Tag: bug of the week

Bug o’the Week – The Ants of CESA Rerun

Bug o’the Week
by Kate Redmond

The Ants of CESA Rerun

Salutations, BugFans,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bravo, Marjie and OWLT. 

Bravo, ants!

Kate Redmond, The BugLady

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

Bug o’the Week – Peachtree Borer Moth

Bug o’the Week
by Kate Redmond

Peachtree Borer Moth

Greetings, BugFans,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A PEACH OF A RABBIT HOLE

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Kate Redmond, The BugLady

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

Bug o’the Week – Stream Bluets and Rivers

Bug o’the Week
by Kate Redmond

Stream Bluets and Rivers

Greetings, BugFans,

The BugLady likes to “bug” (if birders “bird,” can “bug” be a verb for folks who are looking for insects?) along the Milwaukee River at Waubedonia Park because (surprise) it’s great for dragonflies and damselflies – she’s photographed 25 species there.  Most productive are the small bays along the shoreline where water lilies and arrowhead grow and the current is negligible, but she’s also written about the crowds of ovipositing Powdered Dancers that favor submerged aquatic vegetation in the currents near shore https://uwm.edu/field-station/bug-of-the-week/powdered-dancer/.

About the time that the Powdered Dancers are peaking, the beautiful Stream Bluets are, too, and the vegetation along the riverbank flickers with tandem pairs.  Males are “black-type” bluets – of the 35 similarly-marked and frequently-confusing species of bluet damselflies (17 species in Wisconsin), most are, as their name suggests, blue on some portion of their bodies.  For “ease of identification,” they’re sorted into black-type, mid-type, and blue-type bluets based on the amount of blue in the male’s abdomen.  However much blue is or isn’t there, the abdomens of most male bluets (except for the few that are red or orange) are tipped with blue, and the Stream Bluet has a deep “V” cut in the top side of that blue. 

Female Stream Bluets, sometimes described as drab, have lovely lime-green bodies (unless they are blue-morph females) and a line along the thorax that the books call brown but that always looks gold to the BugLady.  Unlike most species of bluets, female Stream Bluets also have some blue at the end of the abdomen. 

Stream Bluets (Enallagma exsulans) are in the family Coenagrionidae (the Narrow-winged damselflies) and in the genus Enallagma, the American bluets. With a few exceptions, family members tend to prefer the edges of lakes or ponds ringed with vegetation, and except for picking moving water over still, Stream Bluets lead a fairly typical bluet lifestyle.  Stream Bluets chase their prey – tiny insects – through the vegetation, making short forays in sheltered areas, but some fly out and hover over water.  

Females may oviposit alone or with the male still clasping the back of her head (contact-guarding – to keep her from being swiped by a rambunctious rival male).  She extends her abdomen to place her eggs in submerged plant stems https://bugguide.net/node/view/1149080/bgimage, but if she goes under completely (she may stay down for a half-hour), the male will let go.  The eggs hatch soon after, the naiads feed, and the almost-mature naiads overwinter. 

And Rivers ……. a rumination

If you could cut a cross section of a river, you’d find a seemingly infinite number of habitats and microhabitats in it, each formed by a specific combination of factors: water depth, the topography of the river (there’s a difference between the current in the “inside curve,” the “outside curve,” and middle of a river), erosion, the makeup of the bottom/substrate (smooth, rocky, pebbly, leafy, littered with tree trunks, etc.), types and locations of aquatic vegetation, the strength of its current, water quality (amount of dissolved oxygen and other gasses, sediment, pH (acidity), chemicals, and pollutants), light, temperature, available nutrients, and influences of the land at its edges and upstream.  None of these factors is static – most can change quickly and drastically, and sometimes permanently.  And, because of the dynamics of water, if you cut another cross section 100 feet up or downstream, it would probably look different.  Each of those habitats and microhabitats is attractive (or unattractive) to a particular set of organisms. 

The same is true of a prairie or woodland.

Insects that live in rivers, either as immatures or as “lifers,” have the same needs as those that live in quiet waters – oxygen, food, some elbow room, the ability to get around, the need to hide from predators, a way to keep excess water out.  A wide array of adaptations – of different ways to accomplish the same goal – allows a wide array of invertebrates to live successfully in the same habitat without using each other’s resources.  River dwellers have an additional requirement – in water that is always moving, they need a way to stay put. 

Waubedonia dragons and damsels oviposit in their favorite slice of habitat and their naiads spend about a year ambushing their prey as they sprawl on underwater rocks, plant leaves, and stems or while they hide in muck and debris on the river bottom. 

“If the creek don’t rise,” they will complete their life cycle in the same area, but the creek does rise, sometimes dramatically.

How do you even study something like this?  It’s hard to investigate the effects of flooding when floods are, often, sporadic and unpredictable.  When the BugLady started researching this, she expected that she might find a few notes from disgruntled grad students saying “I was studying the macroinvertebrates of X River and we had a big flood and my plots were swept away and the bugs are all gone.”  But there wasn’t much out there (thanks, BugFan Bill, for helping to find and access some research).  There were a few studies/observations of flooding with respect to mosquito populations, and to Odonates as potential biocontrols of mosquitoes and as indicators of aquatic ecosystem health.

Whether from a summer storm or spring ice melt, floods mix things up.  After the initial blast of a flood, there can be long-term fallout.  Among many other effects, floods revise/scour the contours and textures of the river bottom, carrying away nutrients and shelters (but then delivering more), reshaping channels and changing currents, removing  predators (and delivering more), and putting a load of silt into the water that cuts down light for photosynthesizing plants, and settles on underwater surfaces – including invertebrates. 

