Salutations, BugFans,
Variegated Meadowhawks started appearing in the state from the south and southwest in mid-April this year. Their appearances were brief – they have places to go – but they leave eggs behind in our ponds. Their offspring will emerge in late summer to decorate our landscapes briefly before they leave, too.
The BugLady massaged this episode from 2012 – some new words and new pictures.
04.26.23
Greetings, BugFans
BIRCH CATKIN BUGS (Kleidocerys resedae) are in the suborder Heteroptera and in the Seed Bug family Lygaeidae – “Seed bugs” because most family members (like Milkweed bugs) feed on seeds, puncturing them with piercing mouthparts. Due to the chemicals they pick up from the plants they eat, many Lygaeids don’t taste so good, and some (like Milkweed bugs) are clad in bright colors to advertise that fact. Most Lygaeid species also have stink glands, and so the term “stink bug” may be applied pretty loosely, but the Hemipterans that are officially called Stink bugs belong to the Stink bug family Pentatomidae. Birch catkin bugs have an odor that some people call strong and unpleasant, but that blogger Larry Hodgson, the Laidback Gardener, described as “intense, with a hint of wintergreen.”
04.19.23
Greetings, BugFans
The BugLady visited one of her favorite wetlands the other day, looking for spring. It’s early days for flowering plants around here (and for insects, other than flies), but our two earliest wildflowers – pussy willows and skunk cabbage – are happily doing their thing. It will be a little while before the flowering plants in the wetlands start to bloom, but mosses and liverworts are putting on a show ahead of that, and soon the fern fiddleheads, lichens, liverworts, and horsetails/Equisetum will join the chorus. Nothing beats the smell of a wetland!
Skunk cabbage (Symplocarpus foetidus) (Symplocarpus foetidus means “clustered fruit that is fetid,” and isn’t that awesome!) is a member of the Arum family, Araceae (culinary cabbages aren’t). There are more than 3700 Arum species worldwide, mostly tropical, and the members of the family that grow in and around our area wetlands – skunk cabbage, Jack-in-the-pulpit, and wild calla (plus arrow arum in a few parts of the state) – are some of our oddest-looking wildflowers.
04.12.23
Howdy, BugFans,
The first thing you should know about Black widows is that they need better PR. Widow spiders are so-named because the female (allegedly) eats the male after mating. It’s called “sexual cannibalism,” and the protein meal is supposed to boost the chances of successful egg-laying. But, this is a behavior that was first observed in the lab, where the male had few escape options, and it’s suspected that it happens far less frequently in the wild.
04.05.23
Greetings, BugFans,
The Cruiser dragonflies, aka River Emeralds or River Cruisers, are not shrinking violets – they are powerful dragonflies that have a reputation among dragonfly fans as the most difficult of the dragonflies to net (maybe because they’re highly maneuverable and they can hit flight speeds of up to 40 mph). Older books include them in the Emerald family Corduliidae, but they are now listed in the family Macromiidae, a small family with 9 species in two genera in North America, and about 120 species worldwide.
Look for Cruisers around shallow, sunny rivers, streams, bays, channels, and lakes with good water quality. They’re found from coast to coast except in the Rockies and Northern Great Plains.
03.29.23
Howdy, BugFans,
The BugLady is always ambivalent about photographing flies, even when they pose nicely. There are a whole heck of a lot of species of Diptera (“two wings”) out there – 17,000 in North America and 150,000 worldwide (some estimates of the eventual total go as high as a million species) – so unless it’s a really dramatic fly, there’s a pretty good chance the picture will end up in the “X-Files.”
The “Without Bios” series celebrates insects whose profile is low – insects that are neither big enough nor bad enough nor beautiful enough to have been studied much, if at all.
03.15.23
Howdy, BugFans,
Hairstreaks (and Blues and Coppers and Harvesters) are members of the Gossamer-winged butterfly family Lycaenidae (“Gossamer-winged” being a nod to the iridescent sheen on the wings of many family members). Numbering nearly 5,000 mostly tropical species worldwide – 30% of butterfly species – Lycaenidae is the second-largest butterfly family (the Brush-foots outnumber them). The BugLady associates hairstreak butterflies with butterfly weed and hot, sunny prairie days.
03.08.23
Howdy, BugFans,
It’s time for a dragonfly. In fact, it’s past time for a dragonfly. The BugLady has not seen this species yet (BugFan Freda has, and she contributed her pictures. Thanks, Freda) but she’s looking forward to the end of the rain/sleet/graupel/freezing rain/snow season and to the return of the green so she can look for one.
03.02.23
Howdy, BugFans,
As usual, the BugLady’s “Bugs in the News” folder runneth over, so here’s a collection of articles to chew on.
02.23.23
It’s a good thing that the common usage of the term “bug” is so inexact, because once again we are stretching its boundaries to/past the limits.
Horsehair worms are in the Phylum Nematomorpha (which is different from the Nematode worms). They’re skinny and long; this individual was maybe five inches long, but some species grow to one or two feet long. They have a hard, chitinous covering. They come in opaque yellow to tan to brown to black colors. They’re wiry and cylindrical, with little tapering at either end (unlike the nearby Nematodes).
01.25.23