Tag: beetle

Bug o’the Week – The End of Summer

Bug o’the Week
by Kate Redmond

The End of Summer

Howdy, BugFans,

We’ve arrived at the final act in this summer’s insect drama – a drama played out over the months by an ever-changing cast of characters.  Some are regulars, with successive generations appearing in multiple acts throughout the season, while others step in for only one act of the play.  Here are some of the actors that appeared on stage after mid-August.

DARNER WITH SPIDER – well, the darner migration was nothing short of magical this year, and then it was over.  And then it restarted – lots of Common Green Darners in the air on September 19 and 20, along with a bunch of Black Saddlebags.  They’re heading south along the lakeshore, aiming for the Gulf States, but they don’t all make it.  The BugLady’s guess is that this one was perched in the grass, and when it took off, it ran into the web of an orbweaver.  It messed up the web, but because it wasn’t flying at full power, the spider was able to snag it.  THANKS to the family that located this tableaux along the trail and pointed the BugLady at it.

TIGER SWALLOWTAIL – perfection on the wing, but far too few of them this summer.

GOLD-MARKED THREAD-WAISTED WASPS (Eremnophila) put the “thread” in the Thread-waisted wasp family (Sphecidae).  They’re solitary wasps that dig single-celled egg chambers in the ground and provision them with caterpillars of sphinx or owlet moths (and the odd of skipper butterfly caterpillar).  Her long legs allow her to straddle a larger caterpillar and walk it back to her nest https://bugguide.net/node/view/1408944/bgimage.  She keeps her strength up by sipping carb-rich flower nectar.

RED-LEGGED GRASSHOPPERS making more Red-legged grasshoppers.  ‘Tis the season.  

GRAY HAIRSTREAKS are listed as the most common hairstreak in North America (because their caterpillars are “catholic” eaters that feed on about 200 different plants), but they’re not common in Wisconsin.  

Fun facts about Gray Hairstreaks:

  1. The point of the eyespot and the “tail” is to make the butterfly’s rear end look like a front end, with eye and “antenna,” thus confusing predators;
  2. Gray hairstreak caterpillars are tended by ants in return for honeydew (produced, of course, in the caterpillar’s “honey gland”);
  3. Both the caterpillar and the pupa produce sound.

TREE CRICKET – the voice of the prairie in late summer and early fall.  This one is (probably) in the Oecanthus nigricornis group, maybe the Forbes tree cricket https://www.listeningtoinsects.com/tree-cricket-introduction

BIG SAND TIGER BEETLES are all about sand.  Their eggs are buried in the sand; their larvae https://bugguide.net/node/view/1277687/bgimage dig long tunnels in the sand and then pop out when unwary insects and spiders wander by.  At up to six feet long, the tunnel extends below the frost line and allows them to survive the winter.  Adults stand “on tiptoe” (stilting) to raise themselves incrementally higher off the hot sand.  Not surprisingly, Tiger beetles have fan clubs.

FIERY SKIPPER – these beautiful, inch-long, golden butterflies aren’t from around here, though they regularly visit God’s Country and beyond.  Their usual range is southern and even tropical, and they move north in mid-summer and produce a brood here, but it’s too cold for them to overwinter (for now).  They’ve made it to Hawaii and are unwelcome there, because their caterpillars feed on grasses. 

EUROPEAN PAPER WASPS are buzzing around the hawk tower these warm, sunny days, so the BugLady has to look sharp before she puts her hands on the railings.  Fortunately, they are jumpy wasps that usually spot her before she gets too close.  They arrived on the East Coast 40 or 50 years ago and have spread across the northern US and Canada.  They catch, masticate, and regurgitate caterpillars and other small insects for their larvae.  The lovely gold legs and antennae separate them from our common Northern paper wasp.

Fun facts about European paper wasps:

1)    The brighter the coloration of a female European paper wasp, the more toxic her sting is;

2)    Females with more spots on their faces are dominant.

FAMILIAR BLUETS – Big and startlingly blue, Familiar Bluets are one of the last damselflies on the scene.  (‘Tis the season.)

Caterpillars of VIRGINIAN TIGER MOTHS are also known as Yellow wooly bears or Yellow bear caterpillars (though they come in white, yellow, caramel, and rusty colors, and here’s a pink one https://bugguide.net/node/view/1728143/bgimage).  They’re food generalists, and so are all over the place (not just in Virginia).  Although some people are sensitive to their hairs, the hairs are not poisonous.  Adults are spectacularly white https://bugguide.net/node/view/1984450/bgimage, but when they are alarmed, they curl their abdomen to flash a startling orange https://bugguide.net/node/view/2329153/bgimage.   

NURSERYWEB SPIDERS carry their egg sac around in their jaws (wolf spiders carry theirs aft) and when the eggs are close to hatching, she creates a loose “nursery web,” installs the egg sac in it (hers was on the underside of the leaf), and then guards it until the eggs hatch and the spiderlings have molted once.  No help from Dad – if she doesn’t eat him (sexual cannibalism – an important nutrient booster) (he wraps her legs with silk during courtship to try to prevent this), he leaves to pursue other relationships.  He gives her a “nuptial gift” of a silk-wrapped prey item at the start of courtship so that she will think well of him, but after he has immobilized her and exchanged bodily fluids, he takes the gift with him when he goes. 