The BugLady is stunned by the enormity of the changes that a flooding event may trigger for critters that are a half-inch long and less.  Their ability to stay in place depends on whether they can find get out of the current fast enough, so species that lead a sheltered life on the downstream side of a rock or tree trunk are at an advantage, but more mobile individuals must literally swim for their lives, and those that are weak swimmers don’t stand a chance of staying put. 

One study showed that in a single spring thaw event in New Zealand, 50% of the macroinvertebrates were washed away!  Another postulated that populations bounce back pretty fast after flooding as larvae that took shelter move back to their micro-habitats, and that the ability to take steps to avoid being washed away may impact a species’ fitness and persistence.

When the Urban Ecology Center in Milwaukee County records a new dragonfly species along the river, is it a gift from upstream?

The BugLady is still wrapping her head around this.  So many moving parts.

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 – Cup-Plant Cosmos II

Bug o’the Week
by Kate Redmond

Wildflower Watch – Cup-Plant Cosmos II

Greetings, BugFans,

The BugLady usually times the Wildflower Watch episodes so that BugFans can rush out and see the flower in bloom with its attendant bugs, but it’s the middle of January, and the BugLady is ready for spring.  At least the Technicolor part of it (with apologies to the Cardinals and Blue Jays at the bird feeder but not to the Mourning Doves and Juncos).

Cup-plant (Silphium perfoliatum) is one of four Silphium species (prairie dock, compass plant, rosinweed, and cup-plant) that are typically seen in our tallgrass prairies.  The size and shape and arrangement of leaves varies with the species, but all are tough and gritty leaves that are difficult for insects to chew on.  They are in the Aster family, related to sunflowers.  Our shortest Silphium, rosinweed, may grow four or five feet tall, but the flowering stalks of the other species may be well over six feet.

It gets its name from the way the clasping, opposite leaves are fused around the stalk at their bases, forming a cup.  They’re called perfoliate leaves, and the plant looks like its square stem is growing through a series of single leaves.

Cup-plant was used medicinally for colds, rheumatism, fevers, stomach ailments, and back pains, on burns, to prevent nausea, and more.  Young leaves were cooked (and were rated by one author as “acceptable greens”), and the resin was used as a chewing gum. 

In Where the Sky Began, John Madson writes about compass plants that, “[Pioneers] found that [the compass plant] produced a pretty good brand of native chewing gum. Drops of clear sap exude from the upper third of the stem and solidify with exposure.

It has an odd, pine-resin taste that’s pleasant enough, but it must be firmed up before it’s chewed. A couple of summers ago I tried some of this sap while it was still liquid. It’s surely the stickiest stuff in all creation, and I literally had to clean it from my teeth with lighter fluid.” 

[DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME]

Insects land on plants to eat them, to rest for a bit, or to hunt for other insects, but there’s a fourth reason they land on cup-plant, and that’s to drink.  After a rain, the cup contains water that attracts a variety of critters to drink and maybe to cool off.  But despite what was once written in a prominent Midwestern seed catalog, the water in the cups does not digest the plant and animal debris that lands in it, like a pitcher plant does.

Cup-plant is what a gardening friend of the BugLady’s used to call, “a thug.”  It can tolerate dry and rocky soils as well as rich, damp ones, and it “spreads vigorously” by both seeds and rhizomes (underground stems) – so much so that it’s considered an invasive in the Adirondacks and in some Northeastern states.  Some people keep it in check by removing the flower heads before the seeds disperse, but its flowers are much appreciated by pollinators (especially, says the Xerces Society, “by honey bees, bumble bees, and big, showy butterflies ….. and leafcutter bees may use the hollow stems as nest sites”), and its seeds are eaten by birds.  Because it is so easy to grow and grows so densely, it has been considered as a potential source of bio-fuel in recent years.

Cup-plants are a great place to find insects:

CUP-PLANT WATER collects after a rain and often lasts a few days before it dries out again. 

RED APHIDS come to cup-plants to eat (and be eaten).  These are probably in the genus Urleucon, many of whose species feed on members of the Aster/Composite family.  Multiple generations adorn the stalks and leaves of cup-plant, all wingless (unless, from an aphid’s point of view, things get really crowded and they need to disperse) and all are female (through the wonders of parthenogenesis – virgin birth) until they produce a winged generation with males at the end of the season.  Watch the video and see “collective twitching and kicking response”, a.k.a. “CTKR” (possibly the BugLady’s new favorite behavior), https://bugoftheweek.com/blog/2022/6/13/cup-plant-feeds-brown-ambrosia-aphid-uroleucon-ambrosiae-which-in-turn-provides-dinner-for-lynx-spiders-lady-beetles-long-legged-flies-flower-flies-and-green-lacewings.   

A SMALL BIRD-DROPPING MOTH appears to be sipping the water.

And so does the RED or POLISHED LADYBUG, which is one of the BugLady’s favorite ladybugs/lady beetles because of the wonderful pattern on its head and thorax     https://bugguide.net/node/view/1075335/bgimage.  It’s one of three species of “Spotless Ladybugs” in the genus Cycloneda.  Ladybugs are serious aphid predators both as adults and larvae https://bugguide.net/node/view/710099/bgimage.

The BROCHYMENA, or Rough stink bugs, of recent BOTW fame, are plant-eaters.  Their camouflage was designed for tree trunks, not green leaves.

Although this DADDY LONGLEGS looks like it came for the water, its camouflage will allow it to nab some unsuspecting, visiting insect. 

A LAND SNAIL takes advantage of some water and maybe rasps the cup-plant’s leaves looking for algae, fungi, and leaf-bits to eat.

A DIMORPHIC JUMPING SPIDER subdued something that had very long, slender legs.  Another daddy longlegs?

