Tag: wasp

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/

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 – Eastern Cicada-killer Wasp

Bug o’the Week
by Kate Redmond

The Clover Leaf Weevil and Other Tales

Howdy, BugFans,

A while back, BugFan Laurel shared this picture of a wasp that was photographed by her friend, Joel, who gave the BugLady permission to use it.  Thanks, Joel.

This is one large wasp.  In an article about it on the New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station website, William Sciarappa writes “Few insects can compare with the alarm caused by Cicada Killer Wasps.”  At lengths up to 2” (females are larger than males – more about that later), it’s one of the largest in the country, so let’s get this out of the way up front.  No, the male can’t sting, though he does have a “pseudo-stinger,” and he sometimes “pseudo-stings” with it.  Yes, she can sting https://bugguide.net/node/view/807314/bgimage, but she’s a solitary rather than a social wasp, with no motivation to defend hearth and home, so you have to mistreat or step on her in order to get stung (or be a cicada).  Though there were a couple of dissenting voices, most sources agree that her bark is worse than her bite – on the Schmidt Insect Sting Pain Index, which rates pain on a scale of one to four, the Cicada killer’s sting is 0.5, lower than that of a honey bee.  One article called her “a marshmallow.”

Eastern Cicada-killer wasps (Sphecius speciosus) (speciosus means “showy” or “beautiful”) are in the Square-headed/Sand wasp family Crabronidae.  Four species in the genus (the Pacific, the Western, the Eastern, and the Caribbean Cicada-killers) combine to cover much of the Lower 48, south into Central America (there’s a South American Cicada-killer, and there are more species in the Old World).  They’re also called Giant cicada-killers, Cicada hawks, and Giant ground-hornets.  When the Northern giant hornet (formerly known as the Asian giant hornet/Murder hornet) arrived in the far Northwestern portions of the country, panicky folks in the East were mistaking cicada-killers for murder hornets. 

They prefer sunny edges, gardens, banks, berms, and disturbed spots with loose clay to well-drained sandy soil, close to trees that may harbor cicadas.  There are pictures of them using cracks in sidewalks and patio bricks, window boxes and planters as nest sites.  Here’s a nice collection of pictures of Eastern Cicada-killers at work and at play https://www.marylandbiodiversity.com/view/6434. 

Adults feed on tree sap and on nectar from flowers (and, apparently, peaches https://bugguide.net/node/view/820925/bgimage), and they’re considered pollinators.  Cicadas are the only food enjoyed by their larvae.  William Sciarappa again, “The female wasp strikes and stuns the Cicada which reacts with a loud shrieking buzz. Both of these very large insects tumble to the ground where the stinger is then utilized to paralyze the Cicada. This relatively huge prey is laboriously dragged up a tree or tall plant. The Cicada is often held upside down and straddled, after which the wasp takes off and glides home to the nest.”  If there’s no place for her to gain altitude, she will walk the cicada back to her nest tunnel.  The Western CKW has a preference for male cicadas and the Eastern and Caribbean CKWs for females.  She apparently locates her prey by sight rather than sound (female cicadas are silent).

A Cassin’s Flycatcher was observed flying out and intercepting prey-laden incoming female wasps and relieving them of their cicadas.  Skunks may dig up the larvae, and the odd spider may snag an adult.  A “velvet ant” (which is actually a kind of flightless female wasp) https://bugguide.net/node/view/2023193/bgimage, sneaks into her tunnel and lays an egg in an egg chamber (the ECKW leaves the chambers open until they’re fully provisioned), and the velvet ant larva parasitizes the ECKW pupa.

So – were ECKWs in hog heaven during the historic outbreak of Periodical cicadas this summer (https://uwm.edu/field-station/bug-of-the-week/the-cicadas-are-coming-a-tale-in-four-parts/)?  They were not – because of their phenology, they missed the show.  ECKWs target several genera of Dog-day cicadas that emerge after the Periodical cicadas are done.  The supply of Periodical cicadas is boom or bust, but the supply of Dog day cicadas is more dependable, so ECKWs are tuned into their cycles.  

Male ECKWs emerge when the cicadas start calling, and females emerge about a week later.  Males are very territorial, defending their turf against just about anything that enters it, deliberately crashing into intruding insects, while constantly trying to attract females.  They inspect and follow people fearlessly but will fly off if swatted at.  They communicate by buzzing their wings, warning away other males (the largest males make the loudest buzz), and buzzing may also be part of courtship.  They gather in groups (mating aggregations or leks), scouting areas where females might be and duking it out in mid-air.  Females call to males using pheromones. 

