned Bee

Bug o’the Week
by Kate Redmond

Two-spotted Long-horned Bee

Howdy, BugFans,

The BugLady keeps getting solicitations from a large, national conservation/environmental organization whose message is “Save the Bees.”  Alas, the only bees they picture or mention are honey bees.  Heaven knows that honey bees are vital pollinators, and they’re certainly facing big challenges, but the same can be said of our (apparently invisible) native bees.

Turns out that the unassuming Two-spotted long-horned bee (Melissodes bimaculatus) (bimaculatus means “two spots”) is a Pollinator Extraordinaire.

But first, the Family Tree.  TSLHBs are in the family Apidae – the Cuckoo, Carpenter, Digger, Bumble, and Honey Bees – and in the tribe Eucerini, the Longhorn bees, the most diverse tribe in the family.  Eucerini comes from the Greek Eu, meaning “good” or” true” and keras, meaning “horn” and refers to the hefty antennae of the males.  There are about 215 species in the tribe in North America, and some bee people think that “The classification within the tribe is rather chaotic,” and that it is “in serious need of a thorough taxonomic overhaul.”  On top of that, the species can be hard to tell apart.  Many of the Eucerini are specialist feeders, and as such have names like Squash bee or Sunflower bee.  They’re important pollinators of sunflower, melon, and squash crops as well as both wild and garden flowers.

Long-horned bees are mid-sized (maybe a half-inch) and hairy, and many have abdomens ringed with yellow or white.  Males have longer antennae than females – some antennae may be as long as their bodies or longer https://bugguide.net/node/view/2343068/bgimage – and females have thicker hair on their back legs (all the better to carry pollen with, my dear).  They nest in vertical burrows in the ground, and they are solitary bees, but females of many species will tolerate other nests nearby, and males may rest overnight in amazing sleeping aggregations with other males.   

There are around 100 species in the genus Melissodes (which means “bee-like”) in the US.  They are hairy and “robust” – about half-again the size of a honey bee (males are slimmer than females) – and many have blue or green eyes.  Most Melissodes species are specialist feeders, zeroing in on the flowers of a few species or genera in the Aster/Composite family.  They’re most common in the second half of summer and early fall. 

Their burrows are about the diameter of a pencil, often with a small mound of dirt around them, and the individual egg chambers are lined with a waxy material and provisioned with a ball of pollen and nectar.  Females sleep in their burrows, but males gather with other males, often gripping a plant stalk with their jaws and dangling all night https://bugguide.net/node/view/1855315/bgimage.  In some species, males reuse the same “bedroom.”  Professor Robbin Thorne, of the University of California, Davis, called these aggregations “Boys’ Night Out.”

TWO-SPOTTED LONG-HORNED BEES (TSLHBs) are found from Ontario and Idaho south to New Mexico and Texas, and east to the Atlantic.  They like places with lots of flowers, including prairies and other grasslands, cities, and agricultural fields.

Males are fancy at the front end – except for some pale hairs on their rear set of legs, males are dark, but they have yellow/white hairs on their face (clypeus) above the mandibles https://bugguide.net/node/view/2192220/bgimage and long, reddish antennae.  Females are decorated toward the rear of the abdomen with two white spots, but her face is dark, and she has copious long, white hairs (scopae) on her legs https://bugguide.net/node/view/1545404/bgimage.  Both are a half-inch-ish long, and she’s a bit larger than he is.   

With a few differences, their biography mirrors that of most Melissodes.  Males emerge from their natal tunnels first and patrol the flower tops, looking for females.  Females emerge and start looking for good nest sites.  Where other species prefer to tunnel in flat ground, the TSLHB likes banks and inclines.  She provisions a cell, lays an egg in it, seals it off, and starts working on the next cell.  Although the species is common, their nest sites are rarely found (it’s suspected that they nest under bushes).  TSLHBs fly in mid-summer, and there’s one generation per year.

Unlike many in their genus, TSLHBs nectar at and females collect pollen from a wide variety of plants – wildflowers, garden flowers, “weeds,” and agricultural crops – and they start foraging early in the day.  When the BugLady tried to check the full list of their food plants at the Discover Life website, she found this message, “On 16 February, 2025, Discover Life had 6.5 million hits, largely by about two million robots that greatly slowed our service to our human users. We’re trying to get rid of them and get our services back. Sorry.”