The CICADA is one of the Dog-day/Annual cicadas in the genus Neotibicen.  Unlike the fancy Periodical cicadas https://bugguide.net/node/view/1973693/bgimage with their dramatic outbreaks, these are our everyday cicadas.  They take several years to develop underground, but the generations overlap and so they are present every year (which is why they’re called “annual”).  They get their liquid by poking their strong “beaks” into twigs and drinking the watery sap, so the cup was just a perch for it. 

CANDY-STRIPED LEAFHOPPER – what a gem!

FORK-TAILED BUSH KATYDIDS are found in grasslands, woodlands, and thickets across most of North America from Mexico well north into Canada.  There are some odd color forms in the southern parts of their range https://bugguide.net/node/view/1017342/bgimage.  The BugLady loves their gem-like nymphs https://bugguide.net/node/view/789204/bgimage.  They don’t yell “Katy-did” – in fact, they don’t say much at all, and they don’t say it very loudly https://soundcloud.com/lisa-rainsong/fork-tailed-bush-katydid-recorded-in-terrarium?in=malte/sets/crickets.

The PRAYING MANTIS did not just come for the view.

TIGER SWALLOWTAIL – the BugLady’s favorite large, showy butterfly.

Not all of the cup-plant’s visitors are invertebrates – the BugLady often sees TREE FROGS cooling off in cup-plant water on hot summer days, and small birds drink water there.. 

This is the second in the Cup-plant Cosmos series (for the first installment, see https://uwm.edu/field-station/bug-of-the-week/cup-plant-cosmos/).  The BugLady has also seen paper wasps, yellowjackets, a two-striped grasshopper, mirid plant bugs, a variety of flies, a land snail, and a spring peeper on its flowers and leaves. 

For Northern BugFans, those colors are Green and Yellow.  You remember them. 

Kate Redmond, The BugLady

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

Bug o’the Week – Texas Ironclad Beetle rerun

Bug o’the Week
by Kate Redmond

Texas Ironclad Beetle rerun

Howdy, BugFans,

It’s New Year’s Eve, and BugFans are probably either partying or watching reruns.  Today’s BOTW is a rerun of one of the BugLady’s favorites – think of it as a Holiday Movie.

When BugFan Kine sent this “what is it” picture, the BugLady’s first reaction was to raise her hand and say “Teacher, teacher!  Ask me!  Ask me!”  She didn’t recall its name, but she knew she had seen a picture of it in Kaufman’s Field Guide to Insects of North America (it’s also in the Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Insects and Spiders).  It has the look of a darkling beetle (family Tenebrionidae), but it’s in the (fairly closely-related) family Zopheridae (no common name) and the subfamily Zopherinae – the ironclad beetles.  Thanks, Kine!

Not a Wisconsin beetle.

Fascinating Ironclad Beetle Fact#1:  They’re called Ironclad beetles because they have a phenomenally strong exoskeleton.  So strong that you can’t kill them by stepping on them (in the words of Alejandro Santillana of the University of Texas, “Step on one and it will probably just give a coleopteran shrug and walk away.”).  So strong that if you are able to kill one, you can’t mount it on an insect pin without first drilling a hole in it.

There are 19 species in the genus Zopherus, and they’re found from Venezuela to Texas, west to California, including Nevada, Utah, and Colorado.  Ten species of Zopherus live in North America.  Zopherus means “dusky” or “gloomy” in Greek (today’s beetle is the flashiest) – here are a few other species:  https://bugguide.net/node/view/919514/bgpage, https://bugguide.net/node/view/1179173/bgimage, https://bugguide.net/node/view/1374967/bgimage).

Kine’s beetle, the Texas or Southwestern ironclad beetle (Zopherus nodulosus haldemani) also comes in an all-black model (https://bugguide.net/node/view/389911).  Its ventral side is fancy (https://bugguide.net/node/view/686104/bgimage), and so is its face (https://bugguide.net/node/view/269544/bgimage).  Like other family members, its head is partly sheltered/pulled under the front edge of the thorax, making it look like it’s considering a somersault. 

One source says that Texas ironclad beetles look as though a random bunch of black paint droplets fell on them (another source suggests that they’re bird-poop mimics).  Nodulosus refers to the lumps/nodes on the beetle’s back, especially on the elytra (wing covers), and this species also has four noticeable tubercles on the rear edge of the elytra. 

The job of the elytra, which are the hardened, front pair of wings, is to protect the membranous flying wings that are folded beneath them, a beetle invention that allows them to crawl under logs and rocks without shredding those delicate wings.  But Mother Nature has played a little trick here – beetles in this genus, indeed, in this family, often lack flying wings, and their elytra are fused together.  No flying wings = no flying. 

They live in east and central Texas, south into northeastern Mexico.  Adults are sometimes seen on the trunks of pecan, oak, and elm trees where, despite/because of their coloration, they blend in pretty well.  The larvae are found in dead trees and may eat fungi within the rotting wood, but in his blog arrantsoutdoors, Josh Arrants says that “We are sure it eats lichens, dead wood and plant material, even taking fungi…. We also believe that all stages of (Zopherus nodulosus haldemani) eat lichens on dead, or mostly dead, trees.”  

There is very little biographical information about this striking, relatively-common-within-its-range, inch-long beetle!  Presumably, eggs are laid in bark crevices, which, says Arrants, provides “a highly probable area for the larvae to be able to find and consume lichens.”  Here’s a mating pair https://bugguide.net/node/view/1506208/bgimage. 

Fascinating Ironclad Beetle Fact#2:  In her article about them in the Texas Co-op Power newsletter, Sheryl Smith-Rodgers calls them “Lazarus bugs.”  On several occasions, she fished “dead” beetles from the bottom of water buckets, only to have them revive and walk away.  They are even hard to kill with the standard-issue insect killing jars (apparently they can hold their breath for a very long time?).