They mate on the ground https://bugguide.net/node/view/374679/bgimage https://bugguide.net/node/view/206285/bgimage and then take to the air.  The female “leads, but his wing beats help power the flight, even though they’re facing opposite directions. 

Females dig burrows that are 10” to 20” deep and 30” to 70” long with as many as a dozen egg chambers.  She leaves a U-shaped trench of soil near the entrance, to the dismay of lawn-owners and golf course maintenance crews (the best defense is a well-watered, dense, healthy turfgrass).  She loosens the dirt with her jaws and kicks it out with her hind legs, eventually displacing, said one source, several pounds of soil or, said another source, 100 cubic inches of dirt.  Even though they’re not social, several females may share a burrow, each excavating her own set of egg chambers.  She provisions each with a cicada or three, lays an egg on a cicada leg, seals the cell, and departs https://bugguide.net/node/view/2391638/bgimage, and she may handle 30 or more cicadas in her lifetime.  The eggs hatch, and the larva eats its cicada in a specific order that keeps the cicada alive until the larva is ready to pupate https://bugguide.net/node/view/1328710/bgimage. 

They overwinter as mature larvae in a cocoon, pupate, and dig out of the tunnel as adults in late spring.  Their flight period is about two months; males die after mating, and females die after egg-laying. 

Female ECKWs have a superpower, but the BugLady found two different explanations of it. They have, as they lay their eggs, the ability to determine whether the egg will be male or female, or possibly, an awareness of the egg’s gender.  Males may mate several times, but females only mate once, so she stores his bodily fluid in a receptacle called a spermatheca, meting it out as needed as she gradually fills tunnels and egg chambers.  According to one version, if she does not fertilize the egg, the larva will be a male, and if she does, the larva will be female.  According to the second version, the female somehow senses whether the egg she’s about to lay is male or female.  In either case, males are allotted a single cicada, but the eventual females are provisioned with two or three.  Females end up twice as large as males, but they have the job of toting around cicadas that are larger and bulkier than they are.  And – Mother Wasp also ensures that there are more females than males in the population.    

Ain’t Nature Grand!

On a different note: After reading the story of the spider that went to the laundromat in last week’s BOITW, two BugFans shared their own experiences with car spiders. One keeps the outside of her car a little dirty, so the spiders have something to grip; the other BugFan (not-so-much of a spider fan) was unnerved by a large jumping spider that was inside the car as she drove, alternately staring at her (jumping spiders are good at that) and then disappearing as she drove (that, too).

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 – The 12 (or 13) Bugs of Christmas

Bug o’the Week
by Kate Redmond

Bug o’the Week The 12 (or 13) Bugs of Christmas

Greetings of the Season, BugFans,

(13 bugs, because once she’s got her selection down to 13, the BugLady just can’t cut one more!)

A Cheery Thought for the Holidays, the average home contains between 32 and 211 species of arthropods (with the lower numbers at higher Latitudes and higher numbers as you head south past the Mason-Dixon Line).  So, while the BugLady is celebrating The 12 (or 13) Bugs of Christmas, most BugFans could rustle up at least that many under their own roofs.  Whether you see them or not, all kinds of invertebrates coexist with us daily, mostly staying under our radar until we surprise each other with a quick glimpse.

Here are a baker’s dozen of the bugs that the BugLady saw in 2023.

BALTIMORE CHECKERSPOT CATERPILLAR – According to one researcher, caterpillars are “essentially bags of macerated leaves.”  What kind of leaves does a Baltimore Checkerspot caterpillar macerate?  The eggs are laid in the second half of summer on, historically, White turtlehead, a native wildflower, and more recently, Lance-leaved plantain has been added as a host plant.  Both plants contain chemicals that make the caterpillars distasteful to birds, though the turtlehead has higher concentrations of them.  The butterflies have adapted to use an introduced plant, but the caterpillars don’t do as well on it (the BugLady has also seen them on goldenrod).  Half-grown caterpillars overwinter, and when they emerge to finish eating/maturing in spring, the turtlehead isn’t up yet, so they eat the leaves of White ash and a few spring wildflowers.   

LEAFCUTTER BEE ON PITCHER PLANT – Bumble bees and Honey bees are listed as the main pollinators of Purple pitcher plants, along with a flesh fly called the Pitcher plant fly (Fletcherimyia fletcheri), a pitcher plant specialist that contacts the pollen when it shelters in the flowers.  But it looks like this Leafcutter bee is having a go at it. 

