BLUE DASHER OVIPOSITING – A female Blue Dasher bobs up and down as she looses eggs into the water.  Blue Dashers don’t oviposit “in tandem,” with the male guarding her by maintaining his grip at the back of her head, but the male stays close, flying around her as she dips the tip of her abdomen into the water, and chasing off rival males that would carry her away.

CICADA – When the BugLady was little, the treetops sizzled with cicada calls in August (she called them “hot bugs,” because when they emerged, it was).  The only species she heard back then was the dog day cicada https://uwm.edu/field-station/bug-of-the-week/dogday-cicada-family-cicadidae/, but for the past decade, she has heard fewer and fewer of them each year https://songsofinsects.com/cicadas/dog-day-cicada.  

This year, she has been enjoying the songs of a Linne’s cicada https://songsofinsects.com/cicadas/linnes-cicada and an dusk-calling Scissor-grinder cicada https://songsofinsects.com/cicadas/scissor-grinder-cicada, too, both of whom are southern/southeastern species that are inching north.  Welcome!

CABBAGE BUTTERFLY ON PURPLE LOOSESTRIFE – A dainty, white butterfly on a pretty, fuchsia flower.  Both are non-native (hint: the butterfly’s caterpillar is known as the European cabbage worm), and both are “naturalized,” that is, having been introduced and/or having escaped into the wild, they are doing very well on their own, thank you.  Only a very small percentage of non-native, naturalized species go on to create problems and to get a third label – “invasive.”  For a nice discussion, see https://www.hrwc.org/invasive-non-native-or-naturalized/. 

EASTERN PONDHAWK AND MEADOWHAWK – It’s a dragonfly-eat-dragonfly world out there.

MILKWEED TUSSOCK MOTH AND CRAB SPIDER – The BugLady has been receiving some queries recently from BugFans whose milkweed is looking pretty ratty.  The culprit?  The Milkweed tussock moth https://bugguide.net/node/view/72813, whose caterpillar is sometimes called the Harlequin caterpillar.  Mom lays masses of eggs, and the caterpillars feed gregariously for a while, skeletonizing leaves by eating the tender tissue between the leaf veins.  Then they go their separate ways and eat the leaves down to their midribs.  Bugguide.net says, in an understatement, that the caterpillars “May defoliate patches of milkweed.” 

Allegedly, they don’t interfere with Monarch caterpillars because they eat the old, leathery leaves that the monarchs don’t, and because they’re gearing up as the Gen 5 Monarchs are readying themselves for their trip south.

No, the BugLady did not see the crab spider, and what looks like an egg sac, when she took the picture.

PICTURE-WINGED FLY – This spiffy fly (genus Rivelli, family Platystomatidae) walks around, twitching its wings constantly, sending semaphore signals to nearby females.  For its story, see https://uwm.edu/field-station/bug-of-the-week/signal-fly/ (only, the BugLady misspelled the family name).  What a treat to watch this little fly strutting his stuff!

WOOD/AMERICAN DOG TICK – Yes, they’re everywhere (they prefer grassy areas and forest edges), and yes, most people feel creepy just looking at a picture of one, feeling the phantom feet of phantom ticks tickling their skin.  Dog ticks need three different hosts to get through their life cycles, and they can spread Rocky Mountain spotted fever as well as Tularemia (but if your dog comes down with Tularemia, it may be playing with the local bunnies).  Various sources say that Wood ticks in Wisconsin don’t often carry diseases and that Rocky Mountain spotted fever (or any Spotted fever rickettsiosis) are (for now) rare here.  They don’t spread Lyme disease.

VIRGINIA CTENUCHA CATERPILLAR –Lepidopterists say that the more spectacular the caterpillar, the more homely the adult, and vice versa  The Virginia Ctenucha moth is one of the exceptions that proves the rule https://bugguide.net/node/view/1991557/bgimage.

