Author: rbuchholz

Greetings, BugFans,

The BugLady is already yearning for dragonflies and butterflies and other flying objects that are larger than the Asian ladybugs, Western conifer seed bugs, and the few rogue mosquitoes that are presently sheltering in her house.  That she is Skipper Challenged has been discussed in these pages before – many skippers are brown and orange in varying proportions, with a sexually dimorphic variety of pale blotches on their wings.  Because she has not applied herself to them, she has a host of semi-identified pictures of skippers (the “semi” part being “skipper”).  So, she’s trying to chip away at the group.

There are about 3,500 species of skippers (family Hesperiidae) on the globe – 275-ish in North America.  Although some skippers are strongly migratory, others are not long-distance flyers, and many species occupy a narrow range.

Skippers are small, hairy, big-eyed butterflies with hooked antennae (mostly), a high wing load ratio (short wings on a plump body, like a bumblebee), and a rapid, darting, “skipping” flight.  Their caterpillars, whose heads are often adorned with odd-looking helmets or hockey masks (https://bugguide.net/node/view/1149633/bgimage, https://bugguide.net/node/view/1274237/bgimage, https://bugguide.net/node/view/324973/bgimage, https://bugguide.net/node/view/278936/bgimage), are leaf folders/leaf tie-ers that construct a series of shelters – one after each molt – inside which they feed at night.  Most sources now regard skippers as butterflies, but older references may call them a transition group between butterflies and moths, label them as “butterfly-like,” or give them the benefit of the doubt because they are day-flyers.

The Hobomok Skipper (Poanes hobomok), a.k.a the Northern Golden Skipper, is a common, early-flying member of the Grass Skipper subfamily Hesperiinae, whose members perch with their wings folded together when nectaring but with their front wings open and their hind wings only partly so when resting.  The males’ front wings may bear scent glands – he uses pheromones when he courts.  Their caterpillars feed on grasses and sedges, and they overwinter as caterpillars.

According to the excellent Butterflies of Massachusetts website (150+ years of data analyzed for us!!!), Hobomok Skippers are part of a series of butterflies named by Thaddeus W. Harris and others after Native American chiefs (not after cities in New Jersey).  Hobomok was the “chief of the Wampanoag Indians, who helped the Pilgrims upon their landing in Plymouth in 1621.”

Hobomoks appear at the end of May (they overlap the Arctic Skipper, a BugLady favorite), frequenting woody edges and sunny clearings from the Great Plains to the Atlantic, except for the very far North and the very Deep South (see a range map at https://www.butterfliesandmoths.org/species/Poanes-hobomok).  Climate change may be lengthening their flight period.

With a wingspread of about an inch, they are moderate-sized for a skipper.  Their triangular wings have orange patches in the wing that are bordered by wide, dark margins.  A pale marking on the underside of the hind wing looks like a free-form “plus” sign to the BugLady.  Females are darker than males, and there’s an uncommon, very dark-form female called a Pocahontas female.  See http://www.carolinanature.com/butterflies/hobomokskipper.html for some great pictures.

In Butterflies of Wisconsin (1970), James A. Ebner says that “the Hobomok Skipper is a handsome, bright orange Hesperid.  This species is the first of the state skippers to appear in sizable numbers each season.    From late May through mid-June, the Hobomok abounds throughout the entire area, frequenting partially wooded areas and forested trails where it often frolics in the dappled sunshine.  Adults perch upon the leaves and other foliage during quieter moments.  At times, the skipper will stray from its normal woodland habitat and visit the open clover fields for feeding.  Despite the relative abundance of the Hobomok in many parts of the country, the early stages are only imperfectly known.  The eggs are laid on grasses and the larva is said to remain concealed during the day within a crude enclosure constructed from grass blades.”

Males perch on plants (raspberry canes are a favorite, when they’re available) to watch for females and to spot rivals that need chasing.  As caterpillars and as adults, Hobomoks lead somewhat generalist lives.  Caterpillars (https://bugguide.net/node/view/335371/bgimage) feed on grasses including switch grass and bluegrass.  Adults sip nectar from the flowers of blackberries, dandelions, honeysuckle, red clover, milkweed, and vetch, and they also get minerals from bird droppings.

The Butterflies of Massachusetts site urges us to keep an eye on the Hobomok Skipper.  It has been remarkably adaptive – probably occupying forest openings in pre-settlement times, switching to more open habitats during the period of agricultural development, and returning to woodland edges in the last century.  They point out that its absence from the steamy southern coastal plain suggests that it doesn’t like warm climates.  Further, it is “single-brooded throughout its range, and third, it appears to require woodlands, although this is uncertain.  Finally, despite using a range of host grasses, Hobomok is not known for breeding in disturbed habitats….”  They conclude that “This is a northern-based species which is probably vulnerable to range contraction due to climate change.  It might well decline in the hotter parts of Massachusetts.”

A number of sources point out that the only really similar-looking skipper in the Hobomok’s range is the slightly-more-southern (but-inching-northwards) Zabulon Skipper (https://bugguide.net/node/view/1418593/bgimage) (the two were finally sorted out in Massachusetts in the 1930’s).  Ebner tells us that “It seems likely that both [observers] Hoy and Rauterberg confused this species with the common Hobomok Skipper (P. hobomok).  Each considered the Zabulon Skipper to be common or abundant [in Wisconsin].  Not a single specimen has been uncovered since those early days.”  The BugLady is including a picture of a female Zabulon Skipper (probably) that she took in New Jersey, and it does resemble a Pocahontas female Hobomok Skipper.

Kate Redmond, The BugLady

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

Salutations, BugFans,

Introducing three unsung (but worthy) bugs, whose definitive biographies have yet to be written.

ENTYLIA CARINATA (no common name) is a treehopper in the family Membracidae (from the Greek “membrax” meaning “a kind of cicada”) (to whom they’re distantly related).  It’s a wonderful family of tiny dragons and unicorns (Britannica calls them “insect brownies”) whose various protuberances are supposed to mimic thorns and other bits of vegetation (these bumps are extensions of the pronotum, a structure that covers the top surface of the thorax and is sometimes called a “helmet”) https://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/animals/blogs/thats-no-leaf-9-amazing-images-of-treehoppers.

Treehoppers are sap-feeders that insert their beaks and feed on both woody and herbaceous plants.  Nymphs may start out on herbaceous plants and graduate to the “softer” parts of woody plants as adults, and a few are considered minor agricultural pests.  Like many other sap-feeding bugs, they produce honeydew, which is eaten by other insects and which encourages ants to “farm” them.

Eggs are laid in woody tissue; females of some species guard their eggs, and some species are vaguely social, with groups of nymphs being cared for by adults.

Treehoppers’ Super Power is the ability of males to quiver the muscles in their abdomen.  The resulting vibration passes down through the insect’s legs and into the stem it’s sitting on, and the sound made by these 3/8” insects can be heard/felt by insects on the same plant and even on different plants as far as a yard away!  Check this article and be sure to listen to the audio: http://www.npr.org/2015/08/27/432934935/good-vibrations-key-to-insect-communication.