Cuckoo bees in the genus Triepeolus https://bugguide.net/node/view/799598/bgimage) find the tunnels of TSLHBs, enter them, and lay eggs in the cells.  They are kleptoparasites – their larva will kill the Long-horned bee larva and eat the stored pollen.

Along with honey bees and common eastern bumble bees, TSLHBs are among the top three most important pollinators of cotton, and they also pollinate pumpkins, watermelons, and cucumbers.  

According to the Tufts Pollinator Initiative, researchers have found TSLHBs on the male flowers of corn plants.  Pollen provides insects with fats, protein, carbs, and vitamins, though these ingredients are present in different proportions in different species of flower.  But corn is wind pollinated, not insect-pollinated, and insects have little access to the pollen-and-nectar-free female flowers that are found on small, silky ears in mid-stalk.  These bees not only like corn pollen, they seem to actively seek it out.  In the case of corn, the TSLHB is not a pollinator, it’s a pollen thief! 

RABBIT HOLE DU JOUR

Not only do honey bees supply us with bees’ wax and honey, but bee pollination is a highly lucrative traveling show.  They pollinate $15 billion worth of crops annually.  Starting with the almond crop in California in early spring, hives are trucked around the country – north in spring and summer to pollinate about 125 kinds of nuts, fruits, and vegetables, producing honey as they go, and then back to Texas and Florida where they rest for the winter.  It’s called “managed insect pollination,” and it supplements the efforts of the native pollinators (or vice versa).  We’re talking tens of thousands of hives on the move, precisely choreographed to be delivered at the right blooming time for each crop.  It’s great for the growers, but stressful for the bees. 

There are also commercial bumble bee providers, because bumble bees are effective on about two dozen crops, including tomatoes, potatoes, peppers, squashes, clovers (without bumble bees there would be no red clover), sunflowers, and some of the crops that are grown in greenhouses.  

As always, the BugLady is pleased to recommend “The ID Guide of Wild Bees – New York” for good information and spectacular pictures https://www.sharpeatmanguides.com/bee-name-index, and this great bumble bee guide https://www.xerces.org/publications/identification-monitoring-guides/bumble-bees-of-eastern-united-states.   

It’s Invasive Species Awareness Week https://www.smithsonianmag.com/blogs/national-museum-of-natural-history/2025/02/25/this-invasive-species-awareness-week-learn-how-museum-researchers-track-the-rogue-wildlife-infiltrating-american-ecosystems/?utm_source=smithsoniandaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=editorial&lctg=91269370.   

BOTW will be Missing in Action on Egredior Day (March 4th) (egredior is Latin for “to march forth”), so that the BugLady can have a body part replaced.  Catch you later. 

Kate Redmond, The BugLady

Bug of the Week archives:
http://uwm.edu/field-station/category/bug-of-the-week/

Bug o’the Week – Ground Crab Spiders

Bug o’the Week
by Kate Redmond

Ground Crab Spiders

Howdy, BugFans,

Crab spiders need no introduction to these pages – several genera of delicate, flower crab spiders https://bugguide.net/node/view/621778/bgpage, https://bugguide.net/node/view/3928/bgpage, https://bugguide.net/node/view/2201967/bgimage have appeared in previous episodes.

Well, maybe a quick review:

 

They are in the family Thomisidae, which has about 130 species in nine genera in North America (14 genera worldwide).  The coolest genus that the BugLady has seen is the genus Tmarus, which can look like tiny octopi https://bugguide.net/node/view/1238420/bgimage.  

Crab spiders do not spin trap webs; they are ambush hunters that lurk on flowers, leaves, or bark, or in leaf litter, waiting for their prey – insects and other spiders – to appear.  They get their name from their ability to walk sideways and backwards using just their four back legs and, of course, from their two pairs of long, thick front legs (the name “crab spider” is shared with several unrelated, crab-like spiders).  They have eight eyes https://bugguide.net/node/view/306006/bgimage, and in some species, the eyes are on tubercles. Their wide, flat bodies are generally less than a half-inch long, and some species can (slowly) change color from white to yellow and back.   

Although they don’t spin trap webs, they do spin silk for reproductive purposes and as drag lines when they launch themselves at prey on a flower top. 

There are sixty-seven species of GROUND CRAB SPIDERS, genus Xysticus, in North America.  Most come in earth tones, and many have a disruptive pattern on their abdomen that helps to camouflage them.  Contrary to the name “Ground crab spider,” they can be found on leaves, stems, and flowers as well as on the ground, on rocks, and on rotting logs. 