CRANE FLY – the “Old Wives” really got it wrong about Crane flies.  Though they’re also called “mosquito hawks,” they do not eat mosquitos (or any meat of any kind).  They do not bite anything at all, but they’re reputed to be the “most venomous insects in the world.”  The confusion may have come because of their resemblance to the cellar spiders, themselves getting a bad rap because their bites are practically harmless.  They’re just a short-lived fly whose larvae inhabit a variety of habitats from wetlands to lawns (where they both feed on and fertilize the grass).

EASTERN TAILED-BLUES are tiny butterflies with wingspans of an inch or less, but they’re tough enough to fly well into fall (four years ago, the BugLady saw one on November 4).  Like the Gray Hairstreak, the eye and tail on the hind wing are there to trick hungry birds into grabbing a wing, not an abdomen.  ‘Tis the season.

Go outside – there are still bugs!

Kate Redmond, The BugLady

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

Bug o’the Week – Summer Sights

Bug o’the Week
by Kate Redmond

Summer Sights

Greetings, BugFans,

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

LEAFCUTTER BEE – ah, the one that got away.  The BugLady saw a lump on a boardwalk in front of her and automatically aimed her camera at it (a long lens is a good substitute for a pair of binoculars).  The lump – a leafcutter bee – flew off after one, out-of-focus shot.  The bee had paused while she was cutting and collecting pieces of vegetation to line the tunnel and chambers where she’ll lay her eggs (here’s one caught in the act https://bugguide.net/node/view/2150206/bgimage). 

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

WATER STRIDERS create art wherever they go. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

EASTERN AMBERWING – at barely an inch long, this improbably-colored dragonfly is one of our flashiest.

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

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

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

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

CAROLINA LOCUST – what a lovely, chunky little nymph! 

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

KATYDID NYMPH – the BugLady was photographing leafcutter bees that were visiting birdsfoot trefoil flowers (birdsfoot trefoil is a non-native member of the pea family that was introduced for animal fodder and erosion control and that can become invasive in grasslands.  There’s probably some blooming along a road edge near you).  She noticed that when the bees approached one particular flower, they reversed course and didn’t land, and when she checked she found the tiniest katydid nymph she has ever seen.  This one will grow up considerably to be a 1 ½” to 2” long Fork-tailed bush katydid (or somebody else in the genus Scudderia) https://bugguide.net/node/view/2164189/bgimage.  How do you find bush katydids?  The “Listening to Insects” website advises us to “Watch for a leaf that moves on its own, or a leaf with antennae.”  They are a favorite of Great golden digger wasps, which collect and cache them for their eventual larvae, and another website said “this is what bird food looks like.” 

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

Go outside, look at bugs!

Kate Redmond, The BugLady

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

Bug o’the Week – Stirrings of Summer

Bug o’the Week
by Kate Redmond

Stirrings of Summer

Greetings, BugFans

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

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

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

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

BALTIMORE CHECKERSPOT – the BugLady has seen more of these spectacular butterflies than usual this year.  The caterpillars https://bugguide.net/node/view/206383 feed in fall on a late-blooming wildflower called Turtlehead (and sometimes broad-leaved plantain); turtlehead leaves (and plantain, to a lesser extent) contain growth-enhancing chemicals called iridoid glycosides that also discourage birds.  The caterpillars tuck in for the winter and emerge the next year into a landscape empty of Turtlehead. 

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

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

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

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

DONACIA – a golden beetle https://bugguide.net/node/view/2309637/bgimage on a golden flower.

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

PETROPHILA MOTHS are dainty moths that are tied to water.  The BugLady and BugFan Joan spotted mobs of moths on milkweed (yes, there’s a milkweed under there) on the bank of the Milwaukee River.  “Petrophila” means “rock lover” – for that story, see this BOTW about a (probably) different species https://uwm.edu/field-station/bug-of-the-week/two-banded-petrophila/.  

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

EIGHT-SPOTTED FORESTER MOTHS are small, spiffy, day-flying moths that are often mistaken for butterflies.  The one that the BugLady found recently was not as gaudy as most – most have brilliant orange leg scales https://bugguide.net/node/view/2300226/bgimage.  There’s a saying among Lepidopterists – the plainer the caterpillar, the more spectacular the adult.  Forester moths seem to be an exception https://bugguide.net/node/view/156406. 

POWDERED DANCERS oviposit at this time of year in the slightly-submerged stems of aquatic vegetation, especially Potamogeton https://bugguide.net/node/view/737371/bgimage.  They’ve been pictured here before.  This year, the river is running high and fast – there are no mats of Potamogeton leaves with Ebony Jewelwings, American Rubyspots, Stream Bluets, and Powdered Dancers flickering above them.  Do they have a Plan B?

MALE
FEMALE

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

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

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

They make distinctive egg masses https://bugguide.net/node/view/960067/bgimage (nice series of shots) – the BugLady has found them on the undersides of leaves, and the nymphs are pretty cool, too https://bugguide.net/node/view/1632827/bgimage. 

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

There – all caught up! 

Go outside – look at bugs!

Kate Redmond, The BugLady

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

Bug o’the Week – Slices of Spring

Bug o’the Week
by Kate Redmond

Slices of Spring

Howdy, BugFans,

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

What did she find in April and May?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

CRANE FLY – there are a number of families of crane flies, plus some near-relatives, and they are often collectively called daddy longlegs (though they’re not spiders) and mosquito hawks and skeeter-eaters (though they don’t catch or eat mosquitoes).  What they do, is look like giant mosquitoes when they land on the other side of your window screen at night https://bugguide.net/node/view/2360312/bgimage, but they’re completely harmless.  The “crane” in crane fly reflects their long, long legs – they’re somewhat awkward flyers and even more awkward landers.  Like the Daddy longlegs, they’re reputedly extremely venomous (and now it’s time to introduce the third member of our “daddy longlegs trio,” the cellar spider.  Crane flies are thought to be venomous because they look like cellar spiders (https://bugguide.net/node/view/2170770/bgimage), but, alas, cellar spiders only have very weak venom). 

