Author: Kate Redmond

Howdy, BugFans,

Bugs without Bios are bugs who have no fan clubs or t-shirts or Wanted posters and who go about their daily lives without attracting too much attention, yet are still worthy of our admiration..

Actually, there probably is a BANDED LONGHORN BEETLE t-shirt out there somewhere.  It’s in the charismatic Long-horned beetle family Cerambycidae, whose extra-long-antennaed members are favorites of insect enthusiasts everywhere.  They’re in the flower longhorn subfamily Lepturinae – long, skinny, “broad-shouldered” beetles that can be seen crawling across blossoms in the daytime, feeding on nectar (carbs) and pollen (protein) without demolishing the flowers.  Flower longhorn larvae stay out of sight, burrowing in decaying tree trunks.

For a nice overview of the flower longhorns, see this article in the other Bug of the Week: http://bugoftheweek.squarespace.com/blog/2019/8/2/blossom-beetles-flower-longhorn-beetles-subfamily-lepturinae

https://docs.lib.purdue.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2256&context=open_access_dissertations.

Banded longhorns (Typocerus velutinus) (velutinus refers to the beetle’s golden “downiness”) are found in grasslands, prairies, pastures, or woody openings with wildflowers in eastern North America.  There must be dead hardwoods like oak and hickory nearby for its larvae.  Adults are often associated with Queen Anne’s lace (this one was on Water hemlock, which is in the same family) but they’ve been recorded on plants in the rose, elderberry, aster, viburnum, sumac, and dogbane families, where their downiness makes them good pollinators.

The delicate little GRASS BUG Arhyssus nigristernum (probably) is in the Scentless Plant bug family Rhopalidae, a family we have encountered before in the form of the Box elder bug.  There are 14 species in this New World genus, but only three occur in the weedy fields of the East.

There’s not much out there about Arhyssus nigristernum (no common name).  A different Arhyssus species is known to overwinter as an adult, and another genus member that lives in the Northwest is infamous, like the Box elder bug, for moving (harmlessly) inside for the winter (“home invasions,” says one newspaper article), and despite its family name, this species is said to smell “piney.”

The BugLady found this pretty and remarkably cooperative STRIPED SEDGE GRASSHOPPER (Stethophyma lineata) (or lineatum) in her favorite wetland this summer.  It’s in the Short-horned grasshopper family Acrididae and in the Band-winged grasshopper subfamily.  The Striped sedge grasshopper has northern affiliations – it’s found across North America as far north as Alaska and as far south as Colorado and New Jersey, although according to bugguide.net it seems to be getting scarce in the southern part of its range (it’s listed for northeastern but not for southeastern Wisconsin).

It lives on the edges of lakes, marshes, bogs, and wet meadows, and as its name suggests, its food is mostly sedges.

Many of the Band-winged grasshoppers have dramatically-striped wings, but this one’s wings are a sedate cocoa color https://bugguide.net/node/view/1882582/bgimage; it has great gams https://bugguide.net/node/view/311225/bgimage!

Fun Fact about the Striped sedge grasshopper: according to GRASSHOPPERS OF NORTHWEST TERRITORIES and adjacent regions, “This relatively large species is sometimes locally abundant and may be important in the diet of Sandhill and Whooping Cranes.”

#600!

Kate Redmond, The BugLady

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

Howdy, BugFans,

The BugLady loves wild bergamot – first, because it has classy flowers, and second, because she loves the clearwing moths that dance around their edges, leading her on an annual, merry chase.  She decided to see who else uses bergamot (with goldenrods and asters in their final inning, the BugLady is missing wildflowers already).

Wild bergamot (Monarda fistulosa) is sometimes called Bee balm, a name that’s also applied to a red species of bergamot in the eastern US.  It has a long history of human use – native peoples used it as an antiseptic on wounds and sores, to treat gum disease, colds, flu, and intestinal parasites, and like other members of the mint family, indigestion.  The leaves were brewed for tea (after the Boston Tea Party, bergamot was one of the settlers’ go-to tea substitutes), and they were added to stews for flavoring.  It makes a strong and distinctive honey, and the oil was used on acne and as a hair dressing.  The BugLady discovered an “off-label” use for it one day after she helped a small garter snake cross the road.  The snake obliged by musking her hands, so she grabbed a bunch of bergamot leaves and pulverized them in her hands, trading musk for mint.

It isn’t an easy plant for insects to use.  The flowers are long tubes (fistulosa means “reed,” or “pipe”), and even though the pollen-producing stamens are accessible, an insect must be specially equipped to get to the nectar (some wasps cheat by chewing through the sides).  Butterflies, moths, bee flies, and long-tongued bees like mining bees, cuckoo bees, and some bumble bees are the chief pollinators, but hummingbirds lend a hand, too.  Mint flowers have a protruding “lower lip” that insects use as a landing strip.  Some grazers find the strong, mint-flavored chemicals off-putting.

The wonderful Illinois Wildflowers website describes their blooming thus: “At the top of major stems are rounded heads of flowers about 1-3″ across. The flowers begin blooming in the center of the head, gradually moving toward its periphery, forming a wreath of flowers.”  Among the insects listed in the Illinois site’s “Faunal Associations” section is a specialist called the Beebalm shortface bee https://bugguide.net/node/view/1413882/bgimage that bugguide.net say lives in Wisconsin and Tennessee “Although maps show wider distribution.”  Something to look for next year.

The BugLady was surprised to learn that Wild bergamot is considered a weed in Nebraska.

Here are some of the insects and spiders the BugLady has spotted on bergamot over the years.  As always, there are bugs that come to dine, bugs that only visit for a brief rest, and others that come to stalk their prey.

This CABBAGE WHITE butterfly is showing us how it’s done – picking a flower and unrolling its curled proboscis to reach for nectar at the bottom of the tube.