The BugLady has a file of Xysticus-like spiders, but (alas), there are several similar genera like Bassaniana (the Bark crab spiders) and Ozyptila (sometimes called the Leaf litter crab spiders), that, along with the Ground crab spiders are more, well, muscular-looking, and that can be tricky to tell apart without looking at the “naughty-bits.  Xysticus also has three or four pairs of macrosetae (large, hairlike projections) on its front legs and a more domed carapace (the covering of the front portion of the spider – the cephalothorax).

They don’t make trap webs, and they don’t wrap their prey before eating it, either.  They station themselves where there’s a lot of “traffic,” grab small invertebrates that get too close, subdue them by wrapping their long, front legs around them, and then kill them with a venomous bite and consume the innards.  They’re eaten by birds, reptiles, and small mammals that forage on tree trunks or on the ground. 

Not many sources took a deep dive into their natural history, and the accounts were a bit contradictory.  Some lumped them in the generalized Crab spider pattern of eggs/spiderlings staying in the egg sac all winter, emerging in spring, and maturing in summer.  Other sources said that the young overwinter as almost-mature spiderlings and that Xysticus spiders have been seen trekking across snow on warm days in winter.  Boy meets girl in summer and he immobilizes her with silk to ensure her cooperation.  He is small and she is large, and she has no trouble slipping her bonds when he leaves.  She will continue to create egg sacs, sometimes folding a leaf around the sac and webbing it partly shut to conceal it https://bugguide.net/node/view/2372239/bgimage, until she dies in fall’s first freezes.  The total life span is about a year in northern climes.

Like many kinds of spiders, male Ground crab spiders are smaller and more angular than females, with noticeably slimmer abdomens (sexual dimorphism), and they have large pedipalps (the segmented, sensory mouthpart-like appendages) that look like boxing gloves https://bugguide.net/node/view/1959514/bgimage.  Larger females can catch larger prey, and so consume the extra nutrients needed to make eggs.  There are several hypotheses about the size difference.  First, females may be larger because they produce eggs, and larger females tend to produce more and healthier offspring, but large size is not an advantage for the males.  Another idea called “male dwarfism” says that smaller males can get around more easily and have a better chance of finding a female.  Still another hypothesis says that the size difference was a chance development and there’s no particular advantage to being either large or small.

Thanks, as always, to BugFan Mike for his spider advice. 

Kate Redmond, The BugLady

Bug of the Week archives:
http://uwm.edu/field-station/category/bug-of-the-week/

Bug o’the Week – The Ants of CESA Rerun

Bug o’the Week
by Kate Redmond

The Ants of CESA Rerun

Salutations, BugFans,

The BugLady confesses that she has a list of favorites among the 766 BOTWs to date.  This is one of them.  Lots of fun to research and write, it was originally posted after the 2014 Treasures of Oz celebration/Ecotour.  No new words; a few different pictures.

A few years ago, BugFan Marjie had a fantastic idea.  She wanted to get people out on the trails of the natural areas here in Ozaukee County (Wisconsin).  The plan – to staff different sites each year with interpreters, send people on their way with passports to be stamped at each destination, and finish the day with a big party at the MotherShip – Forest Beach Migratory Preserve.  The event – Treasures of Oz.  Over the past five years, many thousands of people have made the acquaintance of county nature preserves that were not on their radar before.

This year, Marjie asked the BugLady to be part of the team at the Cedarburg Environmental Study Area (CESA), a property owned by the excellent Ozaukee Washington Land Trust, which sponsors Treasures of Oz (find descriptions and trail maps of all their preserves at owlt.org).  The CESA site hosts some phenomenal, six-feet-wide ant mounds, and the ant story needed to be told.  The BugLady was dubious – the general population, she has noticed, isn’t that inspired by bugs, and besides, due to a misspent youth, the BugLady is a tiny bit ant-averse. 

First off, what kind of ants are they?  BugFan Tom rounded up an ant guy in Mississippi who, of course, requested some ants.  The BugLady figured that she would place an old film canister (younger BugFans might have to Google “film canister”) on the top of a pretty active mound, and maybe some ants would climb in.  What could go wrong?  As soon as the canister landed on the mound, ants came pouring out, covering the top of the mound and covering the film canister, inside and out.  Now what?  The BugLady fished it off with a stick, managed to cap it, and rolled it around a bit to loosen the exterior ants. 