How do these things get started, anyway?

SOLDIER FLY – it’s always a little startling to come across a lime-green fly! 

This VIRGINIA CTENUCHA MOTH CATERPILLAR was photographed in April, but the BugLady has found them walking around on mild winter days.  The cute caterpillar will morph into a stunning moth https://bugguide.net/node/view/1036503/bgimage that looks butterfly-ish until it lands on a leaf and immediately crawls underneath.  Despite its name, it’s a moth with more northerly affiliations. 

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

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

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

Red-spotted Purple?  The purple part https://bugguide.net/node/view/1791309/bgimage, and the red-spotted part https://bugguide.net/node/view/1881731/bgimage

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

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

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

Go outside – Look for Bugs!

Kate Redmond, The BugLady

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

Bug o’the Week – Closed for June I – Invasive species

Bug o’the Week
by Kate Redmond

Closed for June I Invasive species

Greetings BugFans,

YAY, it’s June!  That means that the BugLady is out on the trails, walking slowly, looking at everything and photographing half of it.  A probably-tasteful BOTW will be delivered to your inbox each Tuesday in June, but it won’t be a newly-minted, original episode.

It’s also June – National Invasive Species Action Month!  “Alien,” “Introduced,” “Exotic,” and “Non-native” are all words we use to describe species that aren’t from around here, like alfalfa and Golden retrievers, but those words are not synonymous with the word Invasive.  Having left their predators in the Old Country, invasive species achieve populations that negatively affect their habitat and native species.  Not all invasive species are from another continent – Rusty crayfish, invasive in Wisconsin, hail from the southeastern part of the country.

Here, from the BugLady’s massive “Bugs in the News” file is an article about an invasive hornet that is NOT the Asian giant/Murder hornet (which has been given the new, less offensive name Northern giant hornet) https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/invasive-yellow-legged-hornet-spotted-in-the-us-for-the-first-time-180982750/?utm_source=smithsoniandaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=editorial&spMailingID=48657538&spUserID=ODg4Mzc3MzY0MTUyS0&spJobID=2522438973&spReportId=MjUyMjQzODk3MwS2. 

And one about an invasive tick https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/an-invasive-tick-that-can-clone-itself-is-spreading-across-us-threatening-livestock-180983323/?utm_source=smithsoniandaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=editorial&spMailingID=49123309&spUserID=ODg4Mzc3MzY0MTUyS0&spJobID=2582666542&spReportId=MjU4MjY2NjU0MgS2.

And speaking of ticks, the BOTW about Deer ticks is worth a reread, since the deer tick season has been in high gear here in God’s Country for months: https://uwm.edu/field-station/bug-of-the-week/deer-ticks-revisited/.   

Accompanying these articles are pictures of a Eurasian butterfly that we often forget is not native – the Cabbage Butterfly, which introduced itself into Canada 150 years ago and whose caterpillar https://bugguide.net/node/view/1733638/bgimage was, for a long time, called the “Imported Cabbageworm” (if you’re a gardener, you probably know this one already https://uwm.edu/field-station/bug-of-the-week/cabbage-whites-and-sulphurs-redux/.

And a picture of a really beautiful little beetle that arrived in the Detroit area from China about 20 years ago and that has changed the landscape here in Wisconsin and in much of North America east of the Great Plains – the Emerald ash borer (EAB) https://uwm.edu/field-station/bug-of-the-week/emerald-ash-borer-redux-family-buprestidae/.  When it first appeared, the DNR predicted that it would demolish 99.9% of Wisconsin’s ash trees.  Their flight period is about to start.

And a Deer tick.

Not all invasive species are insects – see the Southeast Wisconsin Invasive Species Consortium (SEWISC) for information about invasives near you www.sewisc.org (they’d love a donation, too). 

For more information about the organizations that are educating about and fighting invasives in Wisconsin, see https://widnr.widen.net/view/pdf/hpxkc6dtm9/InvSp_RegionalCISMAList.pdf?t.download=true&u=kkadwx

Kate Redmond, The BugLady

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

Bug o’the Week – Wetlands Month IV – Water Scavenger Beetle revised

Bug o’the Week
by Kate Redmond

Wetlands Month IV Water Scavenger Beetle revised

Salutations, BugFans,

We’re wrapping up National Wetlands Week with a beetle that you don’t even need a magnifying glass to see!  This is a revision of an episode that first aired in the summer of 2009 – new words; no new pictures.

BOTW hasn’t plunged underwater for several months now, but in this episode we will get a chance to get our collective gills wet again.  Water scavenger beetles are hefty beetles (some measure more than 1 ½ inches) in the family Hydrophilidae that are easily mistaken for Predaceous Diving beetles (family Dytiscidae https://bugguide.net/node/view/1415131/bgimage) of previous BOTW fame (https://uwm.edu/field-station/bug-of-the-week/predaceous-diving-beetle/).  Other than sharing their classification in the beetle Order Coleoptera, they are not closely related.  North America hosts more than 250 species of Water scavenger beetles, including an introduced, non-aquatic species that makes itself at home in dung, where its larvae eat maggots (fly larvae).

