Category: Bug of the Week

Howdy, BugFans,

The BugLady’s excursions onto the prairie are always enhanced by the sight of the almost-monarch-sized (2 ½”-3 ½” wingspan) Great Spangled Fritillaries sailing along among the flowers https://bugguide.net/node/view/1995412/bgimage.  They come by their names honestly – great and spangled indeed https://bugguide.net/node/view/61315/bgimage!  For more information about them, see https://uwm.edu/field-station/great-spangled-fritillary/.

This summer, she’s been lucky enough to find these beautiful, also-spangled, Silver-bordered Fritillaries (Boloria selene) alternately bustling and gliding along at the margins of wetlands.  They are in a different genus than the Great Spangled – Boloria are called the lesser fritillaries – and with 1 ½” to 2” wingspans, they are noticeably smaller.  Selene was goddess of the moon in ancient Greek mythology; a previous scientific name is Brenthis myrina, and an old common name for this species is “little myrina,” which the BugLady doesn’t understand, because myrina refers to the Amazon mythology.

Fritillaries are in the brush-footed butterfly family Nymphalidae – butterflies whose first pair of legs is reduced and “brushy” and who walk around on their second and third pairs of legs.

Silver-bordered Fritillaries are found around marshes, sedge meadows, and bogs across the northern half of the US and into Canada (in the southern part of their range they may live at higher elevations), and at another location – more about that in a sec.  They are homebodies that do not disperse enthusiastically from the enclaves where they are found.

Males patrol for females.  Females lay eggs on violets, their caterpillars’ sole food plants, though sometimes she puts her eggs on the ground or on grasses near violet plants, and then her offspring must find their first meal for themselves.  They don’t have a favorite violet – whatever’s growing nearby works for them – and they don’t appear to use non-native violet species.  Adults nectar on members of the composite, pea, and milkweed families.

They produce at least two broods each year, and the final brood overwinters as caterpillars, sheltered on the ground, in a stage of dormancy.  Some of these overwintering larvae are half-grown when they tuck in for the winter, and some are fairly recently hatched, so the appearance of adult butterflies is somewhat staggered after they awake, resume feeding, and complete their metamorphosis in spring, a phenomenon that Scudder investigated in 1889.

Silver-bordered Fritillary don’t adapt rapidly to change, and their populations are decreasing across their range.  Their numbers probably rose as European settlers whacked back the endless forests of the eastern US, creating favorable habitat.  But the resulting agricultural landscape was not friendly to them either, because wetlands were drained (so the land could be “more productive”), and because their violets were plowed up or were pushed out by the European crops.  According to Massachusetts Butterflies, roadside ditches are emerging as important habitat for Silver-bordered Fritillaries in that state.  Food specialists are, by nature, closer to the abyss than are generalists.

Spraying for gypsy moths threatens them, climate change is thinning populations of this northern-oriented species across the southern edge of its range, and they continue to be bothered by habitat loss and habitat fragmentation.

If you google Boloria selene, you’ll also get hits from across The Pond, where the Silver-bordered Fritillary is known as the Small Pearl-bordered Fritillary (as one source said, “from the series of ‘pearls’ that run along the outside edge of the underside of the hindwing”).  It’s found from Great Britain through Europe and into Asia, and, alas, its populations are declining abroad, too, due to habitat change brought by agriculture.

Like the American members of the species, the Small Pearl-bordered Fritillary is a fairly sedentary butterfly that doesn’t travel far from its natal wetland.  When habitat gets fragmented, populations get isolated, and genetic diversity diminishes.  Research indicates that when siblings of this species mate – a possibility that becomes more likely with isolation – their offspring aren’t viable.

Apropos of nothing, as the BugLady’s Dad used to say, the BugLady found this cute little bug while doing an unrelated search https://bugguide.net/node/view/22991/bgimage (she has photographed the adult, which is also awesome!), and this blog.whose first article is about insect use of swamp milkweed http://www.hiltonpond.org/ThisWeek210811.html.

Kate Redmond, The BugLady

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

Greetings, BugFans,

The BugLady has been having too much fun recently, taking pictures, so she dusted off this episode from November, 2012 and added some new words and new pictures.

For years, the BugLady has been amassing shots of big, showy orbweaver spiders in the spider family Araneidae (Charlotte’s relatives), aka the Garden spiders.  She knows that “picture-keying” has its limits, and that there’s a lot of variability within spider species (these are all Marbled orb weavers), https://bugguide.net/node/view/1618434/bgimage, https://bugguide.net/node/view/1905479/bgimage, https://bugguide.net/node/view/1304801/bgimage, https://bugguide.net/node/view/1302073/bgimage, https://bugguide.net/node/view/1273874/bgimage, https://bugguide.net/node/view/1166829/bgimage, https://bugguide.net/node/view/718340/bgimage, and that real scientists use microscopes, so she has her fingers crossed about IDs.  If she were smart, she would be satisfied just to get the genus right.  Bugguide.net has a lot of helpful images, and so does Spiders of the North Woods by Larry Weber.

FYI, in the course of her research, she has seen the name spelled orb weaver, orb-weaver, and orbweaver.

Orbweavers have been practicing their craft for some 140 million years now (full disclosure – there are some non-orbweavers that weave orb-type webs, and a few orbweavers that don’t).  With more than 3,500 kinds of Araneidae worldwide (180 north of Mexico), they account for about a quarter of spider species.  They can be found in any habitat where there’s something to hitch a web to, but some species prefer woodlands, wetlands, etc.

Although orbweavers have eight eyes (two rows of four, and the middle four form a trapezoid), their vision is not so good.  Their legs are adorned with bristles/spines and have an extra claw on each foot (that third claw helps them to manipulate silk as they spin it and to traverse the non-sticky parts of the web).  They range in size (body length) from ¼” to an inch-plus; females are often considerably bigger than males and have large spherical abdomens.  Some species are nocturnal, and others are diurnal.