Entylia carinata (carinata means “keeled”) can be found in eastern North America, south into South America, especially on plants in the Aster/Composite family.  The BugLady photographed it on a swamp thistle – there were no ants in attendance, but this species does attract them.  For a much better picture of an adult, see – https://bugguide.net/node/view/587450.  Here’s one of a bunch of eggs https://bugguide.net/node/view/957524/bgimage, and one of a nymph, https://bugguide.net/node/view/647417/bgimage, and here’s an ant tending a nymphhttps://bugguide.net/node/view/723535/bgimage.

This interesting critter with the pointy front end, NEMOTELUS KANSENSIS (no common name), lived as an “X-fly” in the “X-Files” for six years until the BugLady finally ID’d it while she was looking for something else.  It turns out to be a soldier fly (family Stratiomyidae), and she’s more familiar with the larger, sluggish, wasp-mimic soldier flies (whose striped abdomens apparently reminded some insect namer of hash marks on a soldier’s uniform).  Here’s a better picture: http://theearlybirder.com/insects/diptera/stratiomyidae/pages/Nemotelus%20kansensis%204003355.htm

As a rule, the stiff, spindle-shaped, soldier fly larvae grow up in damp situations – in piles of dung or other rich, organic stuff, under bark, in soil, in litter, and in standing water – where they may eat decaying organic matter, fungi, or their fellow invertebrates.  Pupation occurs within that armored larval skin.  Adults are often found near the larval habitat, feeding on nectar (it’s called glucophagous), although in some species, adults don’t feed at all.  The position of the wings at rest is described as “scissor-like.”

Nemotelus kansensis is sexually dimorphic – where the females have a series of white triangles on the top of their abdomens, the males’ abdomens are mostly white https://bugguide.net/node/view/1093630/bgimage.  Its larvae are aquatic.  Coincidentally or not, most of the pictures in bugguide.net show them on Composites.

What a lovely little moth – the “stitching” on the trailing edge of the hind wing is exquisite!  The BENT-LINE CARPET (Costaconvexa centrostrigaria), also called the Traveler, is in the family Geometridae (geometra means “to measure the earth”) whose caterpillars are called inch-worms.  It is the only member of its genus on this continent (it’s mostly absent from the Great Plains and Rockies), and it has been recorded in Great Britain (once), the Canaries, the Azores, and Madeira.

Bent-line Carpets have a wingspread of a bit less than an inch and come in a variety of hues: http://mothphotographersgroup.msstate.edu/species.php?hodges=7416.  Their larval food plants are members of the genus Polygonum (smartweeds and knotweeds)

Despite the plummeting temperatures, a few grasshoppers and Autumn Meadowhawks are still hanging on in the prairie.

The BugLady

Greetings, BugFans,

There are about 11,000 species of moths in North America, and many of them fit the birders’ all-purpose acronym for sparrows and other small, songbirds – “LBJ” – for “Little Brown Job.”  The moths in today’s collection are anything but anonymous in appearance, though apparently, they aren’t good enough or bad enough or charismatic enough to have been studied much, so life history details are scanty.

The RASPBERRY PYRAUSTA (Pyrausta signatalis), in the snout moth family Crambidae, was named not because it feeds on raspberries but because of its color – what a lovely creature!  It’s found in grasslands and edges from Arizona to the Carolinas, north across southern Canada, wherever its larval food plants are found (and on the BugLady’s front porch).  Its wingspread is about three-quarters of an inch.

An alternate name is the Raspberry mint Pyrausta because its main host plant in the western part of its range is horsemint, and it eats wild bergamot in the east.  Its larvae can be rosy, too: http://bugguide.net/node/view/983694/bgimage,http://bugguide.net/node/view/1402355/bgimage.

Inexplicably, it shows up (by scientific and common name) in a book called The Fauna of British India: Including Ceylon and Burma, Volume 4, Part 4 (1896).

THE MARBLED GREEN LEUCONYCTA (Leuconycta lepidula) (a.k.a. the Marbled-green Jaspida and the Dark Leuconycta) is a moderate-sized moth (wingspan about 1 ¼”) in the Owlet moth family Noctuidae.  It’s a nifty lichen mimic with lots of variation within the species – http://mothphotographersgroup.msstate.edu/species.php?hodges=9066).  It’s found in North America from the Rockies to the Atlantic in the same habitat as the Raspberry Pyrausta (and on the BugLady’s front porch).

Caterpillars http://bugguide.net/node/view/915262/bgimage feed on dock and on one of the BugLady’s favorite flowers, the dandelion.

The BLACK-DOTTED GLYPH (Maliattha synochitis), a.k.a the Black-dotted Maliattha and the Brass-dotted Grass Moth, is also an Owlet moth, one of two species in its genus in North America.  It’s doing a pretty good imitation of a bird-dropping.

According to bugguide.net, the historical range of the Black-dotted Glyph is mostly in the US from the Great Plains, eastward (including the BugLady’s front porch), but in the past few decades it has moved into southern Canada.  Most sources list the host plants as smartweeds (genus Polygonum), but the Owlet Caterpillars of Eastern North America says it eats grasses, including crabgrass.  Both could be true.  There’s lots of variation in the color of the adults: http://mothphotographersgroup.msstate.edu/species.php?hodges=9049.

The BLACK-PATCHED CLEPSIS (Clepsis melaleucana) is a member of the Tortrix or Leafroller moth family Tortricidae.  It’s a huge family – about 1,400 species in North America and 10,000 globally – and the family contains some notorious fruit pests.  The Black-patched Clepsis is found in the northern two-thirds of the continent.

Caterpillars (http://mothphotographersgroup.msstate.edu/species.php?hodges=3686 and http://bugguide.net/node/view/1154843) feed on spring wildflowers like cohosh, trillium, and Solomon’s seal in deciduous woods.  They roll up a leaf and web it together from the inside, and then they crawl out of their tube and feed on neighboring leaves.  One source lists them as eating witch hazel, several alder species and meadowsweet along with the wildflowers. They may overwinter as larvae.

Wooly bear caterpillars are crossing the road, presumably with no other philosophical agenda than getting to the other side.  Read their story at http://uwm.edu/field-station/woolly-bears/.

The BugLady

Salutations, BugFans,

Here’s a selection of beetles that the BugLady found this summer.

A blushing beetle!  Who knew?  The COREOPSIS BEETLE (Calligrapha californica) is a species that has several subspecies and lots of variation, with beetles that are more and less blushy: http://bugguide.net/node/view/769607/bgimage,  http://bugguide.net/node/view/178241/bgimage,  http://bugguide.net/node/view/955740/bgimage,  http://bugguide.net/node/view/759053/bgimage.  Members of this often-very-decorative genus have appeared in BOTW before.

The quarter-inch coreopsis/tickweed beetle is in the large and very diverse Leaf beetle family Chrysomelidae, many of whose species are very particular about the leaves they pursue.  In this case, both the larvae and the adults eat leaves of plants in the composite/aster family, particularly beggar’s tick (Bidens), Coreopsis, and ragweed, and they’ve been known to demolish a whole plant, right down to the ground!  They’re found across the northern two-thirds of North America.