The ants were dispatched to Mississippi; the postal worker who asked if the parcel contained “anything liquid, fragile, perishable, etc.” didn’t ask specifically about ants.  Joe, the ant guy, made short work of the ID – the ants are Formica montana, in the wood/thatch/field/mound ant family Formicidae.  The genus Formica includes a bunch of mound-building ants that use different construction strategies in varying habitats.  Besides mounds, they are famous for defending themselves by spraying formic acid and by biting (often employing a one-two punch – “bite-first-then-spray-the-irritating-chemical-into-the-wound”). 

Formica montana, a.k.a. the Prairie Mound Ant, is a pretty neat ant.  While they are important in prairie ecosystems, they are also wetland specialists, and the ground in much of the CESA site is damp.  PMAs build mounds in peaty, wetland soils, and their lives are governed by the water table.  While their prairie relatives may tunnel five feet into the earth, nests in wetlands are shallower, and ants must be prepared to move up above ground level, into the mound, if the water rises.  Considering all the rain we’ve been having, they’ve probably been spending lots of time “upstairs.” 

Mounds are formed when ants tunnel into the soil and bring particles to the surface to dispose of them; ants move more dirt than earthworms and are valuable soil mixers and turners.  Young mounds are steep-sided and about 12 to 15 inches tall, and they often have vegetation on top.  As the population increases, the ants build out because, in wetlands, they can’t build down.  One source said that a large mound might have 6,000 ants in it, but the BugLady thinks that number is way low for some of the mega-mounds at CESA.  The tops of PMA mounds may have fifty or more entrances, and the mounds themselves consist of a honeycomb of tunnels and chambers for food and young and for workers to rest in, and the tunnels also affect oxygen exchange.  The average mound takes about six years to build and lasts for about 12 years, but some have been clocked as old as 30 years.  A colony may get larger by “budding’ – forming a smaller colony nearby and then growing toward it, and PMAs may construct small, seasonal feeding mounds.  Mounds are often found growing near red-osier dogwood shrubs; this sun-loving shrub of early succession tolerates the same kinds of soil as the ants – soggy, but not permanently soggy.  The dogwood is also a portent of future shade trees – bad news for the ants. 

The mounds are solar collectors.  Some Formica ants cover the tops of their mounds with bits of vegetation, and other ants actually plant grass there.  PMA mounds are built in the open or on woody edges, and the tops are kept clear of anything that generates shade.  The ants actively clip any plant that tries to grow.  The domed shape makes mounds more efficient at catching the sun’s rays at the start and end of the day.  PMAs like it warm and humid (100% humidity is just fine with them), and they move their larvae and pupae around to nurseries with the optimal climate.

What do all those ants eat?  Protein, in the form of insect larvae and pillbugs.  Lots of carbs.  Their main carbohydrate is honeydew, sugar water that they harvest from aphids and treehoppers that they “farm.”  In close proximity to one mound at CESA were dense herds of ant-tended aphids on dogwood flower/fruit heads, and smaller bunches of ant-tended treehoppers (and their astounding nymphs) on goldenrod stems.  In return for the ants’ protection, the bugs allow ants to “milk” them; stroking the bugs’ abdomen induces them to exude drops of honeydew.  Workers find their way to distant food sources by following “trail pheromones” left by other workers.  The BugLady saw the protein-rich, spore-bearing head of a horsetail/equisetum plant by one nest entrance and guesses that the ants might feed on that, too. 

PMAs are very territorial, both with PMAs from different mounds and with other species.  They generally out-compete non-PMAs, and they carve up the habitat neatly so that multiple PMA colonies can live side-by-side without using up the food supply. 

Ant mounds have generated a new art form.  For a picture of a plaster cast of what’s under the surface, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ant_colony#mediaviewer/File:Ant_Nest.jpg.  If you Google “Ant Mound Art” or “Cast aluminum ant tunnels,” or some such, you can see lots of examples.  The ants don’t survive the artistic process (animal lovers have protested), but many of the mounds so treated have been fire ant mounds. 