JAGGED AMBUSH BUG – If you’re having trouble seeing it, so will its next meal (hint – its head is down and angled slightly to the left).

CRAB SPIDER –ditto – you can spot this goldenrod crab spider by looking for the red lines on either side of its abdomen – or by looking for its dangling prey.

And another CRAB SPIDER, but with a different camouflage strategy.

SNOWBERRY/BUMBLEBEE CLEARWING and CINNAMON CLEARWING MOTHS are members of the sphinx moth family (aka the hawk moths), a group of powerful flyers that often have dramatic color patterns https://bugguide.net/node/view/1810671/bgpage and an exaggerated spindle shape https://bugguide.net/node/view/1726114/bgimage.  Some species, like these, are day-flying, and they’re often mistaken for mini-hummingbirds.

The lovely HORSEMINT TORTOISE BEETLE eats bergamot and other members of the genus Monarda (https://uwm.edu/field-station/horsemint-tortoise-beetle/).  Like other tortoise beetles, its slightly-less-lovely larvae, which are Monarda leaf feeders, protect themselves both passively and actively by creating a “fecal shield.”  Read all about it at https://www.colorado.edu/asmagazine-archive/node/513.

SILVER-SPOTTED SKIPPERS are the biggest skippers in Wisconsin, but they’re not the only ones that nectar on bergamot – the BugLady has pictures of a half-dozen smaller (and more confusing) skipper species in the flowers.

The BugLady watched this BLACK SWALLOWTAIL throw itself at the bergamot over and over with total abandon.  She tries (probably not hard enough) to avoid anthropomorphism, but this butterfly’s actions seemed so exuberant!

BUMBLE BEES are strong enough to pry open tubular flowers – like mints, columbines, gentians, and peas – that are inaccessible to lesser insects.  This bumble bee seems to be one of the long-tongued species, but the BugLady isn’t sure whether bergamot flowers require force or finesse.

PENNSYLVANIA LEATHERWING BEETLES, members of the Soldier beetle family, are a fixture on goldenrods and nearby prairie plants during the month of August.  Adults are omnivores, feeding on nectar, pollen, and tiny invertebrates; and their larvae are carnivores.  This one looks a little rumpled, like it got out of the wrong side of the bed.

QUESTION MARKS have a silvery punctuation mark on the underside of the hind wing.  There are two generations each year and two color forms – the longer-tailed, “violet-tipped,” orange winter form https://bugguide.net/node/view/1306098/bgimage, and the darker-winged summer form https://bugguide.net/node/view/1302365/bgimage.  Spectacular caterpillar http://mothphotographersgroup.msstate.edu/species.php?hodges=4420.  Question marks and Commas, the anglewings, overwinter as adults in sheltered places.

And, of course, a SYRPHID FLY.

Also seen were a two-lined grasshopper, monarch butterfly, Virginia ctenucha moth, ants, and a bush katydid.

Kate Redmond, The BugLady

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

Howdy BugFans,

It’s no secret that the BugLady is enthralled by syrphid/hover/flower flies (family Syrphidae), those often-exquisitely-decorated little flies https://bugguide.net/node/view/407691/bgpage that mimic a variety of wasps and bees and are featured in so many of her “Summer Survey” episodes.  This summer she photographed several different “flavors” of syrphids, and so she’s sticking her toe into the shallow end of syrphid fly identification.  There are 6,000 species of syrphid flies worldwide –including 813 in North America, with more than 150 species around the Great Lakes alone, so she’s got her work cut out for her.

Despite their resemblance to insects with stingers, syrphids are innocent.  It’s called Batesian mimicry – something that’s harmless protects itself by resembling something that’s not.  It’s easy to tell the difference when they’re at rest – they don’t have stingers (a female’s tapered abdomen may make it look like she does https://bugguide.net/node/view/138871/bgimage), and where wasps and bees have four wings, flies only have two.  You can often see that a syrphid’s abdomen looks “deflated” https://bugguide.net/node/view/580219/bgimage.  Syrphid flies range in size from ¼” to the size of a small bumble bee.

Adults of many species feed on nectar and pollen that they sponge up with tubular mouthparts.  They’re good little pollinators (especially the hairier species), although most feed randomly on white or yellow flowers (unlike bumble bees, which target flowers of a particular species on each outing – flower constancy – ensuring that pollen gets delivered to the right place).

Their larvae (maggots) live a variety of lifestyles; some are decomposers, eating decaying organic bits or wet wood; some eat living plant material like ornamental flower bulbs (and are unwelcome in greenhouses), and others, although eyeless and with only rudimentary legs, prey on small invertebrates like aphids https://bugguide.net/node/view/1386581/bgimage.  The aquatic larvae of some species feed on tiny organisms and organic detritus in shallow waters and are called rat-tailed maggots (https://bugguide.net/node/view/166995/bgpage – the “tail” is a breathing tube), and a few live in ant or bumble bee nests.  The BugLady wonders if the syrphid larva in her picture escaped the lurking crab spider.

Adults find each other by sight and probably by sound – they can make a soft “hum” by vibrating some structures in their thorax that are independent of flight.  The BugLady couldn’t find anything about courtship https://bugguide.net/node/view/697135/bgimage, but females of carnivorous species lay eggs on vegetation near aphid colonies, and when the larvae hatch, they go to work.  After two or three weeks and around 400 aphids, the larvae are ready to form a pupal case inside of their hardened final larval skin (puparium) (looks like a slipper shell), and there they overwinter.

These are Fair-weather Flies – if you see one, it’s probably warm and sunny.  Most are also home-bodies, seldom leaving the area where they hatched.