Eggs are laid in leaf litter near host plants in summer, and they hatch the following spring.  The larvae are fitted out with egg-bursting tubercles on their thorax that assist their exit.  They feed until fall and then overwinter as pupae, emerging as adults the following summer.  Their larvae resemble the shiny, black larva included here.

OPHRAELLA CONFERTA (probably) is another Chrysomelid.  Having been pregnant a few times herself, the BugLady gets a kick out seeing these ready-to-burst beetles. Alternatively, one photographer wondered if the beetle might be full of parasites, but, a good number of the pictures in bugguide.net show similarly gravid-looking beetles and are labeled “female.”

There are 14 species in the genus north of the Rio Grande; Ophraella conferta can be found east of the Rockies on goldenrod leaves.  It’s reported that they feed at night and that they can occur in large enough numbers to do significant damage to their host plants.

Females mate in late summer and overwinter as adults, storing the sperm internally.  They don’t fertilize or lay their eggs until after they wake up and have something to eat the following spring, then they oviposit every few days, laying their eggs in tidy clumps.  See http://bugguide.net/node/view/650675/bgimage for a set of pictures of egg through adult.

SCHIZOTIS CERVICOLIS has no common name (for no earthly reason that the BugLady could discern, one site calls it the “Flaming-pillow beetle,” but she’s not dignifying that one).  It’s a Fire-colored beetle, family Pyrochroidae (because many species in the family have red or orange body parts).  Male pyrochroids often have fancy antennae.  The BugLady photographed it as it bobbed up and down on a stem in a wetland on a breezy day in late spring.  Like the coreopsis beetle above, it resides across northern half of North America.

Check http://bugguide.net/node/view/45357/bgimage for some nice pictures of the beetle’s life cycle.  The larvae are found in rotting logs, where, according to Morphology and Systematics (Elateroidea, Bostrichiformia, Cucujiformia partim), 2010, “[larvae of] Schizotis specialize in decaying woody sections of moss-covered logs in boreal-like areas (e.g. edges of bogs).  While both woody and fungal materials are found in the gut, fungi are thought to play a key role in larval development.  In crowded situations, larvae may sometimes become cannibalistic, but contrary to some older reports, they are not normally predaceous.”

Adult males of this genus are attracted to cantharidin, a defensive chemical produced by blister beetles.  For the story on that, see this previous BOTW about a different fire-colored beetle at http://uwm.edu/field-station/fire-colored-beetle/.

An internet search didn’t turn up much information on this species’ life history, but one of the “Related searches” was for “List of terms that start with SCHIZOT.”  More than you’d expect.

Most of the click beetles of her acquaintance are black or dark brown, so the BugLady was excited to find this small, red AEOLUS MELLILUS (probably) under the porch light in June. Common names are the Flat wireworm beetle and, inexplicably, the Sweet click beetle.

Click beetles’ superpower is their ability to right themselves (dramatically – and with a click) after landing on their backs (http://uwm.edu/field-station/eyed-elater-click-beetles-family-elateridae/).  Their larvae (grubs) are collectively called wireworms, and because of their diet, some are a staple on Agricultural and Extension websites.  Some species feed in the soil on dead organic matter, some on the larvae of other insects, and others on plant roots and stems.  They locate their food by following its carbon dioxide trail.

Aeolus mellilus is found in grasslands and gardens over much of North America.  The larvae dine on the roots of corn and potatoes, but they also relish wheat and other cereal crops, and some sources call them a minor crop pest.  They lop stems off at the soil surface instead of burrowing in like other wireworms and doing their damage from within.  They are also described as fierce and active predators that probably feed on the larvae of the competition.  Adults eat plants and are nocturnal.

According to the University of Alberta, Ms. Sweet click beetle, at least in populations in the Canadian prairies, is parthenogenic – she doesn’t need Mr. Sweet click beetle to produce baby Sweet click beetles.  Parthenogenesis tends to result in female offspring, and males are pretty much unknown in the Canadian studies.

The BugLady thinks that this is ENOCLERUS MUTTKOWSKII (unless it’s the very similar E. ichneumoneus), a Checkered beetle in the family Cleridae.  There’s not much information out there on its life history – its larvae are beneficial, preying on the larvae of some beetles that live under the bark of evergreens and feed on the phloem tissue (the plant’s plumbing) in eastern/northeastern North America.  Adults are generalized predators.  Some members of the genus, including this one, are considered mimics of velvet ants (which, despite their name, are flightless, female wasps that pack quite a punch).  Another Enoclerus beetle was featured in a past episode http://uwm.edu/field-station/checkered-beetle/.

The BugLady found a very cool paper by researcher Jacques Rifkind called “Enoclerus Gahan: predators of chemically protected ladybird beetles (Coleoptera: Cleridae and Coccinellidae)”.  After carefully scrutinizing many photographs posted on the internet by insect enthusiasts, Rifkind verified five species of Enoclerus feeding on various species of ladybugs.

Ladybugs tend to be chemically protected, which explains their aposematic (warning) coloration, and species have a variety of ways to deliver the bad-tasting/toxic liquids that they produce/ingest.  In order to feed on one, an Enoclerusbeetle must either be able to excrete the toxins effectively or to sequester/isolate them somewhere in its body (and according to Rifkind, Enoclerus are pretty enthusiastic feeders, dismembering and masticating their prey, so it’s a total toxin immersion).  Enoclerus is a sequesterer, and Rifkind says that “the further possibility that clerid predators acquire chemical protection through sequestration of ladybird prey’s toxic alkaloids is suggested as an important avenue of investigation.”

Rifkind very significantly notes that “The data presented are primarily based on photographs taken by non-specialists, discovered through Internet search. The crowdsourcing of natural history observations can reveal aspects of animal behavior heretofore unreported and even unsuspected,” (emphasis, the BugLady), and why not – there are masses of citizen-generated birding data available electronically.  Here’s Rifkind’s article http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2018&context=insectamundi.

Kate Redmond, The BugLady

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

Greetings, BugFans,

As the leaves color and fall, some interesting galls are being revealed.  Quick review – a gall is an abnormal and localized tissue growth on a plant (or animal – according to Wikipedia, “In human pathology, a gall is a raised sore on the skin, usually caused by chafing or rubbing”).  Plant galls can be caused by friction, fungi, bacteria, and even by viruses, but for BOTW purposes, we’ll stick to galls that are initiated by animals like insects and mites.  “Cecidium” (the plural is “cecidia”) is listed as a synonym for “gall.”

Tiny Cynipid wasps and some groups of midges and moths are the main gall makers.  The general modus operandi for gall formation is that the gall maker does something (like secreting a chemical) that tricks the host plant into growing extra tissue at that location.  Abracadabra – the herbivorous larva is enclosed in a climate-controlled, edible shelter (all it needs to do is make sure that it can get out).  Many gall makers are able to defuse their host plant’s natural “grazer-control” mechanisms, possibly by hogging the plant’s resources.

There’s nothing random about it – gall-making insects/mites make distinctly-shaped galls on specific parts of their particular host plants, and part of the host’s scientific name is often incorporated into the gall maker’s.  Galls are not limited to woody plants, and they can occur on any part of a plant, including the roots.  Oaks entertain more than their fair share of galls.