Building a web is an amazing feat that involves sending a sticky line out into the breezes.  If it catches on something, the spider forms the “spokes” of the wheel with non-sticky web and then uses sticky silk for the spiral.  It takes about an hour.  For a more comprehensive explanation of the process, see https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/ask-smithsonian-how-do-spiders-make-webs-180957426/.  Many nocturnal orbweavers eat their dewy web in the morning and rebuild it each night.  Males tend to be nomadic and are not avid web-makers.

Some (but not all) orbweavers, especially in the genus Argiope, weave a heavy “zipper” or other pattern called a stabilimentum into part of the web.  Guesses about the function of the stabilimentum are that it strengthens the web, that it allows the spider to control the tension of the strands in the web, that it gives birds a “visual” and bats an “echo” that keeps them from flying through the web, that it attracts insects by reflecting UV light, that it keeps insects from flying into the web when the spider is satiated, that it makes the rest of the web seem less conspicuous/more invisible by comparison, and that it provides a camouflaged spot for spiders to hang (head down) in the web’s center.  Not all stabilimentum look like zippers https://bugguide.net/node/view/4805, https://bugguide.net/node/view/123319 (the BugLady loves the Florida Argiope Superhero spider throwing lightning).

Orbweavers will often tackle prey that is larger than they are if it gets snagged in their web.  They first paralyze it with a toxic bite, then wrap it, and later eat it.  The front two pairs of legs handle the prey while the rear two pairs manipulate the silk.  If the prey is a stinging or venomous critter, it’s “wrap first; bite later.”  They tenderize it with fluid from their mouth, and then re-ingest their digestive juices as they eat the softened prey.

Males are not avid web-makers, but for many species a web is part of the courtship ritual.  He may meet her on her web, taking care not to behave like prey (he is, after all, making her trap web vibrate) or he may spin a line (mating thread) and hang next to her web.  He typically dies after mating, even if he doesn’t inadvertently provide her with a protein meal.

In the species shown here, Mom places from several hundred to a thousand eggs in one or more spherical egg cases/cocoons that are hung from the web or hidden in tree bark or in some other crevice (that’s what those nuthatches are looking for in winter).  She guards them until she is, inevitably, killed by the cold (“And no one was with her when she died.” Charlotte’s Web).

The eggs of some species don’t hatch until spring hatch, and others hatch and make their way out of the case before winter, but it’s more common for the spiderlings to hatch and remain within the egg sac throughout winter, feeding on the yolk inside (and eventually on each other), to be called from their egg sac and balloon away in the warm air of spring.  These beauties have been around for the full spider season, it’s just that they start small and don’t get big enough to be noticeable until mid-summer/early fall.  They’re large and dramatic, and they have the right equipment to bite you, but an orbweaver’s favorite strategy is avoidance.  They’re not aggressive, but if you insist on man-handling one, it will respond appropriately.

Without further ado:

The BLACK AND YELLOW ARGIOPE/GARDEN SPIDER (Argiope aurantia) is a familiar, large (a female’s body may measure an inch-plus) spider that dwells in sunny grasslands, edges, gardens, wetlands and suburbs.  Wikipedia says its Latin name means “gilded silver-face.”  The thick zigzag stabilimentum woven into the web has given Argiopes the nickname “writing spiders.”  Webs are generally built/repaired at night, and a Black and yellow argiope will use a productive web site over and over.  Black and yellow argiope numbers have fallen dramatically and inexplicably in the BugLady’s fields in the past decade-plus.

The female makes several egg cases in fall and attaches them to the sides of the web (safe from ants, but not from birds and parasitic wasps, and not, apparently, from a bevy of inquilines (borders) either; researchers have monitored Black and yellow argiope egg cases and tallied 19 species of insects and 11 species of spider that have emerged from them).

Males are nomadic, looking for romance, but they will make a small web when they find a female.  They court by plucking the female’s web (settle down, folks – the BugLady means this literally), hoping she can differentiate suitor from prey.

BANDED GARDEN SPIDERS (Argiope trifasciata) have become more common in the fields as the Black and yellow argiope numbers have dwindled – Nature does abhor a vacuum.  Studies suggest that the webs of Banded garden spiders (and those of other diurnal orbweavers) tend to be oriented east-west, and that the position of the occupant in the center of the north side of the web, “belly” facing south, maximizes her exposure to solar heating.  Although they are as large as those of the Black and yellow argiope, the webs of Banded garden spiders may lack a stabilimentum.

The SHAMROCK ORBWEAVER (Araneus trifolium), is also called the Pumpkin spider.  One source compared the spider’s plump abdomen to the shape of a pumpkin; another attributed the name to the fact that Shamrock orbweavers are out and about around Halloween.  The family Araneidae is the third-largest spider family worldwide, and the genus Araneus is the largest spider genus, with 1,500 species known globally.

The BugLady has seen MARBLED ORBWEAVERS (Araneus marmoreus) on the forest floor on distinctly cool days into early November, pushing the limits of cold-bloodedness.  Adults spin a web and then wait, concealed in a silken hiding place, monitoring vibrations via a “signal strand” attached to the web.  When an insect gets caught in the web, the Marbled orbweaver will “process” it and carry it to its hiding place to eat it.

The CROSS ORBWEAVER (Araneus diadematus) is a non-native spider who, like the Bridge spider of previous BOTW fame, immigrated to our shores from Europe (it’s also called the European garden spider and the Diadem spider).  Like the bridge spider, it likes to hang out on buildings, especially on walls with exterior lights https://uwm.edu/field-station/cross-orbweaver-spider/.

The BugLady is calling this shy creature an ARABESQUE ORBWEAVER (Neoscona arabesca) because of the pairs of slanted, dark lines on the abdomen.  Spiders in the genus Neoscona are called “Spotted Orb Weavers.”  According to bugguide.net, the Arabesque orbweaver “stays in a retreat (usually a curled up leaf) to the side of the web during the day. At night it rests in the center of the web with the tip of the abdomen pushed through the open space in the center of the web.”