SEVEN-SPOTTED LADYBUGS had a moment this year; for a while in early summer, they were the only ladybug/lady beetle that the BugLady saw.  Like the Asian multicolored lady beetle, they were introduced from Eurasia on purpose in the ‘70’s to eat aphids.  But (and the BugLady is getting tired of singing this chorus) they made themselves at home beyond the agricultural fields and set about out-competing our native species. 

An Aside: Lots of people buy sacks of ladybugs to use as pest control in their gardens.  The BugLady did a little poking around to see which species were being sold.  Some sites readily named a native species, but most did not specify.  Several sites warned that unless you are buying lab-grown beetles, your purchase is probably native beetles scooped up during hibernation, thus posing another threat to their numbers

SOLDIER FLY LARVA – The BugLady is familiar with Soldier fly larvae in the form of the flattened, spindle-shaped larvae https://bugguide.net/node/view/1800040/bgimage that float at the surface of still waters, breathing through a “tailpipe” and locomoting with languid undulations.  So she was pretty surprised when she saw this one trucking handily across a rock in a quiet bay along the edge of the Milwaukee River.  It appears to have been crawling through/living in the mud. 

COMMON WOOD NYMPH – And an out-of-focus Common Wood Nymph at that.  The BugLady has a long lens, and her arms weren’t quite long enough to get the butterfly far enough away to focus this shot.  And it’s really hard to change lenses with a butterfly sitting on your finger.

FALSE MILKWEED BUG – Milkweed bugs are seed bugs that live on milkweeds, but if you’ve ever seen a milkweed bug that was not on a milkweed (usually on an ox-eye sunflower), it was probably a False milkweed bug.  They’re so easily mistaken for a Small milkweed bug that one bugguide.net commentator said that all of their pictures of Small milkweed bugs should be reviewed.  Here’s a Small milkweed bug with a single black heart on its back bracketed by an almost-complete orange “X” https://bugguide.net/node/view/2279630/bgimage; and here’s the False milkweed bug, whose markings look (to the BugLady) like an almost complete “X” surrounding two, nesting black hearts https://bugguide.net/node/view/35141.  One thoughtful blogger pointed out that although it looks like a distasteful milkweed feeder, it’s not thought to be toxic.  He wondered if this is a case of mimicry, or if the bug once fed on milkweed, developed protective (aposematic) coloration, and then changed its diet?

LARGE EMPTY OAK APPLE GALL – That’s really its name, but “empty” refers to the less-than-solid interior of the gall https://bugguide.net/node/view/54459 (which was made by this tiny gall wasp https://bugguide.net/node/view/260612).  Galls are formed (generically) when a chemical introduced by the female bug that lays the egg, by the egg itself, and later by the larva, causes the plant to grow extra, sometimes bizarre, tissue at that spot.  The gall maker lives in/eats the inside of the gall until it emerges as an adult.  Some galls are made by mites – same principle.

SYRPHID FLIES are pretty hardy.  Some species appear on the pussy willows and dandelions of early spring, and others nectar on the last dandelions of late fall.  This one was photographed on November 17, on a sunny and breezy day with temperatures in the low 40’s, 12 feet off the ground, resting on the BugLady’s “go-bag” (the bag of extra clothes she carries up onto the hawk tower to deal with the wind chill).

WASP WITH SPIDER – The BugLady saw a little flurry of activity near an orbweaver web on her porch one day, but she got it backward.  At first she thought that the spider had snagged the wasp (a Common blue mud dauber), but it was the wasp that hopped up onto the railing with its prey, part of the spider collection she will put together for an eventual larva.

SIX-SPOTTED TIGER BEETLES grace these collections perhaps more than any other insect, because – why ever not!

JUST-EMERGED DAMSELFLY – This damselfly was so recently emerged (possibly from the shed skin nearby) that its wings are still longer than its abdomen (basic survival theory says that you put a rush on developing the parts you might need most).  Will a few of the aphids on the pondweed leaves be its first meal?

This is either a GREEN IMMIGRANT LEAF WEEVIL (Polydrosus formorus https://bugguide.net/node/view/1678834/bgimage) or the slightly smaller (and equally alien) PALE GREEN WEEVIL (Polydrosus impressifrons https://bugguide.net/node/view/1813505/bgimage).  Whichever it is, it’s been in North America for a little more than a century.  Bugguide.net calls them “adventive” – introduced but not well established.  Eggs are laid in bark crevices or in the soil, and the larvae feed on roots.  Adults eat young leaves, buds, and flowers of some hardwood, fruit, and landscape trees but are not considered big pests.  Their lime-green color comes from iridescent, green scales.

And a DOT-TAILED WHITEFACE in a pear tree.