Galls have been used in tanning leather (many galls, not just those that grow on oaks, are tannin-rich), for prophesy, as inks and dyes, medicines and spices, and as foods for livestock and humans (one source said that galls taste like the plant they grow on).

The BugLady never cuts galls open – it would be violating her Prime Directive (she once gave a class of 5^th graders the choice – open a gall and see, but doom, the inhabitant, or not.  They left it intact).   But, thank goodness there are people who do open them so we can see what’s happening in there!

Typically, galls are built by a single organism, for a single organism, though they may attract inquilines (boarders) or predators/parasites.  But, most of the galls in today’s BOTW offer multi-unit housing.  Without further ado, here are the galls du jour.

SUMAC LEAF GALL (a.k.a. Red Pouch, Pouch, Balloon, Potato, and Tomato gall)

The gall maker is Melaphis rhois, the Staghorn sumac aphid (the genus of sumac is Rhus).  As a group, aphids are not into gall making; this one is in the wooly aphid subfamily (Eriosomatinae), in the family Aphididae, and it’s the only species in its genus.  Like many galls, it may look funny, but it doesn’t hurt the plant, though a heavy infestation may cause the sumac’s leaves to turn color and fall a bit early.

The BugLady was happily researching and cutting and pasting information about Sumac leaf galls when she came across this article by BugFan Bob at the Missouri Master Naturalist Springfield Plateau Chapter’s site http://springfieldmn.blogspot.com/2016/07/sumac-gall.html.  Be sure to watch the video, and then mosey around their site for other good stuff.

JEWELWEED GALL

This one is caused by a gall midge named Schizomyia impatientis in the fly family Cecidomyiidae (jewelweed is in the genus Impatiens).  Mom lays her eggs on the flower bud, and a gall forms there instead of the normal fruit.  This gall also contains more than one gall maker http://www.discoverlife.org/mp/20q?search=Schizomyia+impatientis.  The midge larvae exit the gall in fall – by some accounts overwintering as larvae and by others as adults.  Here’s a basic article about gall midges: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cecidomyiidae.

WILLOW ROSETTE GALL

Instigated by a gall midge named Rabdophaga salicisbrassicoides (unless it’s Rabdophaga saliciscoryloides), also in the family Cecidomyiidae (willows are in the genus Salix).  There are 105 species in the genus worldwide, and many of them do their work on willows.  The gall occurs on a developing leaf bud, and it seems to stimulate the growth of a multitude of squished-together leaves.

Mutualism refers to an ecological relationship in which the acts of organisms of different species benefit each other – a win-win (pollination is the classic example).  When researchers Savage and Peterson studied some of the relationships surrounding the willow rosette gall, they found that ants often “farm” (tend to) aphids on willow branches that have galls, and they hypothesized that the presence of ants, aphids and galls in close proximity might somehow benefit all three.  They also wondered whether the actions of ants and aphids might somehow protect the gall makers from parasitism.  They found that aphids often feed on the gall tissue, causing aphid populations to increase, and that when there are more aphids, there are more galls, but the presence of ants and aphids did not affect the rates of parasitism.

The BugLady recommends that BugFans take a brief detour into the wonderful world of plant volatiles – chemicals given off by plants in order to attract pollinators, to attract predators to feed on bothersome herbivores, and to signal to surrounding plants that they are under attack.  Volatiles also help insects identify the right host plants to lay their eggs on (unfortunately, there’s no Cliff’s Notes version, you mostly jump right into the deep end of biochemistry, but try this https://www.rodalesorganiclife.com/garden/plant-volatiles).  Turns out that chemicals given off by the willow leaves lure both the pollinators and the gall makers.

SUNFLOWER STEM GALL

Another gall midge – Asphondylia helianthiglobulus, family Cecidomyydae (wild sunflowers are in the genus Helianthus).  Here are some adults emerging from a gall – http://bugguide.net/node/view/999103/bgimage (the BugLady had a moment when she tried to figure out why the galls in bugguide.net pictures were fuzzy and the ones she has photographed are smooth, but she’s figured it out).

MOSSY ROSE GALL (a.k.a. Robin’s Pincushion and Rose Bedequar (from an Arabic word for “wind-brought”) gall)

The gall maker is Diplolepis rosae, a 0.2” long, non-native wasp in the family Cynipidae, which lays as many as 60 eggs in a lateral or a terminal leaf bud.  Reproduction is parthenogenic, and the wasps that emerge in spring are 99+% female (probably because of an endemic virus called Wolbachia) (worth another Google detour – female wasps treated with antibiotics produce normal ratios of both male and female eggs).  Along with the usual edible, interior tissue that the wasp larvae feed on, the plant also grows sticky, fibrous “tentacles” on the exterior.

Birds and small mammals may excavate the ping-pong-ball-sized galls for the larvae or pupae nesting inside https://wshg.net/featured/2015-07-28/mossy-rose-gall-a-fascinating-pest/ (click on the pictures for a slide show), and quite a line-up of insects may co-habit the gall harmlessly or with evil intent.  The survival rate is higher in galls that are larger and are located on lower branches, and the galls are said to be more common when the rose plant is stressed.

According to Margaret Fagan in “The Uses of Insect Galls” Pliny the Elder (the first-century AD Roman naturalist, not the craft beer) believed that the mossy rose gall was “among the most successful applications for the restorations of hair,” and it has enjoyed a number of other medicinal uses. (https://www.jstor.org/stable/2456142?seq=13#page_scan_tab_contents).

Here are links to the previous BOTWs on galls: http://uwm.edu/field-station/galls-i/, http://uwm.edu/field-station/galls-ii/, http://uwm.edu/field-station/galls-iii-oddball-galls/, http://uwm.edu/field-station/galls-iv-two-oaks-hickory/.

On a totally unrelated topic, the BugLady came across this account by serendipity while she was looking for something else – http://www.michigannatureguy.com/blog/2017/07/22/wool-carder-bees/.

The BugLady

Howdy, BugFans,

These days the BugLady’s walks are punctuated by the small “pop” of grasshoppers taking off and landing, and by the whir of their wings.  Grasshoppers and bumblebees seem to dominate the landscape in the weeks leading up to official autumn.

The BugLady first posted this BOTW (or a reasonable facsimile thereof) in the summer of 2009, titling it “Red-legged Grasshoppers” (OK – it was because she incorrectly-identified a Two-lined grasshopper).  She has never developed an eye for grasshoppers, since they are uncooperative photographic subjects that she mostly sees from the rear, so the labels on many of her grasshopper pictures are tentative.  This episode has been renamed and spruced up with some new info and new pictures.

The Short-horned (short-antenna-ed) grasshopper family (Acrididae) includes insects called grasshoppers and insects called locusts, and the common names seem to be used interchangeably.  For example, the Carolina locust, in the band-winged grasshopper group, is almost always called a locust, but grasshoppers in the genus Melanoplus may be called either or both.  For more about the locust-grasshopper debate, see the link to the green-legged grasshopper bio, below.