The usually-black, dome-shaped Water scavenger beetles https://bugguide.net/node/view/1644233/bgimage look a little less streamlined than the usually-black Predaceous diving beetles, and their flat, ventral surfaces often sport a keel.  , In contrast to the Predaceous diving beetle’s oar-like strokes https://bugguide.net/node/view/1811015/bgimage, the Water scavenger beetles’ swimming involves alternate left-right-left-right strokes of their flattened, hairy, second and third pairs of legs https://bugguide.net/node/view/378043/bgimage, https://bugguide.net/node/view/1925805/bgimage.  Their swimming may be clumsy by comparison, but scavengers don’t need the speed and maneuverability of predators.  They are good flyers https://bugguide.net/node/view/742111/bgimage that may leave their watery homes and fly to lights at night (just scoop them up in a paper cup and return them to the water). 

Along with their beetle classification, they also share with Predaceous diving beetles the shallow waters of freshwater ponds and quiet stream edges, although Water scavenger beetles like their weedy, algae-choked habitat a bit warmer than Predaceous diving beetles do.  What they do not share is a lifestyle.  Adult Water scavenger beetles (depending on species) may feed on their aquatic neighbors or may be recyclers, with a food pyramid that includes algae and, as their name suggests, decaying vegetation and dead animal tissue.    

The very-carnivorous Water scavenger beetle larvae (https://bugguide.net/node/view/1872987/bgimage) are described as “sluggish” and are found crawling on the pond floor or climbing on underwater vegetation.  The larvae are couch-potato versions of the sleek Predaceous diving beetle larvae/water tigers (https://bugguide.net/node/view/2276347/bgimage), though they sometimes share the same “water tiger” moniker.  Their feeding category is “engulfer-predator” – they use their powerful, hollow jaws https://bugguide.net/node/view/183298/bgimage to subdue and then vacuum out the juices of their prey.  Their food-list includes their brethren, along with other aquatic invertebrates (they love mosquito larvae) and they also go after tadpoles, snails, and mini-fish. 

According to Eaton and Kaufman, in the Field Guide to Insects of North America, some species of Water scavenger beetles can squeak by rubbing their abdomen against the underside of their wing covers.  Wikipedia lists a repertoire of “stress calls, a male courtship call, a male copulating sound, and a female rejection buzz.”

Water scavenger beetles overwinter as adults, and in early summer, females lay eggs in a cocoon-like structure that’s attached to aquatic plants or left to float like a raft.  In The New Field Book of Freshwater Life, Elsie Klots says that the egg case of one genus includes a vertical “mast” that extends above the water’s surface.  The mast may be involved with respiration, but it may also be an escape hatch for larvae – escape being vital in a group whose young hatch from eggs within a case and immediately start chowing-down on their siblings.  A case may hold 100+ eggs at the start, but cannibalism reduces the number of larvae that live to exit. 

They spend a month underwater as larvae and then leave the water and create a pupal cell by scooping away soil with their mandibles.  It takes them 36 to 48 hours to dig a hole that’s three inches deep.  They climb in and pupate, reappearing as adults in a few weeks.

Predaceous diving beetles breathe, as many aquatic insects do (and as Water scavenger beetle larvae do), by backing their rear end up to the water’s surface and taking in air with a tube or pore (some Water scavenger beetle larvae also have exterior, branched gills https://bugguide.net/node/view/1058195/bgimage).  Adult Water scavenger beetles break through the surface film with un-wet-able (“hydrophobic”) antennae that form a funnel through which air is transported.  Oxygen is stored in a space under the elytra (hard wing covers), and the beetle takes that air into its body through its spiracles (breathing pores).  The nickname “silver-beetle” is a nod to its secondary source of oxygen – a film of air bubbles that typically covers the beetle’s flat ventral surface, trapped there in a layer of thick hairs.  Air held in these hairs can be renewed from oxygen suspended in the water, allowing the beetle to stay under longer.    

It seems that Water scavenger beetles have a Super Power – at least, one Australian species does!  It’s the ability to locomote on the underside of the surface film (remember – due to electrical charges, the layer of water molecules at the surface of a body of water is “tougher” than the molecules below it, which is what allows some insects to skate along its surface.  This same surface tension makes it hard for small critters to break through from below).  See the video here https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/beetle-can-walk-along-underside-waters-surface-180978115/.  Snails and leeches can do this, too.

The air trapped on the underside of its body may help the beetle stay “belly-up” without using extra energy, giving it enough buoyancy to stroll along under the surface film without breaking through, though each footstep makes the water dimple upwards (scientists don’t know exactly how the beetle’s feet get traction).  Researcher John Gould recounted seeing the phenomenon for the first time, “The beetle was casually walking along the underside of the water’s surface with ease while upside down. Every now and then, it would come to a stop, and then kept plodding along across the surface as if it was walking across any regular solid.” 

How does the beetle do this?  Why?  Are there other beetles that do it?  Scientists who collect aquatic beetles report that when they roil up the substrate with their nets, beetles often float up to the surface.  But do they walk around up/under there, or do they return to their normal haunts ASAP?  So many questions – stay tuned.

WATER SCAVENGER BEETLE MISCELLANIA:

J. Reese Voshell, Jr, in A Guide to Common Freshwater Invertebrates of North America, says that “beetle” comes from the Old English “bitula” – “to bite” – a reference to the strong jaws of adult beetles. 

Shelly Cox, in her blog called “MOBUGS – Missouri’s Majority,” shares a great (but unattributed) quote about Water scavenger beetles – “This is a water beetle. It is the hardest object in the world to pick up with tweezers. The second hardest is Mount Everest.”  The BugLady can’t speak to either of those.