Aren’t these spiders fine!!

Here’s an article about spiders in an age of declining insect populations: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/aug/16/the-guardian-view-on-spiders-season-of-the-web.

Kate Redmond, The BugLady

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

Howdy, BugFans,

BugFan Marjie sent some “what-is-it?” pictures recently, of a lunker moth perched on one of her outbuildings.  The BugLady didn’t need to hit the books to ID this one, it’s been on her “Most Wanted” list ever since she saw its picture in Holland’s The Moth Book when she was a kid, the better part of seven decades ago.

Black Witch moths (Ascalapha odorata) are members of the moth family Erebidae (Erebus is Greek for “from the darkness.”).  They were formerly with the family Noctuidae, and they are the only members of their genus.  In all the references that the BugLady looked at – and there are many, because along with the photo site hits, local newspapers often pick up the story when a Black Witch moth comes to town – she didn’t find any explanation of the species name odorata, which is Latin for “scented, having an odor.”

Marjie’s moth was pretty worn out, which is not surprising considering how far it was from home.  Its normal range is northern South America, Central America, Mexico, and the Caribbean, but it migrates/strays both north and south from there.  Black Witch moths have been found throughout North America as far north as Alaska, Churchill, and Newfoundland, and in South America as far south as Argentina, and they have traveled to Bermuda and Africa.

There are breeding populations in Los Angeles, Hawaii, and in far-southern Texas and Florida.  Scioto County, in southern Ohio, is their northernmost “breeding record” – a newly emerged moth was found there, but whether it was the result of “boy meets girl” or of an already-gravid female winging her way to Ohio is unknown.

With a wingspan of five to seven inches and a more aerodynamic design than similarly sized Giant silk moths like the Cecropia and the Luna, Black Witch moths are strong flyers that are often described as bat-like.  They fly at night, high and fast, and minor obstacles like the Gulf of Mexico don’t deter them – they are regulars on ships and off-shore oil rigs.  According to one source, a Black Witch moth can fly from the Rio Grande to Maine in three weeks.

They tend to migrate during Mexico’s rainy season, from mid-summer until early fall, and according to PJ Liesch at the UW Madison Department of Entomology’s Insect Diagnostic Lab, Wisconsin’s annual records often follow a hurricane or a fluctuation of the jet stream, and 2021 has already seen more records than usual.  Writing on the website Texas Entomology, Mike Quinn says that an observer “reported seeing hundreds of Black Witches within the eye of Hurricane Claudette when it made landfall along the middle Texas coast at Port O’Connor on July 15, 2003. While [he] observed none before the hurricane, hundreds, perhaps thousands were reported in and around Port O’Connor by many observers immediately after the storm passed.”

Adult females have a lacy-looking line running diagonally across the upper side of their wings, and both males and females have eyespots https://bugguide.net/node/view/664388/bgimage https://bugguide.net/node/view/1307361/bgimage, and males https://bugguide.net/node/view/663495/bgimage.

https://bugguide.net/node/view/1405961/bgimage

Black Witch caterpillars https://bugguide.net/node/view/1705558/bgimage are not super-picky food specialists; they feed nocturnally on the leaves of a number of genera of trees and shrubs in the pea/legume family, especially Acacias, and including Kentucky coffee tree and locust, and they hide in bark crevices by day.  Adults nectar at flowers and sip tree sap, and they will come to the standard moth bait – a mixture of fermented fruit and beer, spread on a tree trunk.  Bats, spiders, small rodents and a few species of birds eat them; one observer watched an ambitious Purple Martin feeding one to its nestling.

So, what’s in it for animals that undertake such extreme migrations – migrations that take them far from their caterpillar host plants and from potential mates?  This kind of journey offers an opportunity for a species with the strength and the wanderlust to expand its range if it does happen upon favorable habitat.  With Climate Change, suitable habitat for these moths may shift northward, but it’s unlikely that, all other things being equal, the Black Witch caterpillar or pupa could ever survive a northern winter.  For most of the migrants, it’s a dead end.

BLACK WITCH MOTH – THE LEGEND

Mike Quinn calls it “the largest moth, if not the largest insect, north of Mexico,” so it’s not surprising that it has collected many names and that it has a place in the folklore of its homelands.  It is variously associated with death (“mariposa de la muerte,”), restless souls, bad luck, good luck (especially with money), baldness, and blindness.  In Hawaii, it is said to be the soul of someone recently dead, coming say good-bye.

Like Marjie’s moth, a good many Black Witch sightings are of moths sheltering during the day on (or even in) buildings, carports, or under eaves.  The Mayan name for the Black Witch is X-mahan-nah, which means “House-borrower,” or “Habit of borrowing houses,” or “May I borrow your house?”

For more information, see http://jimmccormac.blogspot.com/2012/10/black-witch-spawned-in-ohio.html and http://texasento.net/witch.htm.

Thanks, Marjie.  Wow!!

And when the BugLady says “Go outside, look at bugs,” remember that you could be lucky enough to find one of these giant moths.

The BugLady

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

Greetings, BugFans,

The BugLady’s first thought when she glanced at this beetle was that it was a Swamp milkweed leaf beetle (which, for perching purposes, doesn’t restrict itself to swamp milkweed).  Note to self – always look twice.  Although their markings are similar, this beetle is not as “leggy” as the SMLB, and so it seems to sit closer to the substrate.

Every few years, she finds a new (to her) species of tortoise beetle – we have visited them in the form of Mottled, Horsemint, and Thistle tortoise beetles – and while the adults are interesting, it’s the larvae that blow her away.  Fecal shields? Faeciforks?

Argus tortoise beetles (Chelymorpha cassidea) are in the huge leaf beetle family Chrysomelidae.  “Chelymorpha” means “turtle/tortoise-form,” and “cassid” means “helmet.”  According to Wikipedia, “The name Argus comes from the mythical Greek giant Argus Panoptes, who was sometimes depicted with 100 eyes, because the beetle is able to stretch out its red head beyond its pronotum [the front end of its thorax], as if it were a single red eye.”  Maybe a little poetic license going on, there https://bugguide.net/node/view/1286837/bgimage.