The BugLady found an amazing paper about syrphid fly migration.  It’s a known phenomenon among some European species, and it had been recorded on the East Coast of North America nearly 100 years ago, but it had not been noted in the literature since then.  In the paper, researchers Menz, Brown, and Wotton discuss a migratory event that occurred in California in 2017 in which it was estimated that hundreds of thousands of syrphid flies passed over a 200 meter-long stretch of trail in 30 minutes.

Here are some of the syrphid flies that the BugLady saw this summer (for most, she’s resisting going out on her usual taxonomic limb and guessing their species).  Check them out – they’re all different!

TEMNOSTOMA adds a behavioral component to its deception – it extends its dark, front legs to look like antennae https://uwm.edu/field-station/wasp-mimics-family-syrphidae/.  There are eight species in the genus in North America.

NEOASCIA, bronze and lustrous, has aquatic larvae, so adults are found around wetlands.  There are only seven species in the area, and they’ve been blessed with great names like Black-margined fen fly, Black-kneed fen fly, Spotted fen fly, etc.

MILESIA – The BugLady went out her back door one day and found this big (3/4”) beautiful Virginia flower fly (Milesia virginiensis) sitting on the stoop.  There are only three species in this genus in the area; they’re dynamite wasp mimics, and they have a buzzy flight sound that contributes to the illusion (one common name is Yellowjacket hover fly).  The Southern yellowjacket is their doppelganger https://bugguide.net/node/view/1641780/bgimage, and a Southern nickname for these syrphids is the “News bee,” because of their habit of hovering in front of people as if conversing.  Here’s more information about this lovely fly: http://bugeric.blogspot.com/2013/08/the-news-bee.html.

HELOPHILUS flies have vertical stripes on their thorax and horizontal stripes on their abdomens (if you’re peeking over their shoulders).  Bugguide.net tells us that Helophilus means “marsh lover.”  There are nine species in the genus in North America, and a number are restricted to the very far north.  Eggs are laid on leaves above a pond, and the larvae drop into the water after hatching, where they feed on submerged, dead leaves.

ERISTALIS – She found two pretty different-looking members of the genus Eristalis – one native and one not.  According to bugguide.net, members of this genus are called Drone flies, though some reserve that name for Eristalis tenex.  There are 20 species in the genus in North America (several are non-native), and many are on the larger end of the syrphid fly size continuum.  According to bugguide.net, the genus name comes from the “Latin eristalis, a kind of gemstone, maybe opal.”

Eristalis tenax (the Drone fly) is non-native; it’s Eurasian in origin but has been here at least since the Civil War and is now found over most of the continent.  You may have to look twice (or thrice) to tell it’s not a honeybee, partly because of the color and partly because of behavior – this hover fly doesn’t hover, it flies like a bee.  Like the bees that they resemble, Drone flies can trap pollen grains in the hairs on their bodies and use their legs move the pollen to special bristles on their front and rear legs.  Unlike the bees they resemble, Drone flies eat the pollen off of their legs instead of bringing it home for a brood.

Eristalis flavipes gave the BugLady quite a start one day in the Bog when she realized that the “bumble bee” that she was chasing had a big rusty patch on its abdomen (https://uwm.edu/field-station/rusty-patched-bumble-bee/), but as soon as she looked at its tiny, round antennae and its big eyes, she knew it was a fly.  Not all individuals have the rusty patch.  Flavipes means “yellow-footed” so let’s call it the Yellow-footed flower fly.  The Yellow-footed flower fly fooled the BugLady because it forages like a bee rather than a fly, and because it has even adopted the bumble bee’s tone of voice.  It’s found in the northern two-thirds of North America.

See – they DO look different!  We can do this!

The BugLady

Howdy, BugFans,

Wow!  The first day of fall!  Much as she loves a nice fall day, the BugLady clings to summer (maybe that’s why she keeps buying peaches even though she knows she’ll be disappointed).  If you want to find bugs, look at flowers, so the BugLady has been searching the riot of wild sunflowers, asters, brown-eyed susans, and goldenrod.  Here are some of the bugs that have posed for her in the past month.

This mothy-looking CADDISFLY is actually not too distantly related to moths and butterflies.  Caddisflies’ aquatic larvae use silk to form a portable shelter from bits of vegetation or tiny stones (https://curious.royalbcmuseum.bc.ca/caddisfly-architecture/), though some skip the case and spin a net on a submerged rock so they can stay put in swift currents.  What are they good for?  Two words – Fish.  Food.  Fish prey on the larvae and on the emerging adults, and fly-tiers copy the caddisfly hatch https://www.orvis.com/p/slow-water-caddis/12a9.

Tiny (wingspread under an inch) EASTERN TAILED-BLUES have several broods throughout the summer.  They’re on the scene from May through September, and according to the Wisconsin Butterflies website (https://wisconsinbutterflies.org/butterfly), a few hardy individuals have been recorded into the first week of November!  In September, look for them close to the ground, ovipositing on white clover in mowed paths.  If your eyes are spry, you can see the contrast between their slate blue upper wings and their pale blue underwings in flight.

OBLONG-WINGED KATYDIDS should be green, right?  It turns out that color is negotiable in some Orthopterans (grasshoppers, katydids, etc.).  This species comes in brown, orange,

tan https://bugguide.net/node/view/273155/bgimage,

yellow https://bugguide.net/node/view/139882/bgimage,

and Pepto pink https://bugguide.net/node/view/126381/bgimage.

Here’s a paper about their colors https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/running-ponies/in-north-american-katydids-green-isne28099t-the-dominant-colour-pink-is/, and here’s what they sound like https://songsofinsects.com/katydids/oblong-winged-katydid.

A female SWAMP SPREADWING damselfly deposits eggs into a plant stem as the male guards her by clinging to the back of her head.

This small TREE FROG bit off a little more than it could chew.  It managed to swallow the front half of a meadowhawk dragonfly, but it doesn’t seem to have enough room to swallow the rear half.  Lots of roughage in dragonflies.