Fascinating Ironclad Beetle Fact#3:  When alarmed, Ironclad beetles play dead (tonic immobility and death feigning and thanatosis are fancier names), and they can play for longer than most people have the patience to wait for their revival.  They curl up their legs and tuck in their antennae to protect them https://bugguide.net/node/view/686069/bgimage. 

Fascinating Ironclad Beetle Fact#4:  With the help of some glue and sparkly stones, some genus members, including this species, are used as live jewelry in parts of Mexico https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zopherus#/media/File:Zopheridae_jewelry_sjh.jpg. 

MIND-BLOWING Ironclad Beetle Fact:  Science, of course, is interested in this impenetrable insect.  The composition of the layers of its exoskeleton have been parsed, and the potential applications are pretty amazing.  It is being “copied” in a design for the suspension system of combat vehicles, with the hope that it can bounce back after an IED or other explosion.  Even better, First Place in the 2018 NASA competition to design habitats for Mars (the 3D Printed Habitat Challenge) went to Team Zopherus (https://armoneyandpolitics.com/arkansas-architect-nasa-competition-mars/)!

Mother Nature creates, and man imitates.

Happy New Year.

Kate Redmond, The BugLady

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

Bug o’the Week – The Twelve (or so) Bugs of Christmas

Bug o’the Week
by Kate Redmond

The Twelve (or so) Bugs of Christmas

Season’s Greetings, BugFans,

It’s time to celebrate a dozen (or so) of the beautiful bugs that posed for the BugLady this year (and that have already graced their own episodes).

This GREAT SPANGLED FRITILLARY on the aptly-named butterfly weed.

EUROPEAN MANTIS – the BugLady intercepted this mantis as it was attempting to cross the road and moved it to a friendlier spot.  The tiny bulls-eye in its tiny armpit tells us that it’s a European, not a Chinese mantis.  Both are non-native, invited to God’s Country by gardeners who buy them and release them as pest control (alas, to a mantis, a honey bee looks as tasty as a cabbage worm). 

When fall freezes come, they die, leaving behind ooethecae (egg cases) that look like a dried blob of aerosol shaving cream https://bugguide.net/node/view/2248160/bgimage).  Eggs in ooethecae can survive a mild winter here but not a Polar Vortex; they hatch in spring https://bugguide.net/node/view/73199/bgimage.  Every fall, The BugLady gets asked if it’s possible to keep a pet mantis alive in a terrarium over the winter.  Short answer – No – its biological clock is ticking pretty loud.

GRAY FIELD SLUG – it was an unusually hot and muggy day, a day when the cooler air above the Lake did not quite reach inland (15 yards) to the BugLady’s front door.  She glanced out and saw a gray field slug extended at least six inches on the storm door.  For more info on gray field slugs, see https://uwm.edu/field-station/bug-of-the-week/gray-field-slug-2-25-2019/.

CANDY-STRIPED LEAFHOPPER – when a spectacular insect picks an equally spectacular perch.  What a treat!

A BROWN-MARMORATED STINK BUG shared the hawk tower with the BugLady on a cool day in late October.  They’re a huge pest in the East because they eat orchard crops in summer and hole up/stink up in your house/closets/attics/coat pockets/boots in winter, and they’re becoming more numerous here.  Remember – not every brown stink bug is a BMS – look for the pale stripes on the antennae and on the legs.

ORANGE SULPHURS are very common, and they don’t put on airs, they’re just quietly beautiful.

TACHINID FLY – when the BugLady thinks about Tachinid flies, she pictures the bristly, house-fly-on-steroids species that frequent the prairie flowers in late summer, but tachinid flies also come in “tubular.”  The larvae of this one, in the genus Cylindromyia, make a living by parasitizing some moths and grasshoppers and a few species of predatory stink bugs (for which efforts they are not appreciated, because the predatory stink bugs are busy preying on plant pests).  The adults, which are considered wasp mimics, feed on nectar. 

EBONY JEWELWINGS are frequent flyers on these pages.  The spectacular males usually have a metallic, Kelly-green body, but some individuals, in some light, appear royal blue.

SHAMROCK ORBWEAVER – the BugLady loves the big Argiope and Araneus orbweavers – tiny when they hatch in spring https://bugguide.net/node/view/1141628/bgimage, they grow slowly throughout the summer until they reach a startling size.  Most go through the winter in egg cases – some hatch early but stay inside and ride out the winter in the case, eating yolk material and their siblings, and others hatch in spring.  They emerge from the egg sac, and after a few days, balloon away in the breezes.  Page through https://bugguide.net/node/view/11644/bgimage to see all the colors Shamrock orbweavers come in (and see why, like the Marbled orbweaver, they’re sometimes called Pumpkin orbweavers).  

SKIMMING BLUET – note to self – ask insects to pose on the very photogenic leaves of Arrow Arum. 

RED-VELVET MITE – the BugLady is frequently struck by the fact that the weather data we rely on was measured by instruments inside a louvered box that sits five feet above the ground, but the vast majority of animals – vertebrate and invertebrate alike – never get five feet off the ground in their lives.  The weather they experience depends on microclimates created by the vegetation and topography in the small area where they live.  Red velvet mites search for tiny animals and insect eggs to eat; their young form temporary tick-ish attachments to other invertebrates as they go through a dizzying array of life stages (OK – prelarva, larva, protonymph, deutonymph, tritonymph, adult).  Read more about them here https://uwm.edu/field-station/bug-of-the-week/red-velvet-mite-again/.

BUSH KATYDID – what child is this?  A nymph of a bush katydid (Scudderia). 

ANTS WITH APHIDS – while shepherds watched their flocks at night……  Some kinds of ants “farm” aphids and tree hoppers, guarding them from predators, guiding them to succulent spots to feed, and “milking” them – harvesting the sweet honeydew that the aphids exude from their stern while overindulging in plant sap.