At about one- third of an inch long, it is one of the larger Chrysomelids, and it comes in various shades of orange, with heavier or lighter spotting https://bugguide.net/node/view/1608007/bgimage, https://bugguide.net/node/view/1456941/bgimage, and https://bugguide.net/node/view/274124/bgimage, and newly emerged beetles are pale for a few days until their color develops https://bugguide.net/node/view/1080775/bgimage.  The edges of the thorax and abdomen sweep out a little, like a tiny skirt, giving the adult a suction-cup-like appearance and protecting its underpinnings from ants.  The books say that its head slants backward, which we usually can’t see because it’s hidden under the prothorax.

Females lay eggs in clusters on the leaves of host plants, members of the bindweed family Convolvulaceae https://bugguide.net/node/view/285461.  The larvae https://bugguide.net/node/view/676256/bgimage feed on the leaves gregariously for a while https://bugguide.net/node/view/274128 before going their separate ways.  A few sources say that they drop down and overwinter on the ground as pupae, but others show pupal cases on green leaves https://bugguide.net/node/view/299697 and say that they emerge in about 10 days and overwinter as adults.

An alternate common name is the Milkweed tortoise beetle, though they don’t feed on milkweed (in 1887, an entomologist named Lintner referred to them as a “milkweed beetle with bad habits”).  The bindweed family includes some domesticated species like morning glories and sweet potatoes, so this is a beetle that is on our radar.  Some sources say that it can do damage to the plant, and others say that the plants recover readily unless they are seedlings.  There are historical records of the Argus tortoise beetle on raspberry, blackberry, rose, and peas, too, but the beetles may simply have been enjoying the view.

Morning glory, hedge bindweed, and field bindweed leaves discourage grazing by manufacturing poisonous alkaloids that the Argus tortoise beetle sequesters in its body to protect itself, in turn, against predators (that’s why the beetle can get away with its eye-catching orange and black coloration).  Not 100% successfully, though – the beetle has several egg and larval parasites, and in an article published in 1889, Frank Hurlbut Chittenden wrote that “The Biological Survey has found the Argus tortoise beetle in the stomachs of 14 species of birds , most often in those of the starling ( Sturnus vulgaris ).”

Brief botanical aside: Field and Hedge bindweeds are lovely, white/pale pink-flowered wild morning glories of edges and grasslands whose slender vines sprawl on sturdier plants.  They’re not native.  The problem is their root system, which is massive, with deep taproots and with rhizomes that may extend eight or more feet from the plant.  So, while the delicate vine and leaves climb over sturdier plants, robbing them of sunshine, the roots are hogging the water, and a small piece of root thrown up by a plow can grow into a new plant.  Although its dietary attentions do stray, the Argus tortoise beetle is being viewed as a biological control for bindweeds.

The cool thing about the Argus tortoise beetle is the way its larvae protect themselves.  Some insects distance themselves from their droppings (frass) because predators and parasites can track them by its odor.  Not so the tortoise beetle.  Like other tortoise beetles, the Argus tortoise beetle larva embraces its poop, saving it and fashioning it into a fecal shield, a tiny “umbrella” of frass impaled on the forked tip of its abdomen (faecifork).  This it waves around or shelters under when it feels threatened, providing its predators a “what the heck!!!” moment.  https://bugguide.net/node/view/567526 https://bugguide.net/node/view/676255/bgimage.

Brief excretory aside: The frass of skipper butterfly caterpillars, studied by a scientist who calls herself an “Evolutionary faecologist,” is expelled under pressure, like a tiny cannonball.  One blogger calls it “ballistic pooping.”  The frass pellet of the Silver-spotted Skipper may land 38 body lengths away https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2003/03/frass-flies.

Adults defend themselves in classic Leaf beetle fashion – they drop down and, says Chittenden “play possum,” and for that reason do not very often find their way into the collecting net.”

When she’s researching insects, the BugLady takes note of the hits, both sacred and profane.  Lots of photography sites for this beetle, and FYI, Walmart sells a handsome Argus tortoise beetle poster.

Kate Redmond, The BugLady

Greetings BugFans,

BugFan Kine sent the BugLady some “what-is-it?” pictures of a few very hungry caterpillars on Virginia creeper, taken by her sister, Honorary BugFan Abett.  The BugLady had seen an adult Abbott’s sphinx moth, but she’s never seen this wonderful caterpillar (despite the fact that she had an out-building at her old house that was being engulfed by a mass of kudzu-like wild grape).  What a cool moth!

First of all, the family tree.  They are in the Sphinx moth family Sphingidae, a diverse bunch of 124 species in North America (1450 worldwide) that range from the clear-winged moths now gracing wild bergamot in the prairie https://bugguide.net/node/view/1451847/bgimage, to the elegant White-lined sphinx https://bugguide.net/node/view/1477718/bgimage, to the stunning, non-native Elephant sphinx https://bugguide.net/node/view/936759/bgimage, to lunkers like the Five-spotted Hawk moth https://bugguide.net/node/view/1891122/bgimage, whose caterpillar, the Tomato hornworm, is far better known than the adult. They are stocky moths, produced by stocky caterpillars (or vice versa).

Adult Sphinx/Hawk moths feed by hovering in front of a flower (like the hummingbirds that people mistake them for) and unfurling their long proboscis to reach down into it https://bugguide.net/node/view/1045011/bgimage.  Many add a behavior called “side slipping” or “swing-hovering,” in which they move from side to side while hovering; scientists think this helps them avoid predators that are lurking in the flowers.  They are important pollinators.