Have a Wonder-full 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 – 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/

Bug o’the Week – Monochromatic Stink Bug-Hunting Wasp

Bug o’the Week
by Kate Redmond

Bug o’the Week Monochromatic Stink Bug-Hunting Wasp

Howdy, BugFans,

Another wasp with a dynamite name!

When the BugLady found this wasp, she was struck by its curious appearance – fly-like eyes, waspy antennae, “broad-shouldered,” but with a very short abdomen (“It’s compact,” says bugguide.net).

It’s in the family Crabronidae, the Sand wasps and Square-headed wasps, which have been featured before, most recently in the form of the Robust katydid-hunting wasp.  Crabronidae is a large family that used to be lumped with the solitary wasps in the family Sphecidae, the mud daubers, sand wasps, and hunting wasps.  There are lots of Crabronid species worldwide; they create egg chambers and cache paralyzed invertebrates in them for their eventual larvae to eat, and many species are very fussy about the kinds of prey they collect.  Adults feed on nectar.

Monochromatic Stink Bug-Hunting Wasps (Astata unicolor) (probably) live in grasslands and savannas (members of the genus Astata can be hard to differentiate, but the MSBHW is a widespread species in the East).  Astata comes from the Greek word astatos, meaning “restless.”  According to the Minnesota Seasons website, it’s found “across southern Canada, throughout the United States and Mexico, and in Central America” but is not common anywhere.  Habitat/soil types probably help determine a species presence.  

These are very alert, curious, and fast-flying little (half-inch) wasps, with dark-tipped wings and a coating of silvery hairs.  The males’ wrap-around (holoptic) eyes are typical of the genus.  Here’s a Glamour Shot – https://bugguide.net/node/view/467930/bgimage. 

A female MSBHW’s prey of choice are the mature nymphs and adults of a few genera of stink bugs, including the Spined stink bug https://bugguide.net/node/view/875677.  Out West, their menu also includes the Western box elder bug.  

Males sit on perches to scout for females (those big eyes come in handy) – males emerge as adults about two weeks before females do, and they set up territories while they’re waiting (cherchez la femme).  They advertise by making brief, circular forays from perches. 

Females dig tunnels as deep as 14” in loose soil.  Heather Holm, in her epic book Wasps, Their Biology, Diversity, and Role as Beneficial Insects and Pollinators of Native Plants, writes that “after mating, the female begins excavating her nest in the ground, often preferring a partially concealed site with bare soil such as under a plant leaf.  As she excavates the nest, she loosens soil with her mandibles and forelegs, then pushes the soil up the burrow with the end of her abdomen.”  The tunnel contains several cells.

Holm continues, “She leaves the nest entrance open while searching for prey but while in the nest at night to rest, she closes the entrance with soil.  She searches for predatory stink bug nymphs in vegetation and likely uses olfactory senses in addition to sight to find her prey.  After capturing and stinging her prey https://bugguide.net/node/view/70575/bgimage, she grasps the prey by the antennae, then clutches it with her legs beneath her as she flies close to the ground back to her nest.  She either enters the nest clutching her prey or she places it on the ground next to the entrance.  If the latter, she enters the nest, emerges headfirst, then drags the prey down the burrow, clasping it with her mandibles.”

“Each cell is provisioned with approximately two to four stink bugs.  She temporarily stores the stink bugs at the bottom of the burrow until enough are collected to fully provision the cell.  She lays one egg on the first bug cached in the cell.”

Ground-nesting wasps and bees have elaborate behaviors that help them relocate their nests.  Holm says, “When she is ready to leave the nest, her orientation first begins on the ground as she walks, making several passes over the nest before taking flight.  Then, she flies in circling arcs over the nest.  When she returns to the nesting area, she lands on the ground with her prey, then walks around for a while, repeating a similar on-the-ground orientation to the one performed before departing the nest.”  

This unobtrusive wasp is attracting some attention these days because it has discovered the invasive Brown marmorated stink bug (BMSB).  In a study in Oregon, 64% of the observed prey taken by the MSBHW were BMSBs, and a few other stink bugs it eats are considered crop pests.  Of course, solitary wasps are, well, solitary; you can’t just set up a hive and sic them on unwanted species, so they does their biological control on a small scale. 