Short-horned grasshoppers are insects of open spaces – medium to large-sized grasshoppers and locusts that are an important food source for birds, including some birds of prey (to whom they may transmit tapeworms and other parasites).  Skunks, snakes, and toads eat the adults; and skunks, shrews, mice and moles find eggs laid in soil and eat them.

Melanoplus grasshoppers are in the Spur-throated grasshopper subfamily Melanoplinae, so-named for the spur that protrudes from the underside of their body, between the front pair of legs.  Bugguide.net says that the genus name means “clad in dark armor.”  Melanoplus is a large genus that occurs around the world, but most of the 240 or so species are found in fields, cities, suburbs, and open woods in North America.  Largely vegetarian and largely feeding on herbaceous plants, the genus (and family) includes some notorious agricultural pests (though most are not), so a lot of internet hits are from State Entomology departments.

As bugguide.net says of the genus Melanoplus: “Many of the species look very similar, while only a relative few are uniquely distinctive looking. Positive identifications for many species can only be achieved by examining the male genitalia on an actual specimen. Images alone are often not enough to reach a conclusion.”  There are a number of distinctive/semi-distinctive species of Melanoplus on the BugLady’s landscape, a few of which already have their own BOTWs – Green-legged grasshoppers (the M. viridipes species group) http://uwm.edu/field-station/green-legged-grasshopper/, Pine tree spur-throated grasshopper (M. punctulatus) http://uwm.edu/field-station/pine-tree-spur-throated-grasshopper/, and Differential (M. differentialis), Two-lined (M. bivittatus), and Red-legged grasshoppers (M. femurrubrum).

When a young Melanoplus grasshopper’s fancy turns to love, he doesn’t stridulate (make noise by friction) or crepitate (leap into the air, hover, and rattle his wings), he simply grabs a female and introduces himself by shaking his legs in a characteristic way.  If she is of a different species, she won’t recognize the sign language and will rebuff him.  Females use their abdomens to drill holes in soil or other soft material, and they lay about 20 eggs in each hole.  This female Two-lined grasshopper excavated in a pretty firm dirt road surface, and while she was ovipositing, she often had her two hind legs off the ground.  The BugLady wondered if “pumping” the legs aided in ovipositing.  The eggs overwinter; nymphs appear in late spring and mature by early summer.

The extinct Rocky Mountain locust/grasshopper (Melanoplus spretus) produced what were possibly the largest assemblages of locusts anywhere.  A swarm in 1875 was measured at 1,800 miles long by 110 miles wide (198,000 square miles), covering the equivalent of the northeastern US from Maine through Pennsylvania and Delaware and containing an estimated 12.5 trillion grasshoppers (which was good enough to set a posthumous Guinness World Record).  According to Wikipedia, “The locusts ate not only the grass and valuable crops, but also leather, wood, sheep’s wool, and in extreme cases, even clothes off peoples’ backs,” and several states passed laws offering bounties and requiring the populace to spend some time each week eradicating grasshoppers.  One entomologist came up with a recipe for grasshoppers sautéed in butter, but it was not embraced.  It’s not known for sure why they crashed; but several possibilities are suggested here: http://www.nytimes.com/2002/04/23/science/looking-back-at-the-days-of-the-locust.html?mcubz=1

According to The Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Insects and Spiders, the “Grasshopper Glacier,” near Cooke, MT, contains the bodies of millions of Rocky Mountain and other grasshoppers that have been embedded there, some for millennia.  It is speculated that swarms of the grasshoppers landed on the glacier and froze, or they were caught in storms and forced down on the glacier, or, theorizes Elizabeth Lawlor in Discovering Nature at Sundown, an updraft off the frigid glacier “flash-froze” flying grasshoppers, causing them to fall onto the surface of the glacier and get covered with snow.  At any rate, each year, to the delight of paleontologists and grasshopperologists, melting at the leading edge of the glacier releases thousands of grasshopper corpses for carbon-dating and other study.  The remains from one large event produced a dark band that can be seen in today’s ice.

Lawlor also reports on the dramatic population explosions experienced by some arid-country species of Melanoplus grasshoppers when unusually high rainfall results in lots of vegetation and in extraordinary numbers of eggs being laid.  This “boomer” generation is dark-colored where their parents were light, and social where their parents were shy, and ravenous – wiping out the vegetation where they sit.  Though they are not strong fliers, they are blown downwind in great numbers (and have been recorded at an altitude of 20,000 feet), looking like a “hungry black snowstorm” that is “virtually unstoppable.”

A ton of locusts (the BugLady finds it hard to wrap her mind around “a ton of locusts”) can eat as much as can 250 people – or 10 elephants.

FAQ: “Tobacco juice” is just a grasshopper’s stomach contents.  Harmless.

The BugLady remembers BugFan Mary telling a school class in fall that the grasshoppers they were netting were (as are the BugLady’s walking companions) “dead, but they didn’t know it yet.”  Why?  See http://uwm.edu/field-station/nematodes/.

Kate Redmond, The BugLady 

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

Greetings, BugFans,

Today’s saga could also be called “The Hemiptera Mystery,” though one of the Hemipterans appears only in a supporting role.  The main character is a decent-sized true bug (Hemipteran) named Acanthosephala terminalis.  For an insect that has a wide range (much of eastern North America), is conspicuous, and is not a shrinking violet, it’s surprising that the AT doesn’t have a common name.

Quick review: members of the order Hemiptera are the only ones that can “legally” be called bugs, though they loan out the name to other groups.  The order has been massively reconfigured – lumped.  It now includes a bunch of bugs like leaf/plant/treehoppers, aphids, cicadas, scales, etc. that used to be in their own, separate order (Homoptera), plus the original Hemipteran insects (stink, leaf-footed, assassin, seed, and aquatic bugs, etc.), which are now tucked into a suborder called Heteroptera within the order Hemiptera.  Hemipterans (the name means “half-wing”) have wings that are membranous (like a fly’s wing) at the tip but leathery at the base.  They have piercing-sucking mouthparts, which some species apply to plants, and some apply to other animals.

“Acanthocephala terminalis.”  “Thorny-head” (there’s a short spine that protrudes from the front of the head, easily seen here http://bugguide.net/node/view/1428294/bgimage) with the terminal segment of the antennae different from the rest (in this case, in its color) (its six “socks” match, too).  There are four species of Acanthocephala in North America, and AT is the one that ventures north into God’s Country.  It’s in the Leaf-footed bug family Coreidae, though not all Coreids have the little flange on the hind tibia that gives the group its name.

Although it feeds on woody plants, AT is found in a wide variety of habitats including woods, edges, and grasslands.

AT overwinters as an adult, and mates and lays eggs in spring.  The infants are pale at first http://bugguide.net/node/view/972849/bgimage but change color as they get older (see http://bugguide.net/node/view/1149565/bgimage for a great series of pictures of an older nymph molting – some other bugs are also pink/red immediately and temporarily after they molt).  The upturned abdomen is a typical posture for the nymph.

Adults are generalist sap feeders, but AT nymphs’ sip sap from their main host plants – sumac, wild grape, and ninebark.  The nymphs are found on a variety of trees, though it’s not known if they actually feed on them, and they seem to have a special affinity for collecting on ash trees.  The BugLady sees AT nymphs as well as those of the related Helmeted Squash bug on leaves with bird droppings on them, and she always wonders if they get minerals from the whitewash.