Once upon a time, a Naturalist named Linda Bower wondered what she would see if she put a camcorder in a pond.  A whole lot, as it turned out.  She has expanded her gaze to include terrestrial bugs and non-insects, as you will see if you check the excellent offerings at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJ2iEp9598fAgiqdMwMZX_g.  Glimpses of a world that exists under our radar.  For the Aquatic playlist click on “Life in and Around the Pond.”  

And remember – Every Month is Wetlands Month (and every fifth living thing is a beetle)!  

Kate Redmond, The BugLady

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

Bug o’the Week – Wetlands Month I – Crawling Water Beetle

Bug o’the Week
by Kate Redmond

Wetlands Month I Crawling Water Beetle

Howdy, BugFans,

May is National Wetlands Month, and the BugLady is celebrating by re-posting episodes about aquatic critters from deep in the BOTW archives (this one is from 2012, with some new words added).

The BugLady heard an interesting interview on the radio a while back in which the guest said that non-scientists are intimidated by the feeling that they must know the exact names of the plants and animals on their landscapes in order to discuss them, and that the belief that those names belong only to scientists causes people to become estranged from the natural world.  Yes and no.  While it is true that each organism has a scientific name that belongs to it alone and is universally recognized, the amazing world of common names is up for grabs.  Common names are the names bestowed by people, often regionally, who experience an organism where the rubber meets the road.  The more abundant or beloved or notorious or scary an organism is, the more common names it’s likely to have collected.

So – what to name a small, yellowish, spotted, aquatic beetle that scrambles through the water, head down, in perpetual motion?  That, rather than “rowing” its legs in synchrony like a water boatman, “dog-paddles,” moving its legs alternately, appearing to crawl through the water.  OK – Crawling water beetle it is.

There are almost 70 species of Crawling Water Beetles (family Haliplidae) in North America, divided up among four genera (this beetle belongs to the most common genus, Haliplus) (probably) – Haliplus, because the other common genus, Peltodytes, has two spots on the thorax, just north of the elytra (wing covers).  Identification to species can be tricky and gets very up close and personal.  A Crawling water beetle that’s ¼” long is a big Crawling water beetle.  Haliplids favor still, shallow water and the pool areas of streams and rivers everywhere (except Antarctica) (they favor temperate regions), and the BugLady read about an endangered Irish species that lives in tidal salt marshes.  Three of Wisconsin’s Crawling water beetle species are listed as rare.

Crawling water beetles that live in ponds and lake edges can be found scrambling through the water column or feeding in mats of aquatic plants, especially algae.  Where there is a current, look for them in crevices between rocks.  Unlike many of their aquatic brethren, Crawling water beetles are bulky (one source said “barrel-shaped”), mediocre swimmers that are not streamlined, and other than some long hairs on their back four feet, their legs are not adapted for swimming (they are weak fliers, too, on wings that are rolled – not folded – under the elytra when not in use). 

Their two hind legs are modified – but they’re modified for breathing.  The sections at the base of each hind leg (closest to the body) are greatly flattened to form “coxal plates” that meet under the beetle.  Together, the coxal plates cover part of the thorax and abdomen and create a second space to carry oxygen.  When it needs oxygen, a Crawling water beetle backs up to the surface film, takes in air, and stores it in an area on its back, above its abdomen and beneath its elytra.  A reserve supply is cached between the coxal plates and the lower surface of the abdomen, and it is in communion with the air under the elytra.  Insects take in air through breathing pores called spiracles, and there are spiracles located under the coxal plates. 

A bubble of air peeking out from under the elytra helps Crawling water beetle float to the water’s surface (a Crawling water beetle that’s low on air loses buoyancy and must clamber back up the vegetation).  The long, skinny Crawling water beetle larvae http://bugguide.net/node/view/327585 simply breathe through their skin and don’t develop spiracles until they are almost ready to pupate.   

There’s a lot of variation in Crawling water beetle larvae across the various genera https://bugguide.net/node/view/280859/bgimage

Crawling water beetles lay their eggs on submerged aquatic plants, especially filamentous algae.  Some excavate small holes in the plant tissue and lay their eggs inside.  The short-legged, hook-footed larvae creep about on algae mats, where they are well-camouflaged, playing dead when alarmed (alarmed adults make for the bottom of the pond and cling to plant stems there), feeding on their algal substrate with mouthparts that are adapted for grabbing algae, piercing its walls, and sucking out its juices.  Larvae that are too tiny to puncture the tough cell walls feed on the fungi and bacteria on the algae’s exterior.  Adults continue to feed on algae, but they add protein to their diet in the form of tiny invertebrates like worms, daphnia, and midge eggs.  They are eaten by fish, salamanders, and larger aquatic insects.

Crawling water beetle larvae pupate on the shore, in a cell they prepare under a rock or log near the water’s edge.  Their new-found spiracles allow them to breathe out of water.  Some species spend the winter as pupae; others emerge to spend the winter in the water as adults. 

Adults can be found in the water all year round, moving slowly under the ice in winter and congregating in deep spots where the photosynthesis of aquatic plants provides oxygen.  Larvae are seen in spring. 

Haliplids are among the many shy, retiring insects who live their lives off our radar, simply because their lives don’t impact ours in any economic way (“man is the measure of all things,” said the BugLady’s high school English teacher).

The BugLady photographs aquatic invertebrates as they swim around in a white, plastic spoon.  Crawling water beetles do not stop and pose.  Here are some better pictures https://bugguide.net/node/view/262970/bgpage, https://bugguide.net/node/view/938881/bgimage.