Kate Redmond, The BugLady

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

Bug o’the Week -German Yellowjacket Redux

Bug o’the Week
by Kate Redmond

Bug o’the Week German Yellowjacket Redux

Salutations, BugFans,

The BugLady has been busy, so she’s rerunning this episode from 2009.  There are still yellowjackets on the flowers.  The photographs in the original episode were (nasty) scanned color slides, and when the BugLady searched her files, she found pictures of three other yellowjacket species, but none of the German yellowjacket.  The folks at bugguide.net have some great shots:

of the face https://bugguide.net/node/view/1159222/bgimage,

the profile https://bugguide.net/node/view/320998/bgimage,

the back https://bugguide.net/node/view/1303274/bgimage,

and in flight – https://bugguide.net/node/view/856499/bgimage.

German Yellowjackets (GYJs), family Vespidae, are European wasps that arrived in the northeastern US in the early 1970’s and in Wisconsin a few years later.  These world travelers are now found on four continents and several oceanic islands.  Although the whole bee/wasp/hornet group is often labeled casually as “bees” (and GYJs have earned the nickname “garbage bee”), it’s easy to tell a honeybee from a wasp.  Honeybees are hairy, black and tan insects about ½” long; the similarly-sized, GYJs are less hairy and are clearly marked by nature’s warning colors, yellow and black.  Both species may nest in walls, but honeybees, which use their hives for years, do not nest underground. 

The nest is started in spring by a queen who has spent the winter sheltered in a crevice, leaf pile, or building.  She chews plant material, mixes this cellulose with saliva, forms it into a nest and nursery, and starts laying eggs https://bugguide.net/node/view/1899314/bgimage.  When the first workers emerge, they enlarge the nest https://bugguide.net/node/view/38722/bgimage, care for the larvae and queen, and forage for food.  Adults eat insects (live or dead), rotting fruit https://bugguide.net/node/view/1284571/bgimage, nectar and other sweet liquids (including sugar water in hummingbird feeders https://bugguide.net/node/view/1279647/bgimage), and workers bring pre-chewed protein to the larvae.   

Their nests often seem plastered/sprayed onto a surface; these are not the classic hanging, football-shaped nests of the larger paper wasps.  The GYJ nest in the glass case in the picture was collected from the front porch of an old building near Mayville, WI; Sherri is holding a typical hanging nest of a Bald-faced hornet/Bald-faced aerial yellowjacket.  GYJs often nest underground https://bugguide.net/node/view/317549/bgimage (the BugLady’s parents had a sizable colony under the cement slabs of their front walk), but many nests are built in sheltered spots above ground or inside walls, and GYJs that nest in walls and attics may chew through your home’s inner walls into the house.  Thirty years ago, almost all yellowjackets caught in sweet traps in urban areas were Germans, while those snagged in rural areas were native.  But now, this urban, alien species is moving out into the sticks and displacing native species. 

Wasp populations peak in late summer, when a very large nest may contain 15,000 inhabitants.  A nest built in a protected spot can remain active into late fall, but the queen and workers will die before winter, leaving a new generation of fertile queens to restart the process.  In Wisconsin, nests are not used for a second year (an old nest containing dead workers and larvae makes a great food source for raccoons and skunks).  In subtropical climates like California, this adaptable, temperate-zone wasp is establishing colonies that last two or three years and grow to mind-boggling sizes (think pick-up truck size). 

Wasps’ plusses as pollinators and as predators on unwanted insects are canceled by their painful (and, to some people, dangerous) stings and by their inconvenient choices for nest sites.  Honeybees have barbed stingers and can only sting once – the act causes their death.  For that reason, they are less aggressive away from their hives.  Wasps can sting repeatedly, and they have a “hair trigger” temperament https://bugguide.net/node/view/507730/bgimage both near their nests and away from them. 

GYJs are the “gals” that have been making outdoor eating risky for the past 40 years.  Close encounters can be minimized by checking picnic foods and drinks before each bite or sip, avoiding bright clothing and flowery perfumes, keeping garbage cans clean and closed, removing bruised and fallen fruit from the ground in orchards, and refraining from jumping around waving one’s hands hysterically at the sight of a yellow and black flying object.  The BugLady knew one teacher who poured a small cup of beverage for the wasps when she took her students outside to snack.  The kids were instructed to tell the wasps calmly to go use their own cup.

Sugar-water traps will attract GYJs, but these are more effective in early spring when the queens are foraging.  In late summer and fall they barely dent the population.  Removal of a large nest, either above or below ground, is not a job for amateurs; you can empty entire cans of wasp spray into a nest opening with little effect (other than annoying its occupants) because there often are multiple entrances.  Call an exterminator.

Kate Redmond, The BugLady

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

Bug o’the Week – Bugs at the End of Summer

Bug o’the Week
by Kate Redmond

Bug o’the Week Bugs at the End of Summer

Howdy, BugFans,

The Autumnal Equinox is fast upon us, alas, and even though it was a very hot one, the BugLady would like to push that Restart button and go back to the beginning of August.  Failing that, here are some of the bugs that crossed her trail in the second half of summer.