And an EASTERN PONDHAWK in a pear tree.

Whatever Holidays you celebrate, may they be merry and bright and filled with laughter.

Kate Redmond, The BugLady

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

Bug o’the Week – Comet Darner Dragonfly

Bug o’the Week
by Kate Redmond

Comet Darner Dragonfly

Greetings, BugFans,

The Holidays are hurtling toward us at an astonishing speed, so the BugLady figured that a Christmas green and red dragonfly would be fitting.  It’s one that she’s seen, all too briefly, but not photographed – thanks to Guest Photographer BugFan Freda, aka the Dragonfly Whisperer, for the pictures (the BugLady took the one of the darner in the grass).

Comet Darners (Anax longipes) are in the dragonfly family Aeshnidae, the darners, and in the genus Anax, a group of large and sometimes migratory darners (Anax comes from an Ancient Greek word meaning “lord,” “master,” or “king”).  Bugguide.net shows four other genus members in the US, a couple of them just barely here:

The Amazon Darner – https://bugguide.net/node/view/240386/bgimage;

The Giant Darner – https://bugguide.net/node/view/566371/bgimage;

The Blue-spotted Comet – https://bugguide.net/node/view/867345/bgpage; and the

Common Green Darner https://bugguide.net/node/view/2042845/bgimage.   

Comet Darners mostly live east of the Great Plains, from Florida to Ontario, though they are distributed randomly, and even though they aren’t officially considered migratory, they are strong flyers that can end up just about anywhere.  They prefer relatively shallow ponds with forested edges, lots of floating, submerged, and emergent vegetation, and few/no fish.  The water level of many of their chosen ponds fluctuates annually. 

Comet Darners are fast and impressive, and with a wingspread of up to 3 ½” (females are slightly larger than males) they are among our largest dragonflies,  And at 2 ½” long, their naiads are pretty big, too – Freda’s photograph of the empty shells of a Comet Darner (left) and Common Green Darner (right) show the size difference.  They have long, spectacular red and black legs https://bugguide.net/node/view/88077, and males have a constriction on the third abdominal segment that gives them a “narrow waisted” appearance (females are stockier).  The male’s red abdomen fairly glows as he flashes by https://bugguide.net/node/view/1865911/bgimage.  Females have pale spots on their abdomen https://bugguide.net/node/view/218411/bgimage.  They seldom perch and are hard both to catch and hard to photograph (bugguide.net has a surprisingly small collection of pictures for a dragonfly this flashy, with this large a range).  Some observers report that these darners are most active in the beginning and ending parts of the day. 

Most sources say that the only dragonfly you might mistake the uncommon Comet Darner for is the smaller Common Green Darner (which is, as its name suggests, common). The BugLady got pretty excited when she spotted the colorful darner perched in the grass, but despite the red abdomen, she could see the Cyclops eye on the top of its head when she photographed it – an especially colorful female Common Green Darner.  Comet darners lack that “bulls-eye” on the face https://bugguide.net/node/view/125199/bgimage. 

Like all Odonates, Comet Darners are carnivores, both during their aquatic youth as naiads and as aerial adults.  The naiads are big enough to tackle not only the usual aquatic invertebrates but also small vertebrates like minnows, tadpoles, and frogs, and they’re top predators in their habitats.  Adults cruise about 8 feet above the water, grabbing insects out of the air, and their super-long legs allow them to go after larger prey, including their fellow dragonflies.  On the Comet Darner page of his great “Dragonflies of Northern Virginia” website, Kevin Munroe writes “I saw one flying off to feed in the trees with two Black Saddlebags (decent-sized insects themselves), clutched tightly in those long, red, black-hooked legs. I guess he was hungry, and one dragonfly just wasn’t enough.”

Males are territorial, patrolling all around the shoreline of their pond, just above the level of the vegetation, looking for food, intruders, and mates.  Neither males nor females are monogamous.  Females slice into the stems of plants just below the water’s surface with their ovipositor and insert eggs https://bugguide.net/node/view/1835467/bgimage.  Eggs hatch within a month, but the naiad/immature stage may last for several years.

According to the Comer Darner page on the Massachusetts Natural Heritage and Endangered Species website, when they emerge https://bugguide.net/node/view/1321893/bgimage, “Immature dragonflies may spend a week or more feeding and maturing away from water, often some distance from the breeding site.  Comet Darners are rarely seen during this stage.  It is possible that they spend their time in the tree tops, where they are difficult to observe.  …….  When at rest, they hang from the vegetation in a vertical position, often high in the trees.”  

What’s their status in Wisconsin?  Are there unchecked ponds out there that are graced by Comet Darner flyovers every summer?  Are there Comet Darner naiads under the ice in Wisconsin right now, awaiting the warming waters of spring?

Comet Darners are listed on the Wisconsin Odonata Survey website as a “Most Wanted” species, and their story here is similar to their story in other states at/beyond the edges of their range.  

In his article called “What is the incomparable Anax longipes (Comet Darner) doing in Wisconsin?” Robert DuBois and Freda trace the history of Comet Darners in the state. Beginning with a report in 1978, Comet Darners have been recorded at just a few sites in just a few counties.  They have not been seen every year, and while most sightings are of males, ovipositing females have been seen, and an exuvia (shed skin) of an emerged naiad was found at one site, pointing to successful breeding. 

There are tantalizingly few reports here each year (a Comet Darner was recorded during the 2024 Riveredge Butterfly and Dragonfly Count), but some sites have been visited multiple times.  Sometimes, individuals are seen for a few days and then they disappear, but other Comet Darners are observed on ponds for longer stretches of time.  Data collected in Wisconsin and in Michigan suggest that, while it is possible that random wandering individuals could find the same pond several years in a row (remember, dragonflies only live a few months as adults, so they’re not revisiting a site, like migratory birds), it’s more likely that small numbers of Comet Darners are breeding in Wisconsin, at the northwest edge of their range – what Robert DuBois calls “small but persistent interacting subpopulations.”  