Sphinx moth caterpillars are called hornworms because of the horn they sport at their rear https://bugguide.net/node/view/1458120/bgimage, at least in their early days.  The horn is shed as the caterpillar matures (hard to tuck into a pupal case while wearing that), leaving it with a “button” on its rump in its last instar (an instar is the eating stage between molting stages).  Caterpillars of many species of sphinx moths feed on toxic leaves, and they either sequester the toxins in special organs within their bodies, or they are able to excrete them quickly.

The ABBOTT’S SPHINX (Sphecodina abbottii) is found in fields, woodlands, and woodland edges from the Great Plains to the Atlantic.  It has a wingspan of two to almost three inches, and its caterpillar may grow even longer.  The adult’s brindle patterning allows it to blend into tree bark https://bugguide.net/node/view/1462455/bgimage, and the scales on the upturned tip of its abdomen resemble a broken twig https://bugguide.net/node/view/55214/bgimage.  The BugLady usually routes people to bugguide.net for pictures, but – Wow – look at this spectacular shot http://ottawa.moths.ca/sphingidae/pages/07870-sphecodina-abbottii-A.html!

Abbott’s sphinxes are bumble bee mimics, even buzzing as they feed.  Jim Sogaard, in Moths and Caterpillars of the North Woods, tells us that they get nutrients from “flowers, mud, dung, carrion, and tree sap flows.”

The caterpillar starts out green, with a small horn https://bugguide.net/node/view/422561/bgimage and then becomes icy green with an orange knob https://bugguide.net/node/view/1325390/bgimage.  Later it turns either a mottled brown https://bugguide.net/node/view/954255/bgimage, which matches the woody vines of its food plants (wild grape, Virginia Creeper, and porcelainberry), or rust with green “saddles” across its back https://bugguide.net/node/view/1486385/bgimage that are said to look like a bunch of grapes.  According to Sogaard, the “brown form feeds at night, resting on the woody vines during the day.  The green form feeds by day and night, resting closer to the foliage.”

The horn eventually disappears, replaced by a dark knob that looks startlingly like a vertebrate’s eye https://bugguide.net/node/view/954257/bgimage, the Abbott Sphinx’s nod to the snake-head defense.

If a caterpillar is disturbed, it writhes around and tries to bite its tormentor.  In his blog The Backyard Anthropology Project, Tim Eisele describes holding a caterpillar, “Handling it was a bit disturbing. Imagine picking up a raw sausage, and then having it suddenly thrash violently from side to side……”  In a different blog post he says that “In addition to pretending to be a snake, it also lashed back and forth fairly violently when handled, while making kind of a “bbbrrrttt” sound by shooting air out of its breathing spiracles.”

They overwinter as pupae https://bugguide.net/node/view/958421/bgimage in underground cells.  There are two generations per year in the south and only one here in God’s Country, where the adults fly in June and July.

Who was Abbott?  John Abbott (1751 – 1840) (you can find it spelled with one or two “t’s”) was a London-born naturalist who came to America in 1773.  He was a gifted artist who specialized in insects, illustrating them in all life stages.  Along with 3,000 detailed paintings of insects https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Abbot_(entomologist)#/media/File:Abbotv1tab01AA.jpg, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Abbot_(entomologist)#/media/File:AbbotV1Tab02A.jpg, he also drew plants and birds.  According to an article in the New Georgia Encyclopedia, “Abbot’s meticulous illustrations and careful writing chronicle the habitats, life cycles, behaviors, and migratory patterns of numerous species. He also advances theories concerning the relationship between predator and prey. His work enabled others to classify closely related species, several of which were named according to Linnaean classification from Abbot’s specimens and drawings. Naturalist and evolutionary theorist Charles Darwin studied Abbot’s work prior to his own exploration of the New World.”

Kate Redmond, The BugLady

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

Greetings, BugFans,

The BugLady finds this wonderful dragonfly cruising tirelessly over cattails at the edges of lakes or patrolling long stretches of the Milwaukee River about six feet above the surface.  She takes a lot of Hail Mary shots, and this is the best she’s done (so far).

Like their smaller cousins (Beaverpond, Spiny, and Common Baskettails), Prince Baskettails are in the Emerald family Corduliidae and the genus Epitheca (from the Greek “epi “above, upon” and theca “pouch, basket, receptacle.”  Unlike other odonates, which oviposit by inserting an egg into a slit they cut in vegetation or by tapping the water with their abdomen to release the eggs within, baskettails large and small fly around with a clump of eggs at the tip of their abdomen.  These they drop into the water, either all at once, or by flying inches above the surface, dragging and snagging the egg mass on aquatic vegetation.  The glob of eggs reacts like those kids’ toys that instruct “Just add water;” the strand swells and uncoils, and it may reach 20” long and enclose as many as 1,000 eggs.

While the other baskettails measure about 2” or less, the Prince Baskettail (Epitheca princeps) is 2 ¼” to 3 ¼” long (darner-sized) – the largest baskettail and the largest member of its family.  It’s slim-bodied, with three dark spots on each wing (some, especially in the South, are larger and spottier https://bugguide.net/node/view/1351143/bgimage https://bugguide.net/node/view/1078959/bgimage).  Mature males have the bright green eyes that are characteristic of their family https://bugguide.net/node/view/398259/bgimage.  The only dragonfly you might confuse it with is the female Twelve-spotted Skimmer, which is shorter and has a heavier body and a pale line running along each side of its abdomen https://bugguide.net/node/view/1959162/bgimage.

Adults prey on small, flying insects, often hunting for mayflies high above the trees, and they may form feeding swarms at the end of the day.  Though they are large and feisty, they are not quite at the top of the food chain – here’s a Dragonhunter with a Prince Baskettail https://www.uwgb.edu/biodiversity/econotes/2007/dragonhunter.htm.  The large https://bugguide.net/node/view/935963/bgimage and spiny naiads (immatures) nab underwater critters with their extendable mouthparts.

Male Prince Baskettails patrol a large territory, as do some females when they’re looking for a place to oviposit.  Naiads hatch in a few weeks, using a hard bump on their heads to break out of the egg.  They may live in the water for a year or two before emerging, spending their final winter as naiads in deep water where temperatures are more constant.  The half-hour that it takes for them to emerge from the water, pull out of their exoskeleton, and lengthen and harden their wings for flight is a dangerous one, and one source said that only 1% of the naiads achieve adulthood.