BARK LOUSE – Bark lice (order (Psocidae) are often seen in herds, both as adults and nymphs https://bugguide.net/node/view/1716157/bgimage.  This species, Cerastipsocus venosus, is known collectively as Tree cattle.  Bugguide.net says that they feed on “accumulations of fungi, algae, lichen, dead bark and other materials that occur on tree trunks and large limbs.”  And on the BugLady’s porch rails.  So, they clean up after the BugLady outside, and the silverfish take care of the inside of her cottage. 

YELLOW-HORNED FLOWER LONG-HORNED BEETLE – The YHFLHB (Strangalia luteicornis) is in the Longhorned beetle family Cerambycidae and the subfamily Lepturinae, the flower longhorns.  Flower longhorns are often found on flowers by day, feeding on the protein-rich pollen, and many (but not all) species are wedge-shaped – sometimes dramatically so.  Their larvae feed on dead and dying woody material, and certain fungi that they ingest as part of their meal then aids the grub’s ability to digest cellulose (in some species of flower longhorns, Mom inoculates the eggshell as she lays it with a yeast that becomes part of the grub’s intestinal microflora). 

AMBUSH BUG – What would summer be without the extraordinarily-well-camouflaged (and voracious) ambush bugs – one of the BugLady’s favorites? 

LEAF-FOOTED BUG – Late summer is True bug season (remember – only one insect order, the Hemiptera, can officially be called Bugs).  This particular bug is the almost-grown nymph of a leaf-footed bug called Acanthocephala terminalis (no common name).  Newly-hatched nymphs, with their spiny butts and improbable antennae, are pretty cute https://bugguide.net/node/view/933082/bgimage. 

SPIDER WEB AND PREY – All wrapped up and nowhere to go.   

BALD-FACED HORNET – The BugLady corresponded this summer with a man who was stung twice in his mouth by a Bald-faced hornet (now called Bald-faced aerial yellowjacket).  These are the gals that build the closed, football-shaped, paper nests that hang in trees, and while they are valiant/dangerous in defense of their homes, they don’t defend the flower tops where they feed.  The BugLady’s correspondent was apparently walking along blamelessly when his open mouth encountered a flying hornet.  Stings on the face, and especially in the mouth, can be dangerous because of swelling, even if you’re not allergic. 

An entomologist named Schmidt went around deliberately getting stung by the ants, hornets, bees, and wasps of the world and writing descriptions of his discomfort that are sometimes reminiscent of a wine-tasting.  He rated the Bald-faced hornet at a 2 out of 4 on his pain scale – “rich, hearty, slightly crunchy.  Similar to getting your hand mashed in a revolving door” https://reliantpest.com/north-american-schmidt-sting-index/.  Not surprisingly, lots of exterminator companies have posted the scale because they want to sell us something.   

COMMON WOOD NYMPH – A medium/large Satyr butterfly of sunny fields, Common Wood Nymphs are not often seen nectaring on flowers, preferring fungi and rotting fruit.  They lay their eggs on grasses in late summer, but when the caterpillars hatch, they go into hibernation immediately, without feeding, to continue their development the following spring. 

CANDY-STRIPED LEAFHOPPER – what glorious things sometimes come in ¼” packages!  And, they have superpowers!  Leafhoppers suck plant juices.  Most plant sap has a sugar concentration of only a few percent, so leafhoppers have to consume a lot of it to get enough calories, and they excrete the excess (honeydew) “under pressure” with a tiny, but sometimes-audible, “pop.”  Because of this, they’re called “sharpshooters.”  And – they vocalize, but too softly for us to hear.

BROWN WASP MANTIDFLY – Yes, those poised, mantis-like front legs are used to grab smaller insects (mantidflies also sip nectar); and yes, this mantidfly does look like a paper wasp at first glance (but – no stinger).  Scroll down to see how this very flexible species has evolved to imitate different species of wasps in different parts of the country (the mantidfly is on the left) https://bugguide.net/node/view/4825. 

Their stalked eggs are attached to leaves https://bugguide.net/node/view/216544/bgimage, and when the eggs hatch, each larva waits for a passing spider, hitches a ride (feeding on the spider like a tick), and eventually infiltrates the spider’s egg sac, where it spends the rest of its larval life eating spider eggs.