OAK SAWFLY LARVAE – If you turn over a partially-skeletonized oak leaf in summer, you may find these cute little skeletonizers, which look like slightly gooey caterpillars but are actually the larvae of members of a primitive wasp family.  They eat the tender leaf tissue and leave the tough veins, and the end result looks like a macramé project.

A MELOE BEETLE, a male, based on that crook in mid-antenna, descended the side of the log and joined another Meloe beetle, and hanky-panky ensued.  Meloe/Oil beetles, in the genus Meloe, are members of the blister beetle family.  “Oil beetles” because when they’re alarmed, they secrete oily drops from their joints that contain poisonous cantharidin, which causes nasty blisters on skin and does serious damage if taken internally.

AUTUMN MEADOWHAWKS are the last dragonflies of the season, able to survive a few light frosts and operate in daytime temperatures down to about 50 degrees (although by then, there’s not much prey in the air).  This one chose a backdrop of colorful dogwood leaves.

The BugLady found this handsome JUMPING SPIDER, Marpisa bina, at a nearby State Natural Area (thanks, as always, to BugFan Mike for the ID).  Not a lot is known about the 10 species in the genus, but most are wetland-dwellers.

Well-camouflaged CAROLINA LOCUSTS hunker on the trails, waiting until the BugLady practically steps on them before taking off on yellow-trimmed, black wings, and imitating, briefly, butterflies.

BUMBLE BEES, honey bees, and wasps of all stripes are abundant on flowers these days.  Honeybees maintain their hives throughout the winter, but bumble bee and paper wasp nests are annual affairs – started from scratch by new queens every spring.  The activities of the nest will cease with the frosts, but nobody’s told the workers.

MULTICOLORED ASIAN LADYBUG – Oh sure, it’s cute now, but pretty soon it will be looking for a way into your house https://uwm.edu/field-station/asian-multicolored-ladybug-redux/.

MONARCH – What would a late summer round-up be without Monarchs?  About a week ago, the BugLady walked the prairie trails at Forest Beach Migratory Preserve and saw 249 crisp, new Gen 5 monarchs (the migratory generation), most nectaring on asters and goldenrods, sometimes 10 or 20 butterflies on a single clump of plants.  Quality nectar plants are critical on the leisurely trip south – a newly-emerged Monarch has about 20 milligrams of fat in its body, but it needs to pack in another 100 milligrams of fat before it arrives in Mexico (trace that journey here https://maps.journeynorth.org/map/?map=monarch-peak-migration&year=2020).  These fat reserves sustain it during the winter (if you never click on any of the BOTW links, please try this one https://fstoppers.com/documentary/drone-disguised-hummingbird-captures-incredible-footage-monarch-butterfly-swarm-480714).

Go outside – it ain’t over until it’s over.

Kate Redmond, The BugLady

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

Howdy, BugFans,

We’ve had a major emergence of migratory Common Green Darners in the past 10 days.  They’ve been feeding along Lake Michigan’s western shoreline, zigzagging over the roadway and fields, socking away calories (those floodwater mosquitoes are good for something), and roosting in the cedars.  Pushed south by cold fronts, they’ll cover seven or more miles a day, and it will take them weeks to get to their destination.  They’re on their way, and maybe a little part of those of us who see them, goes with them.

Common Green Darners (Anax junius – “the Lord of June!”), hummingbird-sized dragonflies that, yes, sometimes attempt to prey on hummingbirds, have graced these pages before.  Here are some links to past episodes https://uwm.edu/field-station/common-green-darner-rest-story-family-aeshnidae/ and https://uwm.edu/field-station/dragonfly-swarm/, and a quick review.

Dragonflies have been around for 275 million years.  Back in the day (the Carboniferous and Permian day) some dragonfly ancestors had wingspreads of two-and-a-half feet and weighed a pound – crow-sized, according to the University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s Entomology website.  There was more oxygen in the air then, and that allowed insects and other invertebrates, which take in air passively through holes called spiracles, more oxygen to nourish their cells.  Think six-foot millipedes.

Wisconsin has two populations of Common Green Darners (family Aeshnidae), and because of that, they can be seen in our skies from May through September.  The migratory crew arrives in mid-spring, fresh from their winter range in the Southeastern US, Texas, and Mexico, one of about a dozen kinds of dragonflies that migrates out of the 400-ish species in North America.  They mate, oviposit, and die off, but as they do, the resident population starts to emerge from the warming waters.  There’s a big difference in the phenology of their offspring (called naiads – or nymphs, if you must – but never larvae).  Naiads of the migrant darners mature quickly, ready to emerge from beneath the water by late August.  Naiads from the eggs of the resident population, deposited in submerged plant stems throughout summer, take about 10 months to mature.

Big assemblages of Common Green Darners – swarms – may be seen from early August on, depending on the weather.  An aquatic entomologist who blogs under the name of “Dragonfly Woman” collects reports of dragonfly swarms.  Dragonfly Woman divides swarming behavior into low-altitude, static (mostly feeding) swarms and higher-altitude migratory swarms (and she wants to hear about both).  Static swarms tend to be localized, with groups of dragonflies milling around no higher than about 20 feet off the ground.  Migratory swarms are fast-moving “rivers of hundreds of thousands of dragonflies all flying in a single direction and covering large distances.”  Both migratory and feeding swarms can contain a mixture of species.

Explanation: The BugLady’s first internet connection, back in the dawn of time, was dial-up, and she’s still traumatized by it (she used to start downloading a picture and go wash dishes until it was complete), so she tries not to send huge picture files.  The attached “darner swarm” picture is a big file, but if you can zoom it, you can see a feeding swarm of darners glittering over a low, wet field at the end of August.  How many?