Here’s a series of pictures of a Prince Baskettail emerging – https://bugguide.net/node/view/457838/bgimage and a picture of the exuvia (shed skin) https://bugguide.net/node/view/1442425/bgimage.

They rarely perch, and when they do, they hang vertically from a twig, and they often curve their abdomen https://bugguide.net/node/view/1675349/bgimage). The BugLady has never seen a perched Prince Baskettail (unless, of course, she glanced at one and dismissed it as a Twelve-spotted Skimmer), but she read that they are more likely to be perched on cloudy days.

On another topic completely, the BugLady is offering this without comment.  There is a similar movement in the bird world https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/these-moths-will-be-renamed-stop-use-ethnic-slur-180978151/?utm_source=smithsoniandaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=20210712-daily-responsive&spMailingID=45289685&spUserID=ODg4Mzc3MzY0MTUyS0&spJobID=2043035771&spReportId=MjA0MzAzNTc3MQS2.  Who says we don’t do cutting-edge entomology here!

Kate Redmond, The BugLady

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

Greetings, BugFans,

The BugLady is always amazed at how masses of Coreopsis flowers paint the Riveredge prairies gold in June, and she’s equally amazed at how few of them are entertaining insects.  The books say that that Coreopsis is visited by a number of small, native bees, plus some butterflies and beetles, but she rarely sees much action on the flowers (sometimes a camouflaged crab spider waiting for incoming pollinators).  Which is why this Red-blue checkered beetle was a pleasant (and colorful) surprise.

Fun facts about Coreopsis:

• Members of some Great Plains tribes boiled Coreopsis flowers for a few minutes to make a beverage that was red.  Pregnant women in one tribe drank a tea made from Coreopsis plants to increase their chances of bearing a girl child.

Checkered beetles are in the family Cleridae.  We visited the Clerids seven years ago in the form of a cute little beetle that the BugLady found on a wild sunflower – see that episode for general info about the family https://uwm.edu/field-station/checkered-beetle/.  There are about 300 species of Checkered beetles in North America; many are colorful, and they lead diverse lifestyles, and some are biological controls of bark beetles.

 

Red-blue Checkered beetles (Trichodes nuttalli) (aka Nuttall’s shaggy beetle) are found east-of-the-Rockies https://bugguide.net/node/view/3405/data in grasslands and edges.  They’re about 1/3” long, and in Beetles of Eastern North America, Evans describes them as elongate, robust, sparsely clothed in light-colored setae, metallic blue or green, antennae and mouthparts brown, and bicolored elytra” https://bugguide.net/node/view/213154/bgimage and https://bugguide.net/node/view/1105035/bgimage.

One of the really basic questions we can ask about an insect (or any animal) is “What does it eat?”  On this subject, the reports on the RBCB are contradictory.  Reputable sources say that the adults eat pollen from a variety of grassland, edge, and wetland flowers and are not predaceous – or that they feed on pollen and on small insects they find on the flower tops.  Yes, the larvae are carnivores.  But – do they feed only on the eggs and nymphs of the Sprinkled grasshopper https://bugguide.net/node/view/619072/bgimage, as some scholarly publications attest?  Or, as other, equally scholarly sources say, do RBCB eggs stick to foraging bees and wasps and get taken back to their nests, where they hatch and feed on the bee larvae in the nest (and maybe on cached pollen, too)?  Or do the eggs hatch on the flower and the larvae grab hold and ride back to wasp and bee nests?  As several authors noted – this species needs more study.

RBCBs are beetles of early summer.  Eggs are laid on flowers where the adults feed (or, if you’re in the Grasshopper Camp, in crevices on the ground).  The larvae may overwinter as larvae, pupae, or pre-pupae.

Fun Facts about RBCBs:

• If you need a (dead) RBCB for your collection, several online stores will sell you one for about $3.00.

• According to the journal Biophilately, the RBCB was one of four insects illustrated in a block of “Garden Insects” stamps issued in the Seychelles in 2014.

Author Jeff Mitton poses some interesting questions about RBCBs in his article in the Colorado Arts and Sciences Magazine https://www.colorado.edu/asmagazine-archive/node/1017.  First of all, considering its coloration [and its daytime feeding habits], it’s logical that the beetle enjoys some chemical defenses, but there’s no information Yea or Nay.

Second, this beetle a pretty much of a generalist, both in the variety of flowers the adults feed on and in the variety of hymenopterans the eggs/larvae hitchhike on.  But [and Mitton is in the Bees and Wasps Camp] it’s one of a number of insects whose continued existence depends on the behavior of another insect – in this case, the bee that unwittingly carries it home.  It’s a big gamble.  He suggests that if its hosts became more fastid13 – red-blue checkered beetle13ious and groomed the beetle eggs/larvae off their bodies, or if they were able to recognize the larvae in the hive and dispose of them, or if the hosts became extinct, the beetle would soon be on the road to extinction itself.

Speaking of beetles and “extinct,” here’s an interesting blog post on ladybugs (thanks to BugFan Molly) – https://prairieecologist.com/2021/06/19/losing-ladybugs/.  Be sure to click on the “Ladybugs of South Dakota” poster.

Kate Redmond, The BugLady

Greetings, BugFans,

There’s a “chicken-or-the-egg” question about pollinators – do pollinators adapt to the flowers they visit, or do flowers adapt to their pollinators?  Yes, pollinators do visit flowers that are a good fit for their various feeding apparatuses, but in an effort to extract nectar from tricky places, insects adapt and specialize https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZhRuo1CPq8.