Fun Fact about Darners:  In his book Dragonflies of the North Woods, Kurt Mead says, “Not to scare you, but I have heard of rare, isolated reports of darners attempting to lay eggs into human skin. One scientist carefully observed eggs being injected into each cut in his skin.  Perhaps this phenomenon is the source of some old European names such as ‘eye sticker,’ ‘horse stinger,’ and ‘devil’s darning needle.’”  (to which the BugLady replies 1) of course he did; 2) that scientist doomed those eggs in service of his useless observation; and 3) the devil takes the fall for a bunch of stinging and scary-looking insects.).

Kate Redmond, The BugLady

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

Bug o’the Week – And Now for Something a Little Different XVIII – Red-breasted Mergansers

Bug o’the Wee
by Kate Redmond

And Now for Something a Little Different XVIII Red-breasted Mergansers

Howdy BugFans,

Perched, as she is, on the rim of the Lake Michigan, the BugLady has a front row seat for the activities of the Lake and its residents (and, of course, she’s photographing the heck out of it – rainbows, sunrises, sunsets, storms, ships, and this fall, even waterspouts!).  The Lake changes daily – hourly – in minutes.  In fall, and then again in late winter, flash mobs of mergansers and gulls erupt and then disappear, following schools of small fish.  It’s hard to tell whether the mergansers locate the fish first and the gulls notice, or vice-versa.  Once, the BugLady watched as two Bald Eagles flew out to investigate the scrum.

This year, toward the end of November, she watched a raft of mergansers more than 100 yards long (she couldn’t photograph the whole line) – many thousands of ducks, plus gulls, diving for fish.

So – what are Red-breasted Mergansers?

Winter brings Red-breasted Mergansers to Lake Michigan, flying low in long strings, far offshore. Mergansers, along with about a dozen other species, belong to a group of ducks called the Sea, Marine, or Diving ducks (as opposed to the Puddle or Dabbling ducks like Mallards and Teal). Sea ducks are mostly northern species that are adapted to survive offshore in winter, and many dive deep for their food.  

Drinking salt water (or consuming it with their prey) is as bad for sea ducks and other oceanic species (petrels, shearwaters, etc.) as it is for us, but they have a salt gland located above each eye that acts like a mini-kidney, filtering salt from the water and releasing concentrated salt water through the nares (nostrils) https://travisaudubon.org/murmurations/salt-glands-in-seabirds.

Red-breasted Mergansers (Mergus serrator) are one of three species of mergansers in North America; the others are the Hooded Merganser and the Common Merganser, known in Europe as the Goosander. Of our three mergansers, the Red-breasted Merganser is found more often in salt water, and it breeds farther north and winters farther south than the other two. Red-breasted Mergansers are sometimes called “sawbills” (“serrator” comes from a Latin word meaning “sawlike”) because of the serrations on their bill that help them grip fish.   

They are native to northern Eurasia as well as North America; here, they breed on both the Atlantic and Pacific Coasts, and across Canada and the northern tier of the US. They winter in the Great Lakes and along both coasts south to Mexico.

Like loons and the other Sea ducks, their legs are located near the rear of their body –- great for propelling them under water, but not so great for walking. Unlike Puddle ducks, which can leap into the air from the water, Sea ducks must run along its surface, flapping, in order to take off.

Red-breasted Mergansers spend about half of their waking hours looking for food. They primarily eat small fish, but their menu may also include fish eggs, crabs, aquatic insects, and tadpoles, and because they like small salmon, some have been known to “adopt” fish hatcheries. They hunt by swimming along with their faces just below the water’s surface, like a snorkeler, and by diving (they can stay underwater for about 45 seconds), and sometimes a group of mergansers will cooperate to herd a school of minnows. They typically forage in relatively shallow areas, but they’re equally at home in deep water.  

Male Red-breasted Mergansers court by dips, head shakes, and curtsies, vocalizing with a soft “yeow-yeow” sound (here are some merganser vocalizations – https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Red-breasted_Merganser/sounds). Females nest beside fresh or salt water, often close to the area they were hatched in, and because they are a social, non-territorial species, they are comfortable nesting near gulls or other ducks. In June, females lay their eggs in a shallow depression lined with grass and feathers, but males don’t stick around to help with the incubation. Females lead the ducklings to water within a day of hatching, and they are on their own just a few weeks later. They can fly when they’re about two months old. 

The clutch size is five to 24 eggs, but other females may contribute their eggs (conspecific brood parasitism), and nests with fifty or more eggs have been found. Mergansers that nest near other mergansers may combine their broods after hatching –- the mass of ducklings is called a “crèche” or “nursery” –- and females take shifts supervising them.

Cold weather kills about half of each year’s crop of ducklings, and predators of eggs and ducklings — ravens, gulls, jaegers, and mink — kill another quarter, but if a duckling survives to adulthood, it’s liable to live for another five or six years. Adults are eaten by foxes, Great-horned and Snowy Owls.

Like other Sea ducks, they are fast flyers; one Red-breasted Merganser was clocked at 100 mph (by the plane that was chasing it).

They are hunted by duck hunters in many areas, but because of their diet, they don’t taste very good (“inedible,” say some bloggers). Most recipes for Red-breasted Mergansers involve removing as much of the fishy-tasting fat as possible, marinating what’s left, and then cooking it at for a long time with lots of herbs.

As long as there’s not too much boat activity, the Port Washington Harbor and adjacent Coal Dock Park can be great places to watch Red-breasted Mergansers and other waterfowl in winter, along with several species of gulls.