The caterpillars are out and about early – this one was photographed in May, but they overwinter as caterpillars, and the BugLady encounters them strolling along on the warm road on a warm day in late winter or early spring.  Adults are large-ish, day-or-night-flying moths that tuck in under a leaf when alarmed.  The “C” is silent. –

WOOLLY ALDER APHIDS AND THEIR ANTS – We’ve seen it before – aphids going about their business, assisted by ants that protect them them in exchange for being able to “milk” them for honeydew, a sugary fluid that is a byproduct of the sap that flows through the aphids when they eat.  Honeydew is an important carbohydrate for the ants that farm aphids and treehoppers.  If you’ve ever seen a leaf whose upper surface looks shiny and sticky, look up under the overhead leaves – they’re probably occupied by aphids.  Bees, wasps, flies, and other insects will visit the leaf to eat honeydew.  The woolly aphid’s wool consists of waterproof, waxy filaments made in glands in the aphid’s abdomen.

EMERALD ASH BORER – They really are lovely, little beetles, with a surprise splash of crimson when their wings are spread https://bugguide.net/node/view/1522143/bgimage.  But the extensive tunnels (called galleries https://bugguide.net/node/view/687825/bgimage) that the larvae make below the bark disrupt the ash tree’s plumbing so that it can’t pump nutrients between its roots and crown. 

SEDGE SPRITES – One of the BugLady’s favorite damselflies, these little beauties are scarcely an inch long. 

WEEVILS ON PURPLE PRAIRIE CLOVER – Purple prairie clover is a lovely, native tallgrass prairie plant.  The early settlers on the Great Plains nicknamed it “Devil’s shoelaces” because this skinny, two-foot-high plant may have roots that are six feet long – roots that grew deep enough to reach through the thick prairie sod to find water.  That magnificent sod resisted the settlers attempts to plow it with their small, cast-iron plows until 1837, when John Deere invented the steel moldboard plow, which he fashioned from an old sawmill saw. 

At the top of the flower, there are two weevils, probably seed weevils in the genus Apion, making whoopie.  Here’s a BOTW about seed weevils https://uwm.edu/field-station/bug-of-the-week/baptisia-seed-pod-weevils/.  No, the BugLady did not see the weevils when she took the picture.  

STAG BEETLE – Yes, the BugLady did see this Stag beetle as it emerged from her lawn one evening in July – the beetle looks big enough to trip over, and she moves like a tank.  Here’s her story https://uwm.edu/field-station/bug-of-the-week/stag-beetle-lucanus-placidus/.

ROBBER FLY – Remember, bumble bees are vegetarians, so if you see a bumble bee with prey, it’s not a bumble bee.  Mimicking a bumble bee is a pretty good survival strategy – no one messes with bumble bees.  This fly is in the genus Laphria, one of the “bee-like” robber flies.  Their larvae live in rotten wood and feed on insects they find there, and the adults often prey on beetles (though the BugLady saw one make a pass at a Sulphur butterfly once).  Robber flies come in a variety of sizes and shapes – for information about Wisconsin robber flies (and butterflies and tiger beetles) see https://wisconsinbutterflies.org/butterfly.

RED-BELTED BUMBLE BEES – are found west of the great plains and across southern Canada and our northern tier of states.  They are one of the short-tongued bumble bees, which means that they prefer “flatter” flowers like clovers, thistles, goldenrods, and asters.  The BugLady doesn’t know where this one was hiking to – she saw several others on flowers in the area.  A little rusty on bumble bees?  Here’s a great bumble bee guide from the Xerces Society: https://www.xerces.org/publications/identification-monitoring-guides/bumble-bees-of-eastern-united-states

Go outside, look at bugs,Professor, Dr. Richard B. Fischer, the content of whose fantastic natural history courses she uses Every! Single! Day!  (right BugFan Mike?)  He would have enjoyed BOTW. 

Kate Redmond, The BugLady

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