Go outside.  Name stuff!

Kate Redmond, The BugLady

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

Bug o’the Week – Bugs without Bios XIX

Bug o’the Week
by Kate Redmond

Bugs without Bios XIX

Howdy, BugFans,

Bugs without bios – those humble (but worthy) bugs about whom little information is readily available.  Today’s bugs check those boxes as species, but they have something in common – their lifestyles are similar to those of close relatives who have already starred in their own BOTW.

The BugLady found this PREDACEOUS DIVING BEETLE (Hydacticus aruspex) (probably) in shallow water that was so plant-choked that the beetle had trouble submerging.  Diving beetles are competent swimmers, tucking their two front pairs of legs close to their body and stroking with powerful back legs.  When they submerge, they carry a film of air with them to breathe, stored under the hard, outer wing covers (elytra).  They can fly, too, though they mostly take to the air at night.

As both larvae and adults, Predaceous diving beetles are aquatic and carnivorous, dining on fellow aquatic invertebrates.  Larvae (called water tigers) grab their meals with curved mouthparts and inject digestive juices that soften the innards, making them easy to sip out (generic water tiger – https://bugguide.net/node/view/49848/bgimage).  They eat lots of mosquito larvae.  Adults grab their prey and tear pieces off.  Not for the faint of heart.   

Hydacticus aruspex (no common name) is one of five genus members in North America and is found across the continent.  It comes in both a striped and a non-striped form https://bugguide.net/node/view/296320/bgimage.  It overwinters as an adult, under the ice, and romance blossoms in spring.  For more information about Predaceous diving beetles, see https://uwm.edu/field-station/bug-of-the-week/predaceous-diving-beetle-revisited/. 

These spectacular OBLIQUE-WINGED KATYDIDS (probably) were climbing around on Arrow Arum in a wetland that the BugLady frequents.  Katydids are famous singers whose ventriloquistic calls may be heard day and night (though older ears may strain to hear them – test your hearing here https://www.listeningtoinsects.com/oblong-winged-katydid).  They “sing” via “stridulation” – friction – in their case, by rubbing the rigid edge of one forewing against a comb-like “file” on the other (the soft, second set of wings is only for flying, and they do that well).  They hear with slit-like tympana on their front legs.  Most Katydids are vegetarians, but a few species are predaceous.

Oblong-winged Katydids (Amblycorypha oblongifolia) are “False katydids” (here’s a True katydid https://bugguide.net/node/view/2207342/bgimage) in the Round-headed katydid genus.  They are found in woods, shrubs, and edges throughout the eastern US, often in “damp-lands,” often on brambles, roses, and goldenrods.  The dark, mottled triangle on the top of the male’s thorax is called the “stridulatory field” – a rough area that is rubbed to produce sound.  Oblong-winged katydids have a large stridulatory field. 

Katydids, both in color and in texture, are remarkably camouflaged – except when they’re not.  Here’s an awesome color wheel of katydids https://entnemdept.ufl.edu/creatures/misc/amblycorypha_oblongifolia.htm. 

For more information about the large katydids (including the origin of their name), see https://uwm.edu/field-station/bug-of-the-week/katydid-rerun/.

The BugLady came across this cute little MOTH FLY (Clytocerus americanus) (probably) on a day that she couldn’t take an in-focus shot on a bet!  Fortunately, bugguide.net contributors did better https://bugguide.net/node/view/426325/bgimage, https://bugguide.net/node/view/695589/bgimage.  Despite their name, Moth flies are moths, not flies or weird hybrids.  They are tiny (maybe 1/8”) and hairy, and are weak fliers, and until she saw this one, the only Moth flies she had ever seen were indoors, in the bathroom (where they earn another of their names – “drain flies”).  Species that live outside are, like this one was, often found near wetlands. 

There are only one or two species in the genus Clytocerus in North America, and they have strongly-patterned wings and very hairy antennae.  Not much is known about their habits.  According to Wikipedia, adult Clytocerus americanus feed on “fungal mycelia and various organisms which inhabit wet to moist environments. Larvae are assumed to be detritivores.”

Find out more about moth flies here https://uwm.edu/field-station/bug-of-the-week/moth-fly/. 

MASON WASP – This is what happens when the BugLady buys garden stakes!  After various small, solitary wasps populate the empty interiors with eggs, the BugLady can’t possibly stick them into the ground! 

As their name suggests, female Mason wasps use mud to construct chambers in preexisting holes to house both their eggs and the cache of small invertebrates that their their eventual larvae will eat. 

The Canadian Mason Wasp (Symmorphus canadensis) suspends an egg from the chamber roof or wall by a thread and then adds 20 or more moth or leaf mining beetle larvae before partitioning it off with a wall of mud and working on the next cell https://bugguide.net/node/view/509856/bgimage.  She leaves a “vestibule” at the end of the tunnel/plant stake between the final chamber and the door plug. 

Heather Holm, in her sensational Wasps: Their Biology, Diversity, and Role and Beneficial Insects and Pollinators of Native Plants, discusses the hunting strategy of genus members: “Symmorphus wasps hunt leaf beetle larvae (Chrysomela); these beetles have glands in their abdominal segments and thorax that emit pungent defensive compounds.  These compounds are derived from the plants that the larvae consume. ….. In addition to using visual cues to find their prey, it is likely that Symmorphus wasps use olfactory means to find the beetle larvae.  Symmorphus males have been observed lunging at Chrysomela larvae, mistaking the larvae for adult females [female mason wasps] that, after capturing and handling prey, smell of the offensive compounds.