At this time last year, the BugLady spent parts of three or four days on a hawk tower counting migrating raptors, surrounded by a river of dragonflies – tens and hundreds of thousands of dragonflies, from horizon to horizon, moving steadily south.  It was a religious experience.  Primordial.  The fall dragonfly migration is no secret from the raptors, and several species of falcons grab the darners out of the air and dine on the wing.

The BugLady visited Forest Beach Migratory Preserve recently on a windy day when the Common Green Darners, various mosaic darners, and Black Saddlebags did not want to be aloft; they wanted to shelter in the grasses and trees.  As she climbed a low hill, darners exploded from the conifers at the top, circled, and settled back down, and it seemed like every plant stem and tuft of grass hid a few.  What a thrill!  She walked around the trail apologizing to the darners for kicking them up, and laughing at herself, because even though she imagines that she has a pretty good “dragonfly search image,” they almost always see her long before she sees them (and she confesses that in one of the pictures with two darners in it, she didn’t see the second until she put the picture up on the monitor).  In one shot, you can scan the edge of the mowed path, as the BugLady does, except that most darners aren’t pre-marked by red “X’s.”

She has said it before and she’ll say it again – with apologies to major conservation organizations everywhere – she is more concerned about the fates of dragonflies and other insects than of giant pandas, cheetahs, elephants and grizzly bears.

Go outside, park yourself on the edge of Lake Michigan, and enjoy the show.  And report your dragonfly swarms at https://thedragonflywoman.com/dsp/report/.

Kate Redmond, The BugLady

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

Salutations, BugFans,

The BugLady is getting close to 600 of these episodes (probably would have done a few things differently if she’d known).  Some are memorable to her because the writing has stood the test of time, others because the star of the show is a particular favorite, and still others because the bug turned out to be just so cool!  That has been the fun of BOTW – discovering the amazing and sometimes surprising design features and super powers that insects have.  The shore rove beetle was one of those.  The BugLady found it by accident 6 years ago while she was doing something else.  She hasn’t seen one since, but it just stuck in her brain.

Sometimes (often), the facts about an insect do not come tied up neatly with a bow, and the research seeps out of the realm of the six-legged and raises as many questions as it answers.

In early May of 2014, the BugLady was photographing Equisetum/Horsetail (because it’s such a neat plant) not far from a wetland edge.  Field horsetail (Equisetum arvense), a common roadside species, first raises a tan, non-photosynthetic, fertile stalk topped by a structure called a cone, which bears the spore-producing sporangiophores (modified leaves).  Spores are released, and this stage is followed by a sterile, green plant that looks like a mini-pine tree and that photosynthesizes, its energy stored in a perennial rhizome.  In other species of equisetum, the fertile cone is located on top of the sterile stem (for an equisetum side trip and The. Most. Awesome. Video. EVER! see http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/artful-amoeba/flying-for-free-the-horsetail-spore-way/).

The BugLady noticed that the tops of some of the cones had been grazed.  Who did it?  Based on the height of the truncated stalks, the likely suspects are rabbits or red squirrels.  The BugLady found a lot of information about the unwholesomeness of the sterile Equisetum plants for livestock, and about its medicinal uses, but not much about the fertile stalk.  The spores pack no nutrients for the future plant – they do contain chlorophyll and some moisture – they have to hit the ground running (pollen, on the other hand, is rich in nutrients).  Are the spore-producing tissues nutritionally desirable?  Similar structures in certain fungi contain lipids and proteins.  The fertile Equisetum plant has apparently been eaten (with caution) for millennia, and the cone is listed as “edible” in a few (very few) foraging books.

She was not expecting to see any Equisetum– insect interactions, and yet she observed a sawfly ovipositing into a horsetail stem (a story for another day), and she found this small rove beetle in the genus Stenus, doing — something.

Rove beetles (family Staphylinidae) comprise the largest beetle family in North America (in the World, maybe, with the possible exception of the weevils), and they are a very diverse bunch.  The US hosts more than 5,000 species of these typically small, slender, speedy beetles, with their much-shortened elytra (wing covers).  Although they may look wingless, their wings are folded underneath https://bugguide.net/node/view/170319/bgimage (like Origami, said one source), and they are good flyers.  When alarmed, they posture like a scorpion http://bugguide.net/node/view/885251/bgimage, but they’re harmless (well, except for the caustic/nasty-tasting chemicals that some deliver from the tip of the abdomen).  Their lives are often lived under the cover of leaf litter.

The genus Stenus is in the subfamily Steninae, the Water Skaters/Water Gliders, and they’re described as semi-aquatic.  It’s a large genus, with 167 North American species, and for once, the BugLady is not going to try to guess which.  Turns out that there a number of super powers residing in that bug-eyed little body.

So, what was this rove beetle doing on the Equisetum?  Not eating it (probably…) – these are carnivores (OK, the Peterson Beetle guide says “all are believed to be carnivorous”).  They make their living hunting springtails, mites, aphids, and other tiny invertebrates along the marsh and stream edges they inhabit.  Whether Stenus is eating the plant tissue or going after another invertebrate feeding there, it would seem to be taking advantage of a break in the cone that was initiated by something larger.

Watch a shore rove beetle in action at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_MB6GHlXJY&index=91&list=PLzr0J2sWC1QiypVYj-TSWGdOzJlTmvN7r

Stenus has developed a pretty awesome adaptation that increases its odds of putting food on the table – a mouth part (labium) that it can extend like a telescoping pole just by increasing the blood pressure to that area.  Springtails have pretty fast reflexes, and sources disagree about whether that they are too quick for Stenus to be successful consistently (and springtails are covered with slippery scales that are sacrificed if they get grabbed).