If you try to take its picture, a Coreid nymph will often sneak around to the other side of a leaf or stem, and adults will fly readily and can fly well.  In aid of their defense, they have the ability to produce and spray a nasty-smelling/tasting chemical.

(Googling Anthocephala terminalis results in a surprising number of hits from homeopathy sites, but the BugLady doesn’t know what that’s all about.)

OK – so where’s the mystery?  And what about the other two bugs?

Recently, the BugLady came across a young ash tree that was wounded in some way – whether by being pierced by the beaks of ATs or nicked by something larger (or both), she cannot say.  The trunk was being visited by a small, emerald-green solitary bee, as well as by ants and yellow jackets, all of which have a sweet tooth.

The books say that ATs seem to be somewhat gregarious and that they can be found in mixed-age groupings, and that’s what the BugLady saw on the ash tree.  One source mentioned that males (presumably adults) will fight with other males, but as the BugLady watched, she saw several nymphs that just couldn’t walk past each other without throwing a few kicks.

The BugLady also saw an adult Helmeted Squash bug on an adjacent blackberry stem, being checked out by an AT nymph.

But all of this came later.  What attracted her eye in the first place was two bugs on a leaf, one an AT nymph and the other a Rough stink bug (Brochymena) (coincidentally or not, they were standing over a bit of bird poop).

The books say that ATs are, as are other Coreids, drinkers only of plant sap, although a few references say that although there is some anecdotal testimony about predaceous leaf-footed bugs, they are probably misidentified assassin bugs.  They do not have a carnivorous, nymphal, Rumspringa-like fling. 

 

And yet.  Here’s what the BugLady saw through her lens.  The AT and the Brochymena, standing an angle to each other, never budged during five minutes of close-ups.  Right from the start, the BugLady had the feeling that the AT was piercing the Brochymena, though the pictures aren’t clear enough to show a connection.  In one of the pictures, it’s obvious that one of the Brochymena’s front feet is off the leaf.  And, oh yeah – several times while she was focusing on the pair, she saw the Brochymena gave a little shiver. 

 

“Each observation, however, has raised more questions than it answers, so the sum of my watching has caused me to grow in ignorance, not in knowledge.”  Sue Hubbell, in Broadsides from the Other Orders. 

Kate Redmond, The BugLady

Howdy, BugFans,

The BugLady keeps hearing that the summer movie season produced no blockbusters, so she’s running a second blockbuster BOTW in a row.

The goldenrods in the BugLady’s field are exuberant, with new, brilliant yellow flowers opening daily.  Goldenrod blooms late, produces a bonanza of pollen (there’s not much nectar there), and is the embodiment of the insect enthusiast’s credo – “Looking for insects?  Check the flowers.”  Insects – especially flies, bees and wasps – are so excited about it that they’re bouncing off of each other in an effort to reach the flowers (there seems to be a rock-paper-scissors hierarchy to who bumps whom from a flower.  Hint: stingers rule).  The BugLady wrote about goldenrod’s insect community in 2010; to see who starred in Act I, check http://uwm.edu/field-station/goldenrod-watch/.

Visitors come to goldenrod for the pollen, to leave eggs, to ambush their prey, and sometimes just to sit a spell.  The BugLady stands in the goldenrod patch looking for new additions to her goldenrod list and being thankful, once again, that she has no close neighbors to notify her family that she’s finally lost it.

Interesting goldenrod facts:

1)     Various goldenrod species have a long history as dye, food, and beverage plants, and they were used medicinally both internally and externally to treat problems from snake bites to sore throats to toothaches to wounds (there was only one species in Europe before 1492, and its common name was Crusader’s Wound-wort).  The Ojibwe name for goldenrods means “sun medicine,” and the Mesquaki (Fox and Sac) mixed it with other herbs to make a wash for a baby who had not learned to talk or laugh so that the baby “would grow up with its faculties intact,” (and in the BugLady’s humble opinion, we could use a little more of that).

2)    Thomas Edison believed that goldenrod sap contained enough latex that it would be commercially viable should our traditional sources of rubber be cut off.  To this end, he selectively bred goldenrod, producing 12-foot tall plants.  The idea didn’t prove to be as popular as some of his other dabbling, but Henry Ford once gave Edison a Model A Ford with tires made of goldenrod rubber.

3)    There are about 100 species of goldenrod in North America (on a good day, the BugLady knows maybe a half dozen of them), and they happily hybridize.

4)    And it can’t be said often enough – goldenrod has heavy, sticky pollen that is not airborne; ragweed has tiny pollen that blows all over the place.  Goldenrod has bright, showy flowers; ragweed has tiny, green ones, and they bloom at the same time.  Guess which is falsely accused of causing your hay fever woes?

A photography note – the BugLady’s workhorse Pentax has, alas, never met a yellow it didn’t embrace (especially when the sun is out), and stripping the excess from the pictures has been only moderately successful (lots of yellow on the cutting room floor).  At least BugFans won’t have to grope around for their eclipse glasses.

What might you see if you take yourself out to a goldenrod patch?

Gangs of female APHIDS (family Aphididae) sucking plant juices and popping out little aphids parthenogenetically all summer.

BALD-FACED HORNETS (Vespula maculata) looking for nectar – and possibly for tiny insects to masticate and feed to the larvae that wait in one of those football sized/shaped colonial nests.

BEE FLIES (family Bombyliidae) that sometimes hover over the flowers as they extract pollen and nectar with a long proboscis.

A CRAB SPIDER (family Thomisidae), all tucked in, business end up.

DADDY LONGLEGS (family Phalangiidae) – not true spiders, but spider relatives that stalk their prey on foot and do not spin webs.  They also do not (NOT) bite people.  One source describes them as “a Rice Krispies with legs.”

A FEATHER-LEGGED FLY (Trichopoda sp.) walking across the spray of goldenrod, dipping the tip of her abdomen to touch the flowers.  The eggs she deposits will hatch into larvae that will jump aboard the next stinkbug, seed bug, or squash bug that comes along and will parasitize them.

GREENBOTTLE FLIES (Lucilia sericata) that, despite the unsavory reputation of their larvae in service of the CSI folks and the medical profession, keep their feet clean (mostly), feeding on nectar and pollinating flowers (when they’re not laying eggs on something dead).

JAPANESE BEETLES (Popillia japonica), which include goldenrod on the list of more-than-300 plants that they will eat.

A female MOSQUITO (family Culicidae) taking nourishment from plant juices.

A NORTHERN CORN ROOT WORM (Diabrotica barberi).  The corn in the field next door, close to nine feet tall, may be the origin of this beetle.  Or it may not, since they also eat other grasses, and also members of the squash, bean, and aster families.

An ORANGE/YELLOW-COLLARED SCAPE MOTH (Cisseps fulvicollis), which graces the flowers both day and night.  Smaller than the similar-looking, earlier-flying Virginia Ctenucha (the “C” is silent like the “R” in “fish.”), the adults are nectar feeders, and the caterpillars eat grasses, rushes and lichens.