Here are two previous BOTWs about mason wasps, each a different genus than the Canadian Mason wasp: https://uwm.edu/field-station/bug-of-the-week/bramble-mason-wasp/ and https://uwm.edu/field-station/bug-of-the-week/four-toothed-mason-wasp/.    

Kate Redmond, The BugLady

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

Bug o’the Week – Sand-loving Bembidion beetle

Bug o’the Week
by Kate Redmond

Bug o’the Week Sand-loving Bembidion beetle

Greetings, BugFans,

The Ground beetle family (Carabidae) contains some large and spectacular species https://bugguide.net/node/view/662415/bgpage, https://bugguide.net/node/view/2138426/bgimage, https://bugguide.net/node/view/2216522/bgimage, (including the Tiger beetles https://bugguide.net/node/view/1124395/bgpage), but today’s beetle is neither large nor flashy. It’s pretty fast, though.

With 2,440 species in North America and around 34,000 species worldwide, Carabidae is one of the largest insect families. Most Carabids are active hunters, both as larvae and adults, and many species (but not the tiger beetles) are nocturnal. Other than that, Carabids come in all sizes, shapes, and colors, and habits and habitats. Many are chemically protected, with special glands where they can concoct noxious substances.

Cool fact about Ground beetles: according to bugguide.net, “the front tibia has a prominent notch (antenna cleaner) on the inside near distal end.” 

The BugLady was moseying around on the beach one August day when she spied an impossibly small beetle zipping over the sand.  So (of course) she aimed her camera at it as it ran around her and between her feet.  Bent over, with the 100mm lens about 2 ½ feet above the sand, this was the only shot worth keeping. 

She figured out that it was in the genus Bembidion (though she guessed the species wrong).  Bembidion is the largest genus in the Carabidae, and it’s a complex one.  Evans, in Beetles of Eastern North America, says that “Bembidion is a large genus; species sometimes challenging to identify.”  There are about 1,300 described species that are divided among about 100 subgenera, with more in the pipeline.  About 250 species live in North America, eight of them non-native. 

As a group, they are small (a half-inch or less), slender and somewhat flattened, dark and often metallic, speedy denizens of habitats near the water, especially river banks (though there are some grassland and desert species, too).  Their range is described as (new science words) biantitropical or amphitropical – that is, they live at both southern and (mostly) northern latitudes, away from the tropics.  They tend to appear on the landscape in spring and summer, they prey on tiny invertebrates, and they overwinter as adults. 

The BugLady sent the picture off to BugFan PJ for his thoughts.  He thought he should send it along to a ground beetle specialist, who wrote, “Kate’s culprit is likely Bembidion (subspecies Bracteon) carinula Chaudoir. See https://bugguide.net/node/view/109039. This is an abundant species that runs fast on wet sandy shores of Lake Michigan during warm sunlight in midsummer. They often fly when approached.”  Thanks, Gentlemen – it takes a village.

Most of the few sources of information that she found didn’t list a common name, but the Canadian NWT Species Search website calls it, logically, the Sand-loving Bembidion Beetle.  Its range covers much of Canada and across the northern tier of the US into New England (with some records in Iowa, Kentucky, and New Jersey).  It’s seen on sparsely-vegetated shores, often on dry sand, and though it’s not uncommon, it may be hard to see because it’s only 3/8” in length and it moves along like the Roadrunner.  It’s active during the day, and the adults are good fliers. 

The checkerboard pattern on its elytra is more conspicuous in some individuals https://bugguide.net/node/view/842164/bgimage than in others https://bugguide.net/node/view/51503/bgimage. 

Other than the fact that it appears on a number of “The Ground Beetles of (Wherever)” surveys and checklists, and it’s a species of Special Concern on Connecticut, there’s not much out there about Sand-loving Bembidion beetles.  As always, several sites offered to tell the BugLady what words rhyme with Bembidion, and yes, you can order a Bembidion beetle Sun catcher and a belt buckle online.

Kate Redmond, The BugLady

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

Bug o’the Week – Wildflower Watch – Swamp Milkweed

Bug o’the Week
by Kate Redmond

Bug o’the Week Wildflower Watch – Swamp Milkweed

Howdy, BugFans,

The BugLady is already fantasizing about warm, sunny days in a wetland, photographing Swamp milkweed (and dragonflies), because she loves its color, and she loves being in wetlands, and because it’s a very busy plant, indeed!

Also called rose or red milkweed (there are a couple of species of southern milkweeds that are also called red milkweed), white Indian hemp, water nerve-root, and water silkweed, Swamp milkweed prefers damp soils and full sun near the water’s edge.

Indians, and later, the European settlers, used it medicinally (a tea made from the roots was reputed to “drive the worms from a person in one hour’s time”).  It was used with caution – its sap is poisonous – and the cardiac glycosides that protect Monarchs also deter mammals from grazing on all but the very young plants.  The fibers in its stem were twisted into rope and twine and were used in textiles.

Its flowers are typical milkweed flowers – a corona of five parts (hoods) with curved petals below and curved, nectar-secreting horns above.  The flowers are tricky – sticky, golden, saddlebag-shaped pollinia are hidden behind what one author calls a trap door (a stigmatic slit).  Insects walk around on the flower head, and when one of their feet slips through the slit by chance, a pollinium sticks to it.  When the bug encounters a stigmatic slit on the next plant it visits, the pollen is inadvertently delivered.  A quick-and-dirty, pick-up and delivery is what the plant had in mind; but, like the story of the raccoon (or was it a monkey) that reaches into the jar for a candy bar and then can’t pull its fist out of the small opening, sometimes the insect’s foot gets stuck to pollinia inside the trap door.  Insects that can’t free themselves will die dangling from the flower, and insects that escape may be gummed up by the waxy structures.  Look carefully for pollinia in the pictures.