Rather than being a sharpened “harpoon,” the labium is covered with a variety of bristles and by pores that secrete a glue that sticks to about any surface.  When it scores a bulls-eye, the Stenus retracts its amazing mouthpart, pulling its prey up to its mandibles (which are described as “sickle-like”) and injecting pre-digestive juices that soften the hapless critter.  The BugLady likes to photograph mini-critters, but the Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) does it better https://scrubmuncher.wordpress.com/2010/01/15/ravenous-rove-beetles/.  This highly specialized mouthpart seems to argue against herbivory.

Stenus also enjoys Better Living through Chemistry.  Some, but not all, members of the genus live in close association with water, where they are small enough and light enough to scoot across the surface film (at 2 – 3 cm/second) without breaking through.  In the event that they do perforate the surface film or if they need to move more hastily, they can release a hydrophobic (water-repelling) alkaloid called stenusine from the tip of their abdomen.  Stenusine spreads quickly and forcefully across the water’s surface, and the “equal and opposite reaction” is that the beetle shoots forward at speeds between 45 and 70 cm/second (the equivalent, say the people who did the math, of a human-sized beetle being propelled up to 550 mph).  After a few such squirts, the beetle must replenish its stock of stenusine.

But Stenus species that are not intimately associated with water also produce stenusine.  Why?  Stenus rove beetles groom themselves.  A lot.  And they spread stenusine and a few related chemicals all over themselves (it’s called “secretion grooming” – isn’t scientific terminology grand?).  Why?  Turns out that these substances are toxic to fungi and bacteria that might afflict the beetles, and they act as “feeding deterrents” for the beetle’s predators.

Final “Whys” of the day.  Stenus beetles also manufacture a chemical called cicindeloine; it’s part of the anti-predator/anti-microorganism cocktail.  There’s a (European) rove beetle with the name Stenus cicindeloides https://eol.org/pages/3386562 that looks like a cookie-cutter Stenus.  But chemicals are generally named after the organism that produces them, and Cicindelidae is the family name of the Tiger beetles,.  So, why is there a rove beetle species and a rove beetle protective chemical named for Tiger beetles?

A day in the life of a BugLady.

Kate Redmond, The BugLady

Here’s an electric blue Stenus from Asia https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Stenus_fretus#/media/File:Stenus_fretus_Cast._(3211755041)_(2).jpg.

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

Howdy, BugFans,

Homage: “something that someone does or says in order to show respect or admiration.” (Macmillan).  In this case, it’s a grudging tip of the hat – we may not appreciate them, but we acknowledge that they are very good indeed at what they do.

The BugLady struck a deal with mosquitoes a very long time ago – she doesn’t bite them and they don’t bite her (alternatively, as one of her offspring suggested, she may just be tough and sour).  The only species that didn’t sign off on the pact, and the only species that raises a welt on her, is what she’s always called the “August mosquitoes” – the small, aggressive floodwater mosquitoes that seem to be biting with one end before they’ve fully touched down with the other.

There’s been a lot of rain in the BugLady’s corner of Wisconsin lately (including a localized 7” deluge that drowned the BugLady’s car in its parking lot, a story for another day).  Ample rain in the weeks before that had given the floodwater mosquitoes a start.  The BugLady will be trying to squeeze in a lot of trail time now, in an attempt to beat the inevitable population explosion.

Floodwater mosquitoes made the news here in 2018, when a dry July was followed by massive rainfall in August, which was followed by a massive mosquito hatch that made September miserable.  School groups that traveled to the local Nature Center for outdoor experiences were begging to go inside after only 15 minutes outside.

With some insects, you look at the common or the scientific name and wonder about the story behind it.  Not so with the floodwater mosquito/inland floodwater/freshwater mosquito.  The common names are pretty straightforward; the scientific name Aedes vexans comes from the Greek aedes, meaning odious or unpleasant and the Latin vexare, meaning “to annoy, torment, or harass.”  A century ago, it was called Culex sylvestris, the swamp mosquito.

They’re found in damp areas on five continents (they haven’t discovered or been inadvertently carried to Hawaii, Antarctica or South America yet), and they’re less common in far southern, far northern, and high-altitude North America.  Their needs are simple – food, in the form of nectar (him) and the blood of a large mammal (her), shelter, and a suitable place to deposit her eggs.

Males https://bugguide.net/node/view/1340555/bgimage, of course, are strict vegetarians, feeding on nectar and honeydew.  Females also consume carbs, but she needs protein from a blood meal in order to form eggs https://bugguide.net/node/view/11025/bgimage.  Larvae https://bugguide.net/node/view/1751200/bgimage eat bacteria and other tiny goodies they find in the water and on underwater surfaces.  For a Mosquitoes 101 review, see https://uwm.edu/field-station/the-mighty-mosquito/.

Their egg-laying protocol, which is typical of the genus, calls for the female to gamble.  She lays around 150 eggs, placing them on the ground, one at a time, near water at damp, grassy edges and in roadside ditches and depressions – spots that are destined to get wet – rather than directly into standing water like most mosquitoes.  She makes her choice based on her read of the existing soil moisture and on the presence of enough leaf litter to keep the soil damp until it floods.  When these areas become pools after a rain, her eggs can hatch into aquatic larvae within a week and emerge as adults in another week, especially in warm temperatures.  There are multiple generations per year, and they are with us throughout the mosquito season – one exterminator says that at any given moment, 40% to 50% of mosquitoes on the wing are floodwater mosquitoes.  The final generation overwinters as eggs, ready to get down to business the following spring.  Adults live for three to six weeks.

And if it doesn’t rain?  No worries – her eggs can dry out and wait for years for the right conditions to come along and rehydrate them.

Unlike other mosquitoes, floodwater mosquitoes are no stay-at-homes, traveling ten miles and more from breeding sites.  They are certainly tenacious – one sat on the BugLady’s wrist as she changed camera lenses so she could take its picture – denim does not faze them, and, they’re hard to photograph because most of them head directly for the ears, face, and neck.