The BugLady originally wrote this article for the newsletter of the Lake Michigan Bird Observatory. in her storage unit, and she found an earwig on her sink, but she’s pretty sure that it, like the tree frog that was in the shower, came in when she brought the geraniums inside for the winter).

Kate Redmond, The BugLady

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

Bug o’the Week – Blue Blow Fly

Bug o’the Week
by Kate Redmond

Blue Blow Fly

Howdy BugFans,

It’s gotten cold here in God’s Country – abruptly – with overnight lows in the high teens/low twenties, and daytime highs below freezing.  The water in the birdbath froze solid for a few nights in a row before the BugLady dusted off her heated birdbath, and while she was installing it, several of these large flies were buzzing around on the sunny outside walls of her cottage.  This is one tough fly!

There are more than the usual number of these hefty flies inside her cottage this fall, too, and she suspects there’s a connection between their persistence and the woodchuck that shuffled off its mortal coil under her floorboards in October (on the bright side, now she can fill the hole under the house without worrying about killing the woodchuck). 

What’s a Blow fly?  Blow flies and bottle flies are members of the family Calliphoridae.  Their lifestyles can be off-putting (hint – they’re sometimes called “filth flies”) (the BugLady acknowledges that there may be a certain “ick” factor here).  Females probably use chemical and visual signals to locate the flesh, carrion, wounds, orifices, and/or mammal poop on which they oviposit; the eggs hatch quickly and the larvae (maggots) feed on/in their often-odiferous milieu.  The maggots have to compete for food with the larvae of other insect species, and they must dodge the jaws of carrion beetles, spiders, birds, and frogs.  They pupate in the ground.   

The name “Blow fly” comes from the days of Shakespeare, when a piece of meat occupied by maggots was said to be “fly blown.”

Adult flies often feed on nectar.  Some species of plants (like Pawpaws) have developed especially stinky flowers in order to attract them, and according to The Missouri Department of Conservation website’s Blow fly page, they’re attracted to “some tropical arum species you may see at a botanical garden, and cactuslike stapelia houseplants from South Africa, whose flowers look like giant open sores.” Yes, pictures are available online.

Blow flies have – literally – medical applications, both historically and in the present day.  Says Michael J. Raupp, Extension Entomologist at the University of Maryland, in his Bug of the Week blog (the original Bug of the Week!), “During the American Civil War, surgeons noticed that blow flies often infested the grievous wounds of soldiers. Physicians were surprised to see wounds of maggot-ridden soldiers healing more rapidly and with fewer complications than injuries of soldiers without maggots. Many blow fly larvae consume dead and dying tissues rather than healthy ones. Furthermore, they secrete potent chemicals that kill harmful bacteria and aid in the healing process. Using blow fly larvae to treat wounds is called maggot therapy.” 

And, as CSI fans know – forensic entomologists have charted down to the minute all the permutations in the chronologies of some blow fly species in order to estimate how long a dead body has been dead.  

Though they can spread some nasty germs (if those germs are present, which they often are not), they don’t bite, and they are vital members of Nature’s clean-up crew.  Raupp calls them “heroes of recycling.” 

BLUE BLOW FLIES (Calliohora vicina) (“calliphora” means “bearer of beauty”) can be seen in cool, shady habitats around the globe, primarily in the Northern Hemisphere, but they’re also found in scattered locations in the Southern Hemisphere.  They’ve been recorded in South Africa and uncommonly in Australia, where they’re called European blow flies.  Wikipedia says that they probably travel by the world by airplane.

Females lay eggs – as many as 300 – on a suitable substrate, and if the humidity is high enough they hatch quickly, but they crawl away to find drier conditions when it’s time to pupate.  The larval stage lasts about three days, depending on temperature, and the entire life cycle is about 20 days, most of it spent as a pupa. 

Sources say that adult Blue blow flies are considered “efficient pollinators,” especially of crops like carrots.

Despite the cold, there are still bugs out on our landscapes (and inside, too – the BugLady recently photographed a Bridge spider in her storage unit, and she found an earwig on her sink, but she’s pretty sure that it, like the tree frog that was in the shower, came in when she brought the geraniums inside for the winter).

Kate Redmond, The BugLady

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

Bug o’the Week – Organ Pipe Mud Daubers (again)

Bug o’the Week
by Kate Redmond

Organ Pipe Mud Daubers (again)

Howdy, BugFans,

Here’s a Holiday Rerun with some new words added for good measure (because who can look at something they wrote 12 years ago and not tweak it?).

The BugLady had fun photographing the deconstruction of an old farmhouse recently (in a deconstruction, everything usable gets recycled, not land-filled).  On the outside walls, under the cedar shake siding, were long, skinny tubes and fist-shaped globs made by generations of mud wasps.  The mud tubes that look like part of a pipe organ were made by a wasp called, logically, the ORGAN PIPE/PIPE ORGAN MUD DAUBER (Trypoxylon politum).  There are about 30 species in the genus across North America (more elsewhere), but the OPMD is found mostly in the eastern US, and, says Eric Eaton in a comment in bugguide.net, “The “organ pipe mud dauber” (T. politum) is the only species in this genus (in NA) that fabricates nests of mud. All our other species (the “keyhole wasps”) nest in pre-existing tunnels like beetle borings, sealing the finished nest with mud.”

Organ Pipe Mud Daubers are in the wasp family Crabronidae (the Sand and Square-headed wasps and a few others), but if you have an old insect guide, you’ll find them in the family Sphecidae (the Thread-waisted wasps).  It’s a big family, with 9,000 members worldwide and 1,225 in North America.  As a group, they provision egg cells with prey for their developing larvae to eat – says buguide.net, “The type of prey varies according to species of wasp, but includes aphids, bees, beetles, bugs, butterflies & moths, cicadas, cockroaches, crickets, flies, grasshoppers, hoppers, mantids, and spiders. A few species are kleptoparasitic, providing their larvae with prey that was captured by other species of wasps.”   