In the end, 120 people visited CESA during the recent Treasures of Oz event, and many left thinking more highly about ants than when they arrived (except for the jerk who walked along poking a hole in each mound he saw with his walking stick).  Nest repair is what ants train for, but it takes time and energy, and recent pounding rains have given them plenty of work.  If BugFans decide to visit the ants of CESA (right now, there is a Bluet Bonus – gazillions of marsh bluet damselflies dripping from the vegetation and making more bluets), they should remember that in addition to the mound-top itself, there’s a zone of activity at least a foot wide around the base of the mounds, and tunnels that extend outward from the base, under the soil), and active trails to outlying “herds.”  BugFans who stand in awe at the edge of a mound will soon find themselves doing the “ant dance.” 

Bravo, Joe, at the Mississippi Entomological Museum, for the ID and the super-macro pictures, and thanks, Southern BugFan Tom.  It does, indeed, take a village.  If you’re ever in town……

Bravo, Yankee BugFan Tom, for putting in a day of ant-education.

Bravo, Marjie and OWLT. 

Bravo, ants!

Kate Redmond, The BugLady

Bug of the Week archives:
http://uwm.edu/field-station/category/bug-of-the-week/

Bug o’the Week – Peachtree Borer Moth

Bug o’the Week
by Kate Redmond

Peachtree Borer Moth

Greetings, BugFans,

This striking little moth was mentioned briefly a few years ago among an array of visitors to water hemlock flowers.  Here’s the rest of the story.

It belongs in the Clear-winged moth family Sesiidae, but it’s not related to the Clear-winged/Hummingbird moths (Sphinx moths in the genus Hemaris) that play peek-a-boo with the BugLady each summer around the wild bergamot, hovering prettily next to a flower and darting behind it as the shutter clicks https://bugguide.net/node/view/1689261/bgimage.  It’s not uncommon for common names to be shared – in this case, shared because both groups have scaleless – clear – areas on their wings.  There are more than 1500 species in the family Sesiidae worldwide, mostly in the tropics, and we have visited the family once before https://uwm.edu/field-station/bug-of-the-week/raspberry-crown-borer/.

The Peachtree borer moth is a member of a colorful genus https://bugguide.net/node/view/177626/bgpage, https://bugguide.net/node/view/1542696/bgpage, https://bugguide.net/node/view/2123056/bgpage,

in a colorful tribe (Synanthedonini) https://bugguide.net/node/view/1010753/bgimage,

in a colorful family https://bugguide.net/node/view/2008912/bgimage https://bugguide.net/node/view/484442/bgpage https://bugguide.net/node/view/1091609/bgimage https://bugguide.net/node/view/1113737/bgimage, https://bugguide.net/node/view/866266/bgimage https://bugguide.net/node/view/2346050/bgimage of waspy-looking, day-flying moths (some species fly for only a few specific hours of each day).  They have long, waspy legs and they can hover like wasps, too.  It’s called Batesian mimicry – a harmless species is protected by its resemblance to a harmful one – in the case of the Sesiids, adopting the aposematic (warning color) signals of a wasp.   

Some adult Sesiids feed on nectar, and the larvae of most species bore into vines or into the branches, trunks, bark, or roots of woody plants.  Some species are big pests of orchard crops and landscaping shrubs and trees.

Females send out chemical signals (pheromones) to attract males.  They “call” daily, and these calls may be sensed by males a half-mile away.  They lay eggs on various parts of their host plants; the newly-hatched larvae dig in and feed, and many eventually pupate within their plant, but not before excavating an exit and concealing it with silk.  Some species are larvae for two seasons or even longer, but adults live only for a few weeks – some for much less.  Adult Peachtree borer moths live less than a week and do not eat. 

PEACHTREE/GREATER PEACHTREE BORER MOTHS (Synanthedon exitisoa) can be found in much of North America excepting parts of the Great Plains and desert Southwest and a few Eastern states (there’s also a Lesser Peachtree borer moth that’s mostly Eastern).   

Their host plants are peach trees and other members of the genus Prunus, all sun-loving members of the rose family, and they’re considered the most destructive of the clear-winged borers – persona non grata wherever they’re found.  In the wild, they use wild cherry, wild plum, and shadbush (Amelanchier sp.). 

As one website said, “I can’t believe they’re not wasps!”  They are sexually dimorphic (two forms), and although the female may be more colorful https://bugguide.net/node/view/981311/bgimage, the male is no slouch https://bugguide.net/node/view/815698/bgimage.  Their wingspans are 1 ¼”-ish (females are larger than males), and females are probably mimics of a spider wasp https://bugguide.net/node/view/434689/bgimage.  Although they’re not aggressive, spider wasp stings can pack quite a wallop, but the moths, of course, don’t sting.  