Despite the popularity of wild orchids and all of the time that is spent looking at and photographing them, the pollinators for many species aren’t known.  Some of our native orchids produce pollen but no nectar, and newly-emerged, “naïve bumble bees” are listed as pollinators for several of these.  “Naïve” because they are attracted by scent or color to a nectar-less flower, and as they look (unsuccessfully) for a food reward, they inadvertently pick up masses of pollen.  After getting the same results at a few more flowers they wise up and (no longer naïve) look for nectar elsewhere.  In the meantime, some flowers get pollinated.

The “upper lip” of the Calopogon/Grass pink orchid has filaments on it that look like they might carry some pollen (a “pseudopollen lure”).   When a naïve bee lands on it, the bee’s weight causes the structure to bend forward, planting the bee on its back on the pollen-producing structure.  Mission accomplished – until the bee stops playing.  Darwin wrote a book about the ways that orchids trick insects into visiting them.

Insect-flower relationships are a gigantic topic.  Here are just a few of the intricate ways that plants and insects interact:

The BugLady mentioned recently that bumble bees can sense when a flower’s pollen has been raided by another insect.  This research shows that at least one of the evening primroses can sense the bee and produce sweeter nectar when pollinators are near.  If the whole article is TMI, then you can get the gist of it from the abstract.  https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ele.13331?fbclid=IwAR23dBgR01xIOEyywLxgh0pGbXl5q59iNquJq3jhnpTYJjPzINXS17enHjk.

How do you avoid being harmed by a plant’s defensive chemicals?  By being a plant, of course – or a chimera. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smartnews-science/insect-has-plant-dna-its-genome-180977366/?utm_source=&utm_medium=&utm_campaign=&spMailingID=44717298&spUserID=ODg4Mzc3MzY0MTUyS0&spJobID=1962608328&spReportId=MTk2MjYwODMyOAS2

And a pretty unique, X-rated way that one orchid attracts beetles https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/extremely-rare-orchid-tricks-horny-beetles-carrying-its-pollen-180977332/?utm_source=smithsoniandaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=20210325-daily-responsive&spMailingID=44689191&spUserID=ODg4Mzc3MzY0MTUyS0&spJobID=1962163522&spReportId=MTk2MjE2MzUyMgS2.

And finally (speaking of orchids), we all gotta eat.  Pollinators make dandy prey, and smart predators hang around flowers.  Here’s one of the best predators ever! https://www.sciencefriday.com/articles/unraveling-the-orchid-mantis-mystery/.

Go outside – look at insects and flowers!

Kate Redmond, The BugLady

Howdy, BugFans,

The BugLady walked in the woods, recently, on an unseasonably warm, spring day, accompanied by Mourning Cloak and Eastern Comma butterflies (so cool to look down on the trail and see the shadows of butterflies!).  No, they had not telescoped their caterpillar and chrysalis stages into the leafless period after the Equinox – these are species that overwinter as adults and are the first to fly into the spring sunlight.  This is a rewrite of an episode from March of 2009 – new words, new pictures.

Mourning Cloaks (Nymphalis antiopa), in the brush-footed butterfly family Nymphalidae, are large and strikingly-patterned butterflies whose name comes from the dark cloak worn by someone who is bereaved.  According to Wikipedia, Grand Surprise and White Petticoat are older names for the adults, and the caterpillars are sometimes called Spiny elm caterpillars.  They are the state butterfly of Montana (Wisconsin doesn’t have a state butterfly, but we do celebrate the honeybee).

The first Mourning Cloak of the season is a welcome harbinger of spring in North America, the UK, Europe, and parts of Asia; they range as far north as the Arctic Circle, and they’re found (sporadically) in northern South America.

Mourning Cloaks live longer than most butterflies – 10 months or more – and a complicated life story it is!  Newly-minted adults emerge around the summer solstice, forage for a while, and then aestivate (suspend all activity) until early fall.  It’s speculated that this reduces both predation and wear-and-tear.  After a fall feeding period, they select a sheltered spot (a hibernaculum) to overwinter in.  Even though they’re protected, getting frozen is a given, but glycerol (antifreeze) in their blood prevents their cells from being damaged by freezing and thawing, and high sugar levels lower their freezing point.  Sometimes they emerge to fly during a winter thaw – and visit sap buckets in the sugar bush – before re-entering aestivation when the temperature dips again.  According to Butterflies of the Great Lakes Region, by Douglas and Douglas, if their hibernaculum doesn’t provide them with the right mix of moisture and cold, they may become fatally desiccated in winter.

They are among the hairiest of butterflies https://bugguide.net/node/view/635747/bgimage (Commas are hairy, too https://bugguide.net/node/view/1560697/bgimage), and in spring, the hairs’ insulating value allows them to fly when the temperature sags below 50 degrees.  In addition, by using a combination of basking (their dark bodies absorb heat) and isometric exercise of some flight muscles, a Mourning cloak can raise the temperature in its thorax about 5 degrees (a handy skill, since the thorax houses both wings and legs).

These early butterflies don’t need flowers for sustenance, they eat rotting fruit and feed (head down) at sap drips, especially on high-sugar species like willow, birch, maple, and oak (Larry Weber, in Butterflies of the North Woods says they take advantage of sapsucker holes, too).  Even in summer and fall, they’re seldom seen on flowers (but they like aphid honeydew).

Adults that have overwintered mate in the early days of spring.  Males display for females, often in a defended territory along a sunny path or woods edge or opening.  Hikers may be confronted by amorous male Mourning Cloaks; when you enter his territory, the male will check you out and see if you have courtship in mind.  If you don’t respond appropriately to his signals, he will depart and wait for more receptive company.  Females lay masses of eggs around the twigs of host plants (willow, elm, hackberry, cottonwood, poplar, rose, birch, hawthorn, and mulberry) https://bugguide.net/node/view/617675/bgimage.  For the Mourning Cloaks who survived the winter, the show is over by the start of summer.

The eggs hatch (the first caterpillars out may reduce competition by eating their unhatched siblings – “siblicide”).  The surviving caterpillars live and feed gregariously on fresh leaves https://bugguide.net/node/view/743419/bgimage – initially within a web.  Like Monarch caterpillars, they often take a hike away from their natal plant before forming a chrysalis https://bugguide.net/node/view/325177.