When it comes to the floodwater mosquito’s epidemiological reputation, the reviews are mixed.  Aedes is a largely tropical/subtropical genus that contains some notorious disease-spreaders.  One source was relieved that, since there are so darn many of them, floodwater mosquitoes don’t carry diseases (on this continent).  Other sources say that they have the genetic potential for carrying several kinds of encephalitis, Zika, and West Nile Virus (and have transmitted them under laboratory conditions), but they are not a factor in transmission in the field.  Still others say that they do spread these diseases, plus dog heartworm, but they are “secondary vectors” – that is, other mosquito species, notably Culex species, do the heavy lifting and the floodwater mosquito simply dabbles.

Who would have guessed that laying eggs on land would be a successful strategy for mosquitoes!

Kate Redmond, The BugLady

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

Howdy, BugFans,

It’s High Summer, and a lot has been going on out there.  Many species have already peaked and disappeared from the scene, assuming, until next year, whatever form they spend the majority of their lives in.  Others are coming into their own.  Here are some of the sights the BugLady has seen in local prairies and wetlands.

ANTS are everywhere, foraging for proteins and carbs, including milkweed nectar to take home to their families.  Some species of ants have workers that are essentially tanker trucks.  Ants are no great shakes as pollinators, due to their slippery little bodies and fastidious grooming habits, and besides that, they’re pedestrians, so the pollen doesn’t travel far.  (Family Formicidae)

BLUE MUD DAUBER WASP – Cup plants have “perfoliate” leaves that look like two “conjoined leaves” but are actually a single leaf whose base is joined around the stem, making it look like the stem is piercing it.  For a few days after a rain, reservoirs made by the cup plant’s leaves hold water that’s appreciated by all sorts of small animals.  The wasp uses mud to construct chambers for her eggs, but she doesn’t carry water to dirt, spit on it, and stir.  She may just be thirsty.  (Family Sphecidae)

STRIPED HAIRSTREAK – The BugLady found this small butterfly of dappled woods and edges while she was surveying water hemlock plants for an up-coming episode.  Adults nectar on available flowers, and Butterflies of the Great Lakes Region tells us that “Early in the morning, they will sip dew from leaves as they bask.”  They’re not-very-common – “scattered lightly over our landscape,” says “The Butterflies of Massachusetts” website, “widely distributed although nowhere abundant.”  The theory is that the eyespots on the hind wing confuse predators.  (Family Lycaenidae)

HORSEFLY – Just a glamour shot of a horse fly, that’s all.  (Family Tabanidae)

PARASITIZED – This dangling caterpillar was discovered in its infancy by a small, parasitic wasp that laid an egg in it.  The wasp larva hatched, and then it ate and grew within the caterpillar, which was trying to do the same, but whose existence had been repurposed.  When it was ready to pupate, the wasp dealt the coup de grace to its unfortunate host, exited, and spun a cocoon on the outside.  As Darwin once said of parasitoids, “I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created the Ichneumonidae with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of Caterpillars.”

AMERICAN CARRION BEETLE – The BugLady has seen a number of adult carrion beetles flying around –black and yellow and big and buzzy – trying to convince her that they’re bumble bees, but she rarely sees the larvae.  Adults lay their eggs on dead animals, and then stick around on the carcass doing “pest control” (eating the competition) before their well-armored larvae hatch and for a while afterward.  The larvae will also eat other larvae they find on “their” carrion.  (Family Silphidae)

EASTERN AMBERWING – The BugLady’s favorite insect is the Tiger Swallowtail, but the Eastern Amberwing is on her long list of second-favorites.  This feisty 0.9” dragonfly has an attitude way bigger than its size.  (Family Libellulidae)

A JUMPING SPIDER in the genus Pelegrina (thanks as always for the ID, BugFan Mike) is another critter with attitude.  You can see why jumping spiders have fan clubs.  (Family Salticidae)

COMMON BUCKEYE – The BugLady has way more shots of this beautiful butterfly sitting on the ground than on flowers (when it sits on flowers, it prefers composites); it typically flits along 6’ ahead of her on mowed paths.  It’s a Southern migrant to God’s Country, arriving in early summer, but the migrants produce a brood once they’re here.  The undersides of the wings of the migrants https://bugguide.net/node/view/1460171/bgimage and the later/fall broods https://bugguide.net/node/view/1301685/bgimage are different – if you’re lucky enough to see one with its wings closed.  If the Striped Hairstreak’s eyespots are meant to confuse, the Buckeye’s are meant to intimidate. (Family Nymphalidae)

CINNAMON CLEARWING MOTH – So cool!  So speedy!  Clearwing moths are in the Sphinx moth family Sphingidae; we have two species around here, and the BugLady has plenty of out-of-focus shots of each.  Like chasing sprites.

ROBBER FLY – Some robber flies are small and shy, but Promachus vertebratus is neither.  At about an inch long, it was almost the same size as the Halloween Pennant dragonflies the BugLady was photographing at the same time.  It makes “annoyed” sounds when you kick it up in the fields (attitude again).  These flies prey on anything they can catch – the BugLady has a shot of one holding a Clouded Sulphur butterfly.  (Family Asilidae)

WHITEFACE AND BLUET – The BugLady was stalking dragonflies at Spruce Lake Bog when a Dot-tailed Whiteface dragonfly grabbed a Marsh Bluet damselfly and sat down beside her.  Something buzzed the duo loudly – maybe a robber fly – and the startled dragonfly released its prey.  As the whiteface moved to a different perch, the damselfly shook it off and flew away.  No damselflies were harmed to make this picture.  (Families Libellulidae and Coenagrionidae)

Go outside – look at bugs!

Kate Redmond, The BugLady

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

Greetings, BugFans,

Dragonfly July is drawing to an end.