Milkweeds support complex communities of invertebrates – their nectar attracts ants, bugs, beetles, flies, butterflies, moths, bees, and wasps, plus predators looking for a meal.  Here are some of the insects that the BugLady sees on Swamp milkweed.

TWO-BANDED PETROPHILA MOTHS (Petrophila bifascialis) are delicate moths that lead a double life.  By day, they sit sedately on streamside vegetation.  By night, the female crawls down the side of a rock into the water – sometimes several feet down – to deposit her eggs on the stream bottom, breathing air that she brings with her, held against her ventral surface (“Petrophila” means “rock-lover”).  Her larvae eventually attach themselves to a rock and spin a net to keep themselves there, feeding on diatoms and algae that they harvest from the rock’s surface with their mandibles. 

MULBERRY WING SKIPPER – A small (one-inch-ish wingspan) butterfly of wetlands with an arrow or airplane-shaped marking on its rich, chestnut-brown underwings (the upper surface of its wings looks completely different https://bugguide.net/node/view/34033/bgimage.  Adults fly slowly through low vegetation, where females lay their eggs on the leaves of sedges. 

FLOWER LONGHORN BEETLE BRACHYLEPTURA CHAMPLAINI (no common name), on a Swamp milkweed leaf.  Other than a “present” checkoff in a variety of natural area insect surveys, there’s just about nothing online about this beetle, and not much more in Evans’ book, Beetles of Eastern North America.  It’s a long-horned beetle in the Flower longhorn subfamily Lepturinae, a group that feeds on pollen in the daytime.  This one has pollinia on its mouthparts.

AMBUSH BUG – The dangling bee in this picture did not fall victim to the sticky pollinia (though it has plenty of them on its legs).  A well-camouflaged ambush bug snagged it as it visited the flower. 

SOLDIER BEETLE – These guys drive the BugLady crazy.  They’re lightning beetle mimics, and they’re pretty good at it, and she always overthinks the ID.  She doesn’t know why they’re imitating the closely-related lightning beetles – alarmed lightning beetles discharge poisonous blood/hemolymph from their leg joints, but alarmed soldier beetles do, too. 

CRAB SPIDER –This Goldenrod crab spider tucked itself down between the milkweed flowers and ambushed an Odontomyia soldier fly https://bugguide.net/node/view/417289/bgimage.

LARGE MILKWEED BUG – What a beauty!  Large milkweed bugs are seed bugs – they feed by poking their beaklike mouthparts through the shell of a milkweed pod and sucking nutrients from the seeds.  They don’t harm the plant (just the seed crop), and they don’t harm monarch caterpillars, either.  Like other milkweed feeders, they sport aposematic (warning) colors to inform predators of their unpalatability.  Large milkweed bugs don’t like northern winters and are migratory – like monarchs, the shortening day lengths, the lowering angle of the sun, and increasingly tough milkweed leaves signal that it’s time to go, and they travel south to find fresher greens.  Their descendants head north in spring.

MONARCH CATERPILLAR – Common milkweed and Swamp milkweed are Monarch butterflies’ top picks for egg laying. 

GREAT-SPANGLED FRITILLARY – The other big, orange butterfly.  Adults enjoy milkweeds and a variety of other wildflowers, and their caterpillars feed on violets – if they’re lucky enough to connect with some.  Females lay eggs in fall, near, but not necessarily on, violets, and the caterpillars emerge soon afterward.  They drink water but they don’t eat; they aestivate through winter in the leaf litter and awake in spring to look for their emerging host plants.

GIANT SWALLOWTAIL – A southern butterfly that seems to be getting a foothold in Wisconsin.  The book says they are annual migrants that produce a generation here in summer and that their caterpillars can’t tolerate Wisconsin winters, but the BugLady has seen very fresh-looking Giant Swallowtails here in May that didn’t look like they had just been on a long flight.  Their caterpillars are called Orange Dogs in the South, because their host plants are in the Rue/Citrus family Rutaceae.  In this neck of the woods, females lay their eggs on Prickly ash, a small shrub that’s the northernmost member of that family. 

CINNAMON CLEARWING MOTH – A nectar-sipper but, since it doesn’t land, not a serious pollinator.

NORTHERN PAPER WASP – Butterflies love Swamp Milkweed, and so do wasps.  The Northern paper wasp is the social wasp that makes a smallish (usually fewer than 200 inhabitants) open-celled, down-facing, stemmed nest https://bugguide.net/node/view/1411890/bgimage.  “Northern” is a misnomer – they’re found from Canada through Texas and from the Atlantic well into the Great Plains.  Her super power is chewing on cellulose material, mixing it with saliva, and creating paper pulp.  She may be on the swamp milkweed to get pollen and nectar for herself or to collect small invertebrates to feed to the colony’s larvae.  Curious about Northern paper wasps?  See https://bugeric.blogspot.com/2010/09/wasp-wednesday-northern-paper-wasp.html.

Also seen were ants, leafcutter bees, sweat bees, Great black wasps, Great golden digger wasps, Red soldier beetles, Fiery and Broad-winged Skipper butterflies, and Thick-headed flies.  

Kate Redmond, The BugLady

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

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