Mourning Cloaks are preyed on by the usual suspects.  The eggs are eaten by beetles, bugs, ants, and mites.  Adults are hunted by aerial predators like birds and dragonflies and, because they often perch on the ground, by some mammals, reptiles, and amphibians.  The caterpillar mass defends itself behaviorally by thrashing around noisily at the sight of predators (their chrysalis does that, too), but a variety of wasp and fly parasitoids lay their eggs on them just the same.  The caterpillars have an additional defense – don’t touch these pretty larvae, they wear “urticating (but not venomous) spines.”

Adults are protected by the bark-like color of their folded wings, and as they launch themselves into their flap-and-glide flight, Mourning cloaks may produce an audible “click” that startles predators.  When it’s surprised, a Mourning Cloak may play dead and fall into the leaf litter, where it is well camouflaged.

There are tantalizing suggestions that at least some of the North American population of Mourning Cloaks may migrate (at least one way).

Kate Redmond, The BugLady

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

Howdy, BugFans,

While we’ve been quietly going about our business during this way-too-long pandemic (you know things are bad when you fantasize about going to a board meeting in person), the bugs have been perking along, too.  Here’s what they’ve been up to.

LIFE IN THE WATER IN THE WINTER http://www.agatemag.com/2021/03/where-wonders-never-freeze/.  For those BugFans who aren’t from God’s Country, the (incredibly beautiful) Driftless Area is a region of deep valleys and high ridges on either side of the Mississippi River around the juncture of Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Iowa.  During the peak of the Wisconsin Glaciation, the Laurentide Ice Sheet extended well into Illinois, but it missed the Driftless Area.

MURDER HORNETS 2021 – the obligatory murder hornet story. https://www.kuow.org/stories/key-weapons-in-the-fight-against-asian-murder-hornets-orange-juice-and-rice-wine

On the face of it, a really NICE PICTURE STORY ABOUT THE HUNTING BEHAVIOR OF A FISHING SPIDER https://whyevolutionistrue.com/2021/02/09/readers-wildlife-photos-1220/.  But then there’s the video….

[Nota Bene:  One of the BugLady’s pet peeves is the subliminal indoctrination that is communicated by the narrator’s tone or by the background music in videos showing predators.  This one has it all, except for prey in the form of a cute, bright-eyed bunny or mouse (harder to sympathize with a minnow)]

Remember – HONEYBEES ARE FOREIGN BEES that were imported in the 1600s to pollinate foreign crops.  Turns out that there were already plenty of native pollinators, and both the native and the honeybees are really important.  Turns out, both are also in trouble.  https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/thousands-wild-bee-species-havent-been-seen-1990-180976901/?utm_source=smithsoniandaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=20210202-daily-responsive&spMailingID=44375570&spUserID=ODg4Mzc3MzY0MTUyS0&spJobID=1940179039&spReportId=MTk0MDE3OTAzOQS2

IN WHICH SPIDERS DO PHYSICS:  https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/small-spiders-big-appetites-use-pulley-system-catch-large-prey-180976939/?utm_source=smithsoniandaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=20210205-daily-responsive&spMailingID=44397663&spUserID=ODg4Mzc3MzY0MTUyS0&spJobID=1940462241&spReportId=MTk0MDQ2MjI0MQS2

HOW CAN YOU “SEE” WHEN YOU CAN’T SEE?  Ask these caterpillars: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/these-caterpillars-can-detect-color-using-their-skin-180972996/?utm_source=smithsoniandaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=20190827-daily-responsive&spMailingID=40517582&spUserID=ODg4Mzc3MzY0MTUyS0&spJobID=1582561816&spReportId=MTU4MjU2MTgxNgS2

HOW BUTTERFLIES FLY (a little more Physics) https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/study-reveals-secrets-butterfly-flight-180976808/?utm_source=smithsoniandaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=20210122-daily-responsive&spMailingID=44313349&spUserID=ODg4Mzc3MzY0MTUyS0&spJobID=1921850282&spReportId=MTkyMTg1MDI4MgS2

PEACOCK SPIDERS are a genus (Maratus) of jumping spiders, almost all of which live in Australia.  “Peacock” because they are ridiculously colorful, and the male’s courtship dance involves flashing his abdominal flaps at skeptical females.  Here are some new species of peacock spider – https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/meet-seven-newly-discovered-species-peacock-spiders-180974549/, and if you can’t get enough of peacock spiders, see https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/62195/5-flashy-facts-about-peacock-spiders.

PERIODICAL CICADA BROOD X, last seen in 2004, is scheduled to emerge over parts of 15 states in 2021 (they barely make it over the Illinois border into Wisconsin – most of our cicadas are Dog day types https://bugguide.net/node/view/1884528/bgimage, which look pretty different than Periodical cicadas).  Remember – the immature cicada (nymph) lives below-ground, biding its time, feeding on root juices, until the appointed hour, it’s internal calendar ticking off 3 or 7 or more years, depending on species.  Cicada cooking contests abound during big years https://evolutionarythought.wordpress.com/2012/02/26/how-far-weve-come-a-case-study-in-arthropods/

https://www.washingtonian.com/2021/03/08/apparently-brood-x-cicadas-are-edible-and-taste-like-shrimp/?fbclid=IwAR0mOS4BehVwG9tfiXTGUdpdlJYIE878Z7GHKBgDDZnLxEc1zKoDr_TzcjE (but, points subtracted for saying that they’re related to shrimp, which they are, but not closely).  Where can you view Brood X?  Scroll down: https://www.cicadamania.com/cicadas/periodical-cicada-brood-x-10-will-emerge-in-15-states-in-2021/.

Finally – TREEHOPPERS ARE JUST SO COOL!! https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/treehoppers-bizarre-wondrous-helmets-use-wing-genes-grow-180973713/

Kate Redmond, The BugLady

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