WHITE-FACED MEADOWHAWK – You rarely see this species in tandem flights out over the water or ovipositing into shallow water.  They often “speculate” – bobbing up and down in damp areas by a pond’s edge, with the female lobbing her eggs onto the ground.  The plan is that spring rains will wash the eggs into the water. 

RED-SPOTTED PURPLE – What a classy butterfly!  Three Fun Facts about Red-spotted Purples: 1) the red is on the underside of the wings https://bugguide.net/node/view/557370; 2) though they are “tailless,” they are mimicking Pipe-vine Swallowtails, which are poisonous https://bugguide.net/node/view/2264557/bgimage; and 3) partly-grown caterpillars spend the winter inside a leaf that they’ve rolled into a tube and fastened to a twig, and they emerge and resume eating the following year (scroll down for a picture of a hibernaculum and for a bonus lesson about “frass spars” https://entnemdept.ufl.edu/creatures/bfly/red-spotted_purple.htm).  Within their leafy tube, they drop about 1/3 of the water weight in their body in order to avoid cell damage from freezing.

CRAB SPIDER – Nothing to see here, folks, just move along.

GREEN STINK BUG – Another common sight in late summer, along with their flashy, almost-grown nymphs https://bugguide.net/node/view/885566.  Some stink bugs are carnivores, and some are herbivores, and some of the herbivores are considered crop pests.  They aren’t chewers, they suck plant juices with mouths like drinking straws, which can deform fruits and seeds, damage twigs, and wither leaves.  Green Stink bugs (Pentatoma hilaris) (hilaris means “lively or cheerful”) feed on a large variety of plants (they’re “polyphagous”).  Newly-hatched green stinkbugs aren’t green https://bugguide.net/node/view/127137/bgimage.

TIGER SWALLOWTAIL CATERPILLAR – No – those aren’t eyes.  They’re pigment spots that are designed to fool you into thinking it’s a snake.  Young Tiger Swallowtail caterpillars start out as bird poop mimics https://bugguide.net/node/view/1883543/bgimage, but midway through their development, they go into snake mode, completing the effect by everting, when they feel threatened, a two-pronged, soft, orange, odorous projection (the osmeterium) that looks like a snake’s forked tongue https://bugguide.net/node/view/2214191/bgimage.  Tiger Swallowtails have two generations per year.  Caterpillars of the butterflies we see in June don’t spend long in the chrysalis, emerging in mid-August and getting to work on the next generation.  This caterpillar will overwinter as a chrysalis.  Don’t tell the other insects, but Tiger Swallowtails are the BugLady’s favorites.

As she visited her usual haunts this summer, the BugLady was dismayed at the lack of insects.  Sure, the goldenrods are full of flies, bees and wasps of various stripes, and the grasshoppers and tree crickets are singing their September songs.  But she saw six Tiger Swallowtails this summer.  Total.  And maybe a dozen meadowhawks.  During one mid-summer Dragonfly count years ago, the BugLady simply stopped counting meadowhawks when she got to 250 because it was distracting her from the other species.  Common Wood Nymphs used to emerge in early July by the score to filter through the grasses.  Even crab spiders and ambush bugs seemed scarce this year. 

What good are insects?  Sometimes it’s hard to drum up sympathy for a group that many people routinely swat, stomp, spray, or zap.  But insects provide food for birds and for other insects; they’re pollinators, and they provide other ecosystem services including pest control and garbage pick-up. 

(And, of course, they’re awesome.)

Kate Redmond, The BugLady

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

Bug o’the Week – Robust Katydid-hunting Wasp
by Kate Redmond

Bug o’the Week
by Kate Redmond

Bug o’the Week Robust Katydid-hunting Wasp

Greetings, BugFans,

OK – it’s not a super flashy wasp when it’s heading away from you (in fact, it’s not even very wasp-like), but it’s pretty cool when it’s heading toward you – those eyes. And what an awesome name (though not quite as awesome as the related Eastern Ant-Queen Kidnapper Wasp)! Both species are in the Square-headed wasp family Crabronidae, a family that we have met in previous BOTWs. Here’s a quick reintroduction.

The family includes Square-headed (https://uwm.edu/field-station/square-headed-wasp/) and Sand wasps (https://uwm.edu/field-station/sand-wasps/) and the Organ-pipe mud daubers (https://uwm.edu/field-station/organ-pipe-mud-dauber/). It’s a large, diverse bunch (1225 species here; almost 9,000 worldwide) that was carved off of the now-much-smaller wasp family Sphecidae (the thread-waisted wasps) not too long ago (in taxonomists’ years).