The BugLady’s younger daughter and her friends have been taking to our northern woods and lakes this summer (where the cool bugs are), and she’s sent tantalizing pictures of her encounters.  A large Emerald dragonfly perched in the middle of her campsite, a spectacular darner, and this guy, a Dragonhunter, which apparently checked them out as they paddled, sat on a kayak, and even sat on one of the paddlers.  Shout-out and photo credit to BugFan Laurel.

The BugLady thinks of this species, like loons, as the voice of the north woods, and while it is true that it occurs in the northern half of Wisconsin, its range actually extends from the Maritime Provinces to Manitoba to Texas (except for southern Wisconsin/northern Illinois and the south end of Florida).  Look for it along sunny rivers and streams with a moderate/fast current, on lakes and bays, or foraging over open roadways or along woodland edges.

This is one spectacular dragonfly, and everything it does is larger than life; Kurt Mead (Dragonflies of the North Woods) calls it “a legendary insect.”  It is 3 ½” long and is often called our bulkiest/most massive dragonfly.  Its coloring is a stark yellow and black with black legs and black-veined wings (its naiad is unique, too).  Its behavior is aggressive – and inquisitive – and its choice of prey is startling.  Even its pedigree is unusual.  The Dragonhunter, aka the Black Dragon (Hagenius brevistylus), is the largest of our clubtails (family Gomphidae) and is an American specialty, the only member in its genus (its closest, relatives, equally large, are in the genus Sieboldius on the Asian continent).

Here’s what they look like when they’re not perched on the bow of a lime green kayak – an adult male https://bugguide.net/node/view/262939/bgimage, an adult female https://bugguide.net/node/view/1149299/bgimage, and a face to face https://bugguide.net/node/view/732248/bgimage.  The club at the end of the abdomen is pretty narrow, and the downward-curved tip of the abdomen is typical, even in flight.

Their long, strong wings allow them to chase fast-flying prey (they can hit about 25 mph) and their legs are equipped with stout spines so they can hang onto it.  Legler, in Dragonflies of Wisconsin, says, “When feeding it perches on dirt roads waiting for other dragonflies, including darners, to fly down the road. The Dragonhunter then swoops up after the darner from behind. Or it may perch on branches high in treetops. It then swoops down on passing dragonflies and back up to the treetop to eat.”  Dragonflies (sometimes even other Dragonhunters), make up a respectable proportion of their menu (here’s one with a Widow Skimmer https://bugguide.net/node/view/905550/bgimage).

So, too, do large butterflies https://bugguide.net/node/view/1104558/bgimage.  One author reported seeing a pile of swallowtail wings beneath a perch frequented by a Dragonhunter, and they also hunt for monarchs, especially when monarchs are numerous.  Monarch butterflies, of course, are poisonous due to the milkweed sap they ingest as caterpillars; the highest levels of toxins are in their wings, but the Dragonhunters discard those, preferring the butterfly’s thorax and abdomen.  When pressed by Dragonhunters, monarchs change their behavior, eschewing their preferred sunlight and feeding in the shade that Dragonhunters avoid.

And then there are hummingbirds.  The BugLady found a note in the journal of a Welsh dragonfly society about one of its members who, while on vacation in Canada, came across a Dragonhunter attempting to subdue a Ruby-throated Hummingbird that was about the same size.  He managed to separate them (carefully and with some difficulty) and they went their separate ways (Yes, there’s a picture.  Scroll down. https://www.cofnod.org.uk/OpenCalendarFile.ashx?ID=1122&AspxAutoDetectCookieSupport=1).

They seem impervious to the stings of bees and wasps, which they also catch.

The dark, quarter-sized naiads https://bugguide.net/node/view/1640761/bgimage, disguised among the fallen leaves on the river’s floor, eat small invertebrates including other dragonfly naiads, and young amphibians and fish.

Male Dragonhunters are territorial, showing off along the sunny edges of their waterways.  They mate in the treetops https://bugguide.net/node/view/302261/bgimage and don’t do a lot of tandem flying, and the female often emerges from the experience a little the worse for wear (as Ohio nature writer Jim McCormac says, “The courtship is Neanderthalish, no gentle New Age insect here.”).  Males have short, strong claspers, and his firm grasp often punctures her head or eyes.  Both male and female are polygamous.

Females fly across short stretches of open water, ovipositing by tapping the tip of her abdomen into the water or by tossing eggs in from above (Legler again, “Or, most remarkably, she sometimes swings her abdomen rigidly like a golf club knocking little a globule of eggs and water up onto the bank!”).  Eggs are gel-covered and sticky and are soon camouflaged by a layer of silt.  The naiad stage is a long one, lasting from four to seven years, depending on the water temperature, and not surprisingly, the naiads are pretty freeze-tolerant.  Like some other clubtails, they stage large, synchronized emergences in early summer, with naiads leaving the water en masse and crawling up onto the shore and even up tree trunks https://bugguide.net/node/view/23665/bgimage.  Adults live about three months.

Females are colored similarly to males, and unlike many other dragonfly species, are found around the water when not breeding (no one messes with her).

The Twentieth century brought an unneeded complication into the lives of Dragonhunter naiads, in the form of alien zebra mussels, immigrants from Europe that like to fasten to stationary objects (for more about zebra mussels see https://uwm.edu/field-station/a-tale-of-two-mussels-the-one-two-punch/).  Their round, flat shape and the fact that, unlike other clubtail species, the naiads don’t burrow makes them an attractive substrate to the mussels.  A small load of mussels doesn’t affect the naiad’s feeding but can hinder its final molt.

Paulson, in Dragonflies and Damselflies of the East, says that “Adults at water usually approachable” https://bugguide.net/node/view/706067/bgimage, and the Dragonhunter is sitting on the kayaker’s head, and that brings us to the BugLady’s friend Joe, who walked to the shore of a northern lake, put out his hand, and a Dragonhunter came in and sat on it.

Kate Redmond, The BugLady

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