These smallish wasps are patent-leather black, with purplish wings and white “ankles” on their back legs https://bugguide.net/node/view/1141473/bgimage.  At about an inch in length, the OPMD is the largest member of its genus.  Males have no stingers, and bugguide.net says that females are “non-aggressive unless molested,” so don’t. 

She picks a sheltered nest site near a supply of mud and then she plows into the damp ground, picks up mud with her mandibles, forms it into a ball, and grasps the ball with her front legs.  When she has all she can carry, she flies back to her nest, mixes the mud with her saliva, and uses her forehead to smear the mud balls out into long strips, first on one side, and then on the other.  A typical “pipe” is about six-inches long, made up of no more than six sections or cells, and there might be five to seven pipes in a cluster.  One source said that a pipe might be constructed in a day. 

She is a noisy worker and her buzzing is amplified by the tube she is working on, as though she were playing bagpipes.  Although solitary, she tolerates her sister mud daubers nearby, and aggregations of “organ pipes” can be impressive.  When she has finished the first cell in the pipe, she hunts – https://bugguide.net/node/view/603522/bgimage.   

OPMDs specialize in orb-weaving spiders, and a cell does not pass muster until it holds between five and twenty of them.  When it meets her specifications, she mates at the nest, lays an egg on the larder, caps the cell with mud, and begins building the next chamber.  Alternatively, she may evict another female from a nest, she may cooperate with another female in building and provisioning a nest, or she might remove another female’s eggs from a provisioned cell and insert her own.

Male OPMDs play an important role in the project (besides contributing genetic material).  A female who is off collecting mud or spiders is, by definition, not at the nest, and leaving a nest unguarded is perilous.  At the very least, the hard-won spiders might be snitched by other wasps, but kleptoparasites and parasites may lay their eggs in the cell – the young of the first group will hatch in the cell and eat the larval wasp’s provisions; the young of the second group will eat the OPMD larva itself. 

Male OPMDs guard the nest from predators, parasites, and from other males aggressively and vocally, night and day (she is no homebody and only visits to deliver mud or spiders).  Eaton says that the male has a hook on his abdomen https://bugguide.net/node/view/1026328/bgimage that he uses to attach himself to the nest as he guards it.  Parental involvement in eggs and young is uncommon in the insect world, and paternal involvement is rare.

In some species of Trypoxylon, he not only guards the cells, he cleans them out, stashes the food that she brings, and helps spread mud.  Wasps that collaborate like this are called “Patriarchate wasps.”  The pair bond of the OPMD lasts only through the construction of a single pipe.

Behind closed doors, an egg hatches, and the OPMD larva chows down on its cache of paralyzed spiders.  It takes about a week to finish them (except the drumsticks), then the OPMD larva spins an outer silk cocoon and makes an inner pupal case where it spends the winter as a prepupa.  Being encased in mud is not as secure as one might think, and various parasites/parasitoids take a toll on young larvae.  The OPMD emerges as an adult in early summer, first exiting the pupal case and then chewing out through the mud (nice series of adults emerging here https://bugguide.net/node/view/926493/bgimage).

A few interesting tidbits about OPMDs, gleaned from the scientific literature:

  • OPMDs reputedly have few avian predators, but a researcher in Atlanta observed a Tufted Titmouse preying on OPMD larvae one snowy morning.  The holes that the titmouse made to extract the larvae from their mud chambers looked so similar to the holes adult OPMDs make when exiting naturally that the researcher wonders how much bird predation is overlooked. 
  • The eggs that she lays in the mud cells will produce both male and female wasps; fertilized eggs become females, and males develop from unfertilized eggs (this is typical in the Hymenoptera – the ants, bees and wasps).  Researchers observed that the female stashes more spiders in cells that are destined to house fertilized eggs.  A better-nourished larva is a larger larva, and a larger larva morphs into a larger adult. Female insects need to be bigger than males because it takes extra energy to produce young. 
  • In the confusing world of kairomones (chemicals an organism produces that seem to work against it), OPMD larvae produce, during their active larval stage, protective kairomones that discourage the tiny ectoparasitic wasp Melittobia digitata from exploiting the OPMD larvae (ectoparasites feed on the outside of their host).  The OPMD larva stops producing these chemicals as it enters its prepupal stage, and the Melittobia wasp https://bugguide.net/node/view/1461533/bgimage zooms in to lay her fast-maturing eggs.  Melittobia digitata is a pretty interesting wasp itself – males are blind and flightless, feisty and passionate.  A female lays a few unfertilized eggs to produce some males, mates with one of her sons (be quiet, Sigmund), and then lays fertile (female) eggs on host insects.
  • The folks in Radiation Ecology back at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory have analyzed mud nests made by the OPMD and by the Black and Yellow Mud Dauber, of previous BOTW fame.  They wanted to find the source(s) of the mud that the two species use to build their nests, side by side, on the Atomic Energy Reservation at Oak Ridge.  The BYMD will readily use radioactive mud from the site’s waste disposal pits, (maybe there’s another reason the BYMD is black and yellow) but the OPMD seldom does.

There are, of course, Exterminator sites that offer to extinguish these wasps for us, but why?  OPMDs don’t sting, bite, chew or excavate; they just hunt spiders and pollinate flowers in the process.  And their architecture is grand!

Check out http://www.hiltonpond.org/ThisWeek020401.html for an excellent article about OPMDs, with great pictures.  And Eric Eton’s bugeric blog about them https://bugeric.blogspot.com/2015/08/pipe-organ-mud-dauber-trypoxylon.html, complete with videos. 

Kate Redmond, The BugLady

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

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