SWEAT BEES – Some insects dine-in, and others come for carry-out (usually because they need pollen to provision nest chambers for their eggs).  Special sacs on the legs are one way to transport pollen; other kinds of bees may carry it in bristles on their legs or abdomens.

A PINE TREE CRICKET (Oecanthus pini), here hiding in a clump of flowers on a chilly afternoon, part of the delicious chorus of tree crickets and katydids and field crickets that sings in the BugLady’s field day and night. Hear it at http://songsofinsects.com/crickets/pine-tree-cricket.

You know the drill by now – Go Outside – find some goldenrods!

Kate Redmond, The BugLady

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

Salutations, BugFans,

The BugLady has always been in love with wetlands – the pterodactyl lift-off of Great-blue Herons, a glint of dragonflies, the quiet splash of sun-warmed turtles sliding off a log, frogs’ exuberant announcements of spring, the rich odor of a wetland’s primordial soup.

But lately, she’s been thinking about prairies.  She led a walk at Riveredge Nature Center’s excellent “Knee Deep in Prairies” celebration, and she spends a lot of quality time on the prairie because she loves its ever-changing palettes and patterns.

Early explorers had no word for the landscape they found west of the Mississippi – “prairie” comes from the French word for “meadow,” and it was surely the biggest meadow they had ever seen.

The recipe for making a prairie starts with hot summers and cold winters; stir in a little fire (set by Nature or by man) and add lots of evaporation (BugFan Dan once asked a group of 5th graders why a prairie is a prairie, and one kid piped up “because of the high rate of evapotranspiration.”  Yep).  Allow to sit for a long time.

There are two important dates in the history of prairies.  The first is a massive drought that followed the retreat of our most recent glacier.  Prairies were formed during a “dry spell” that lasted from 6,000 to 8,000 years ago – shortgrass prairies grew in the rain shadow on the east side of the Rockies, mixed-grass prairie ranged through much of the Great Plains north of central Texas, and tallgrass prairie butted up against the great Eastern forests.

Then, for five thousand years, there was a tug-of-war.  Wet periods encouraged trees, and the forests marched westward.  Dry periods favored the grasslands, and tongues of the prairie peninsula pushed east into (future) Michigan and Ohio, leaving prairie remnants behind when they retreated.  At their peak, tallgrass prairies covered more than 200 million acres, including 2.1 million acres here in Wisconsin.  Depending on climate, plant community, soil organisms, and parent material, it takes between 200 and 1000 years to produce an inch of soil, and the soil formed by the decomposing leaves and roots of prairie plants was some of the richest and deepest ever known.

The second critical date is 1837, the year John Deere invented the steel moldboard plow that allowed the settlers to turn the deep prairie sod for the first time.  The 300 pound plow, pulled by eight or ten oxen, ripped through the soil and the plant roots, many of which extend more than six feet below the surface (there’s as much going on below-ground in a prairie as there is above http://proof.nationalgeographic.com/2015/10/15/digging-deep-reveals-the-intricate-world-of-roots/).

The men who first turned the sod told of the eerie noise that was made as the deep roots tore – one described it as “the most sickening sound he had ever heard.”  Today, much of that astonishing soil lies at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico, and, at less than 1% of their original area, tallgrass prairies are considered an endangered ecosystem.  As the poet Wendell Berry said, “We plowed the prairie and never knew what we were doing because we did not know what we were undoing.”

For the most part, Southeastern Wisconsin wants to be a forest, so establishing prairie here takes work and vigilance.  And insects – by some estimates, the biomass of the insects on pre-settlement American prairies equaled that of the bison.  The first director of Riveredge used to say that until the insect partnerships are established, you have a prairie planting, not a prairie.

Here are some pollinators and predators and plant feeders of the prairie – and the flowers they visit.

Two-lined grasshopper (Melanoplus bivittatus) – a large and handsome member of the spur-throated grasshopper subfamily (Melanoplinae) and an eater of plants, a sometime agricultural pest and a sometime scavenger on dead animals http://uwm.edu/field-station/melanoplus-grasshopper/.

Ambush bug (Phymata sp.) – Well-camouflaged on many flower heads (but not so much on this one) this small predator regularly nabs insects many times its size.  In this it is aided by pincer-like front legs and an injectable, toxic, meat-tenderizing saliva.  According to bugguide.net, “Coupling may involve several males riding around on a single female. Sometimes it allows them to take down larger prey, although coupling individuals have been found each with their own prey as well.”  For more information, see http://uwm.edu/field-station/ambush-bugs/.  Flower: gray-headed coneflower.

Black-horned tree cricket (Oecanthus nigricornis) (probably) – It still amazes the BugLady to find out that some Orthopterans (grasshoppers, crickets, katydids, etc.) eat meat – she would have guessed that they didn’t have a carnivorous bone in their bodies.  However, tree crickets are omnivores that feed on leaves and fruits, and also on nearby soft-bodied insects.  Tree crickets are raising a ruckus in the BugLady’s fields right now.  For the ultimate cricket and katydid experience, try the U of Florida’s recordings of crickets and katydids north of Mexico at http://entomology.ifas.ufl.edu/walker/buzz/cricklist.htm.

Bumblebee (Bombus sp.) – While their living arrangements are not as famous as those of the very-communal honeybee, bumblebees live socially in a (generally) less-populated nest where a queen and her brood are cared for by workers that collect nectar and pollen to feed to the developing young.  Adults eat nectar.  http://uwm.edu/field-station/celebrating-bumblebees/.  Flower: rattlesnake master.

Sword-bearing conehead (Neoconocephalus ensiger) – Coneheads are large katydids that mainly feed on grass seeds.  To find out why they groom their antennae so religiously, see https://naturallycuriouswithmaryholland.wordpress.com/tag/sword-bearing-conehead-katydid/, and to hear what they sound like, turn your volume up and check http://listeninginnature.blogspot.com/2013/07/its-time-for-coneheads.html.  Look but don’t touch – according to the Field Guide to Insects of North America, they can bite – hard.

Wavy-lined emerald – The caterpillar of a delicate, green moth, while it eats other flower parts, it glues pieces of plant material to itself in hopes of escaping notice.  Flower: black-eyed Susan.

Great black wasp (Sphex pensylvanicus) – Both pollinator and predator, this solitary wasp collects a variety of grasshoppers, including bush katydids larger than the wasp itself to provision underground egg chambers.  She is a nectar feeder. For more about this impressive wasp, see http://uwm.edu/field-station/great-black-wasp/.  Flower: lemon horsemint.

Ladybug – Most insects with Complete metamorphosis change mouthparts – and therefore diets – when they become adults.  Behold, the ladybug – an aphid scourge as larvae and as adults (the little alligator-ish-looking, spotted guy on the right is a larva).  This one happens to be an Asian multicolored ladybug (Harmonia axyridis).  Flower: goldenrod.

Red-banded leafhopper – Prairie leaves + sunlight = a massive amount of fuel.  Leafhoppers and planthoppers are among the plant-eaters that translate plant energy into animal energy, which makes it available to meat-eaters.  Leafhoppers are sap-suckers.