The natural history of Peachtree borers is pretty-well documented.  Adults emerge from their pupal cases between 8:00 AM and 1:00 PM and mating commences immediately – females lay more than half of their eggs on their first day as an adult.  Eggs are deposited in cracks and crevices in the bark near the base of the tree or on the ground nearby, and her fertility is her Super Power – of the 400 to 900 (or more) eggs she lays, 97% to 100% will hatch! 

The larvae tunnel in and feed on the cambium (growth layer) of the roots and trunk just below ground level (a zone called the “root crown”), and the tunnels they leave behind intersect the plumbing of the tree, disrupting the flow of nutrients up and down the trunk and causing twigs and branches to die.  They leave piles of frass (bug poop) at the entrances of their tunnel, and they may cause a thick, gooey sap to ooze from their holes in the trunk.  While the tree damage is mechanical, the larval tunneling may introduce fungi and bacteria.

The larvae overwinter within the tree and resume eating in spring, doing more damage because they’re larger.  They pupate within inches of the base of the host tree in a silk cocoon that’s covered with frass and masticated bits of wood https://bugguide.net/node/view/165509.  After the adults emerge, empty pupal skins can be found at the base of the tree https://bugguide.net/node/view/165511. 

A PEACH OF A RABBIT HOLE

So – before peaches, Peachtree borers, a native species, hummed along in harmony with their universe, eating wild Prunus species.  When, exactly, did they encounter their first peach? 

According to the lore of some Puebloan tribes, there have always been peaches in the Southwest – the Anasazi, who walked away in the early 1300’s AD, were said to enjoy them. 

Others say that they originated in China 2.6 million years ago and have been under cultivation there for 6,000 to 8,000 years.  Peaches were grown in Persia (Iran) 2000 years ago (which explains the scientific name, Prunus persica), were spread west into Europe by Alexander the Great, and were brought by French/Spanish explorers/conquistadores to Mexico/Florida in the first half of the 1500’s (but there’s always a chance that they came over with Columbus, too).  It’s likely that the peach wasn’t embraced by the Indians until a decade or so after its introduction, when the missionaries that followed the explorers arrived to set up shop.  Once adopted, though, it spread like wildfire along native trading routes and became an important food.  Indians who were forced to travel the Trail of Tears from the Southeast to Oklahoma (1830 to 1850) carried peach pits with them.  Fifty years earlier, Washington had ordered his troops to destroy massive, mixed fruit orchards in Upstate New York in order to crush the Indians there.

Not only did they embrace it and incorporate it into their agricultural and land management systems, those consummate Indigenous plant geneticists developed many varieties that were quite different from European peaches.  In the right soil and with lots of sunlight, peaches grow easily and can plant themselves, but it takes human intervention – pruning – to develop good fruit.  Peaches grew so readily that several sources called them, along with the hogs that were also introduced by the Spanish, the first American weeds.

The bottom line – the Europeans who arrived to settle the Atlantic Coast in the 1600’s reported peaches among the bounty that the New World offered and assumed that the peaches were native.  “Here are also Peaches, and very good, and in great quantities, not an Indian Plantation without them … one may have them by Bushels for little; they make a pleasant Drink and I think not inferior to any Peach you have in England…….” said William Penn in 1683.  A few years later, early Naturalist John Banister wrote “…for the Indians have, and ever had greater variety and finer sorts of them than we… I have seen those they call the yellow plum-peach that have been 12 or 13 inches in girth.”   

A team of researchers located what they believe to be the earliest North American peaches at an archaeological dig between Atlanta and Augusta, Georgia, when they dated to 1520 to 1550 AD some peach pits that were found at the bottom of post holes (blowing out of the water the notion that peaches were introduced by the Spanish to St. Augustine, Florida in 1565 or to Mexico in 1562).  

Peachtree borers responded to the massive increase of host plants with a population boom of their own and were recognized as pests by the early 1800’s.

Yeah, yeah – the BugLady is a history geek, too.

Kate Redmond, The BugLady

Bug of the Week archives:
http://uwm.edu/field-station/category/bug-of-the-week/

Become a Member

Take advantage of all the benefits of a Riveredge membership year round!

Learn More