What Crabronids have in common, besides some anatomical features concerning the size and/or shape of the inner margin of the compound eyes, of the pronotum (the part of the thorax right behind the head), of a lobe in the hind wing, and of the almost non-existent “wasp waist” – on such things are identities hung – is their habit of caching insect prey in underground egg chambers for their eventual larvae to eat/parasitize.  A few species let other wasps do the hunting and then steal the results (kleptoparasitism).  Many species are picky about both prey and nest sites, and adults feed on pollen and nectar.

Robust Katydid-hunting Wasps are one of 34 mostly-similar-looking species in the genus Tachytes in North America.  Tachytes comes from a Greek word meaning “swiftness” or “speed,” and the genus is often called the Sand-loving wasps because of their preference for nesting in sandy soil types.  In his bugeric blog, entomologist Eric Eaton says they should be called the Green-eyed wasps.  The combination of their size, somewhat stout build, and scattering of short hairs makes some people (like the BugLady) mistake them for bees at first glance. 

Females tunnel from 3 inches to almost 3 feet into the ground, creating side tunnels and scooping out cells in the walls, and she provisions these cells chronologically, deepest first (shorter tunnels may contain only a single cell).  The genus specializes in grasshoppers, katydids, pygmy crickets and mole crickets.  Says Eaton, the “Female paralyzes the victim with her sting, then straddles it, grasps it by the antennae with her jaws, and flies it back to her nest.  There she deposits her prize in one of the cells.”  Researchers Evans and Kurczewski say that “many of the larger species emit a high-pitched buzz when flying with prey…..” 

While she’s provisioning a cell, a female may stash some bodies in a chamber inside the entrance temporarily.

ROBUST KATYDID-HUNTING WASPS (Tachytes crassus) are found from the Midwest through Canada and New England, plus several states in the Southeast.  They measure a shade longer than a half-inch, with green eyes and mostly caramel-colored legs.  Here are some glamour shots from bugguide.net: https://bugguide.net/node/view/1277906, https://bugguide.net/node/view/778850/bgimage.  Heather Holm, in her magnificent Wasps: A Guide for Eastern North America says that females have three silver bands on their abdomen and males have four.

According to Eaton, male Tachytes wasps emerge before females and often are more numerous.  They set up small territories near burrows where they expect females to appear, but after the females emerge, the males move their territories to nesting areas and nectar sites.  In some Tachytes species, the courtship is brief – he pounces on her back and pins her wings and then waves his antennae frantically in front of her face to soften her up https://bugguide.net/node/view/1013235.  

Females often dig their tunnels near those of other females.  Holm writes that “Tachytes crassus usually nests in sand although Evans and Kurczeski (1966) found a nesting aggregation in clay-loam soil.  Female excavates a deep, angled multicellular nest, then deposits soil around the burrow entrance, forming a tumulus.  The female may or may not leave the nest open while away hunting for prey.  When returning with prey to an open nest entrance, she flies directly into the nest without hesitation, clutching her prey beneath her.”  Holm quotes the eminent French Naturalist Jean Henri Fabre (1921) “The Tachytes clears the entrance to the home and goes in alone.  She returns, puts out her head and seizing her prey by the antennae, warehouses it by dragging backwards.”  Please take the time to read some of Fabre’s lovely account of the genus https://www.gutenberg.org/files/3462/3462-h/3462-h.htm#link2HCH0007. 

Holm continues, “She hunts for prey close to the ground in tall grass, meadows, or prairies where grasshoppers occur…..prey caught earlier in the growing season may be all nymphs; prey caught later in the season and later in the female’s life (cached in the upper cells) are more likely to be adults.  Between five and ten prey are provisioned in each cell.  A single egg is laid between the foreleg and midleg on one of the prey at the bottom of the cell.”

RKHWs are common on Swamp milkweed flowers (Asclepias incarnata).  One would think that a swamp milkweed lover would also be a major swamp milkweed pollinator, but a study in 2003 by Ivey, et al, indicated that while the RKHW was a frequent visitor to the flower, it “was the poorest at removing, carrying, then subsequently transferring pollinia to other swamp milkweed flowers.”  Remember, pollination is an accidental, not an intentional act, and milkweed pollinia are saddlebag-shaped and sticky (see the legs of the dangling bee caught by the almost-invisible ambush bug).  Like RKHWs, Thynnid wasps (Myzinum sp.) https://bugguide.net/node/view/1958377/bgimage are frequent visitors with a similar active, random foraging style, and yet they were far more effective pollinators.  What took them only six or seven flower visits to accomplish (removing and then inserting a pollinium) took some RKHWs up to 500 visits.

Kate Redmond, The BugLady

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

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