Monarch (Danaus plexippus) – Generation (Gen) 5, the Monarchs that will migrate to Mexico, are filing the air now.  Like most (but not all) butterflies, they are vegetarians both as caterpillars and as adults, and they’re poisonous, to boot.  Here’s a BOTW from two years ago about their status http://uwm.edu/field-station/the-state-of-the-monarch/.  The folks at monarch watch are optimistic about this year’s crophttp://www.monarchwatch.org/.  Flower: blazing star (Liatris).

Orbweaver – True spiders in the family Araneidae, the orb-weavers are some of our more conspicuous spiders – partly because of their beautiful, webs, and partly because many get to lunker size by fall.  Orb weavers are carnivores, all http://uwm.edu/field-station/big-orb-weaving-spiders/.

Gnat ogre robber fly (Holcocephala sp.) – A small insect (less than ½”) that hunts, flycatcher-style, from the tips of grass and leaves, this Gnat ogre lives up to its name.  They are a bit more tolerant of having their portrait made than are some of the other (equally carnivorous) robber flies.

Tiger swallowtail – Although its caterpillars feed on the leaves of a variety of woody plants, adults enjoy the prairie flowers http://uwm.edu/field-station/eastern-tiger-swallowtail-butterfly/.  There may be a big tie for the BugLady’s second-favorite bug, but this is her favorite.  Flower: cup plant.

Tachinid fly (family Tachinidae) – These large and noisy flies with bristly butts are nectar-feeders – as adults.  They multitask – using their foraging trips to deposit eggs on fellow flower-visitors like caterpillars and true bugs.  For the hand-picked host of the fly larva, it’s all downhill from there; the larva is a parasitoid that will feed on its host, keeping it alive until the fly larva is ready to pupate http://uwm.edu/field-station/tachinid-fly/.

Visit a prairie near you.

Kate Redmond, The BugLady

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

Howdy, BugFans,

This one has “bugged” the BugLady for a while – a nemesis-bug.  It photobombed shots of other insects and is so small (less than 1/8”) that the BugLady didn’t see it until she put a picture up on the screen, and then it defied identification.  She could find insects with similar mouthparts and with similar antennae, but not on the same model.  Thanks to Entomologist Dan for pointing the BugLady in the right direction.

Turns out that it’s a fly (order Diptera) in the Biting Midge family Ceratopogonidae.  BugFans from coast-to-coast who spend time outdoors in biting midge country (where “extra-fine” screens and netting called “biting midge screening” are required to keep them out of houses and tents) may know them as no-see-ums, midgies, punkies, moose flies, pinyon gnats and a few more colorful names.  They are closely related (no surprise) to black flies, of previous BOTW fame.  The BugLady is going out on her well-worn taxonomic limb and guessing that the flies she photographed are male Forcipomyia brevipennis (no common name).  Here’s a better picture of a male http://bugguide.net/node/view/791128/bgimage, and here’s a female http://bugguide.net/node/view/400593/bgimage.

For the etymologists among us, Ceratopogonidae comes from the Greek “keratos” (horn) and “pogon” (beard) – bugguide.net speculates that this may be a reference to the male’s hairy antennae.

It’s a big family, with 600-plus species in North America and 6,000 worldwide.  Like mosquitoes, the females of many species may eat plant nectar, but they need the protein from a blood meal to produce viable eggs (adults are described as grayish in color, except when engorged with blood).  Ceratopogonids that don’t bite humans and other large mammals (and most don’t) may get their protein boost from other insects (one species sucks blood from the wing veins of butterflies) or from reptiles, amphibians, and birds – the hosts’ carbon dioxide trail helps the midges find them.  Some are generalist/opportunistic feeders, but others target specific types of hosts.  The biters may be abroad in large numbers (the word “swarm” is commonly used), and the bite-ee’s are left with irritating/burning punctures and reddish welts.

Our domestic biting gnats are also related to some groups like sand flies (sub-family Phlebotominae!!), which, besides being annoying, spread some pretty nasty diseases in tropical countries.  Biting gnats in the US do transmit Blue tongue virus to livestock in the West.

Males eat only nectar/sugars, which suggests that the individuals that landed on the moth and katydid were just passing through.  Biting midges are considered important pollinators of some tropical commercial crops, including mangoes, avocadoes, cocoa, and rubber, and they also pollinate elderberries.  Most biting midge larvae are carnivores, but others are omnivores or detritivores, and some eat bacteria, algae, and fungi.  The adults tend to live around water but are also found in higher and dryer habitats like mountains and scrubland.

Biting midges lay their eggs in damp-to-wet spots like moist soil, mud, rotting vegetation, compost, tree holes, and in wetlands.  Development is speedy, and there may be several generations over a year, with the final stage overwintering as larvae and becoming adults in spring.  The almost-invisible-to-the-naked-eye larva pictured here was found while the BugLady was photographing ephemeral pond critters and is not the same species as the adults pictured.

With 60 species here and 1,125 worldwide, Forcipomyia is the biggest genus in the family.  The range of Forcipomyia brevipennis (“brevi” means short, and “pennis” means wing or feather) is described as “Holarctic,” which means that it can be found around the globe, north of about 22 degrees north latitude.  The BugLady found articles about it from Russia, Spain, the Netherlands, Norway, England, and Honduras.  It is described in bugguide as “a dark species with dark hairs;” males have long hairs on their antennae and females have short ones.

Forcipomyia larvae are terrestrial – eggs are laid in damp moss, rotting bark and logs, and even in anthills; Forcipomyia brevipennis eggs are generally found in manure, including under cow pies, and the larvae develop there.

Forcipomyia larvae have an interesting superpower.  These terrestrial larvae take in oxygen through their skin by diffusion instead of through spiracles like many land-loving insects.  The larvae live in pretty humid spaces – close to 100% saturated.  They have two rows of setae/bristles along the dorsal surface of the body, and these setae have a secretory function.  The substance they produce is sticky and hygroscopic (moisture-loving).  It drips down over the top and sides of the body and forms a film that keeps the cuticle damp, which allows respiration to happen.  It has been suggested that the fluid may also be both an anti-bacterial and an ant repellent.

In an article called “Morphology and histology of secretory setae in terrestrial larvae of biting midges of the genus Forcipomyia (Diptera: Ceratopogonidae),” researchers Urbanek, Richert, Gilka, and Szadziewski suggest that because Forcipomyia larvae are often found living in groups, there may be a shared effect of having all those sticky little bodies in one spot (though they may not have phrased it exactly that way).  They report that “This [gregarious] behavior also facilitates the spread of the hygroscopic secretion from one larva onto another and these [sic] substrate when the larvae crawl in their microhabitats of small cavities under the tree bark or in the debris.  The air-dried secretion forms net-like strands, which also collect water from the atmosphere. This way, the insects maintain a high humidity in their microhabitats. In addition, the pupae keep the larval skin (exuviae) on the abdominal segments, which prevents dehydration, while the larval cuticle and secretory setae covered by the secretion still absorb water from the atmosphere.”

All of which begs the Metaphysical question – How many biting gnats can dance on the head of a gypsy moth.

The BugLady