Tag: stink bug

Bug o’the Week – Wildflower Watch – Cup-Plant Cosmos II

Bug o’the Week
by Kate Redmond

Wildflower Watch – Cup-Plant Cosmos II

Greetings, BugFans,

The BugLady usually times the Wildflower Watch episodes so that BugFans can rush out and see the flower in bloom with its attendant bugs, but it’s the middle of January, and the BugLady is ready for spring.  At least the Technicolor part of it (with apologies to the Cardinals and Blue Jays at the bird feeder but not to the Mourning Doves and Juncos).

Cup-plant (Silphium perfoliatum) is one of four Silphium species (prairie dock, compass plant, rosinweed, and cup-plant) that are typically seen in our tallgrass prairies.  The size and shape and arrangement of leaves varies with the species, but all are tough and gritty leaves that are difficult for insects to chew on.  They are in the Aster family, related to sunflowers.  Our shortest Silphium, rosinweed, may grow four or five feet tall, but the flowering stalks of the other species may be well over six feet.

It gets its name from the way the clasping, opposite leaves are fused around the stalk at their bases, forming a cup.  They’re called perfoliate leaves, and the plant looks like its square stem is growing through a series of single leaves.

Cup-plant was used medicinally for colds, rheumatism, fevers, stomach ailments, and back pains, on burns, to prevent nausea, and more.  Young leaves were cooked (and were rated by one author as “acceptable greens”), and the resin was used as a chewing gum. 

In Where the Sky Began, John Madson writes about compass plants that, “[Pioneers] found that [the compass plant] produced a pretty good brand of native chewing gum. Drops of clear sap exude from the upper third of the stem and solidify with exposure.

It has an odd, pine-resin taste that’s pleasant enough, but it must be firmed up before it’s chewed. A couple of summers ago I tried some of this sap while it was still liquid. It’s surely the stickiest stuff in all creation, and I literally had to clean it from my teeth with lighter fluid.” 

[DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME]

Insects land on plants to eat them, to rest for a bit, or to hunt for other insects, but there’s a fourth reason they land on cup-plant, and that’s to drink.  After a rain, the cup contains water that attracts a variety of critters to drink and maybe to cool off.  But despite what was once written in a prominent Midwestern seed catalog, the water in the cups does not digest the plant and animal debris that lands in it, like a pitcher plant does.

Cup-plant is what a gardening friend of the BugLady’s used to call, “a thug.”  It can tolerate dry and rocky soils as well as rich, damp ones, and it “spreads vigorously” by both seeds and rhizomes (underground stems) – so much so that it’s considered an invasive in the Adirondacks and in some Northeastern states.  Some people keep it in check by removing the flower heads before the seeds disperse, but its flowers are much appreciated by pollinators (especially, says the Xerces Society, “by honey bees, bumble bees, and big, showy butterflies ….. and leafcutter bees may use the hollow stems as nest sites”), and its seeds are eaten by birds.  Because it is so easy to grow and grows so densely, it has been considered as a potential source of bio-fuel in recent years.

Cup-plants are a great place to find insects:

CUP-PLANT WATER collects after a rain and often lasts a few days before it dries out again. 

RED APHIDS come to cup-plants to eat (and be eaten).  These are probably in the genus Urleucon, many of whose species feed on members of the Aster/Composite family.  Multiple generations adorn the stalks and leaves of cup-plant, all wingless (unless, from an aphid’s point of view, things get really crowded and they need to disperse) and all are female (through the wonders of parthenogenesis – virgin birth) until they produce a winged generation with males at the end of the season.  Watch the video and see “collective twitching and kicking response”, a.k.a. “CTKR” (possibly the BugLady’s new favorite behavior), https://bugoftheweek.com/blog/2022/6/13/cup-plant-feeds-brown-ambrosia-aphid-uroleucon-ambrosiae-which-in-turn-provides-dinner-for-lynx-spiders-lady-beetles-long-legged-flies-flower-flies-and-green-lacewings.   

A SMALL BIRD-DROPPING MOTH appears to be sipping the water.

And so does the RED or POLISHED LADYBUG, which is one of the BugLady’s favorite ladybugs/lady beetles because of the wonderful pattern on its head and thorax     https://bugguide.net/node/view/1075335/bgimage.  It’s one of three species of “Spotless Ladybugs” in the genus Cycloneda.  Ladybugs are serious aphid predators both as adults and larvae https://bugguide.net/node/view/710099/bgimage.

The BROCHYMENA, or Rough stink bugs, of recent BOTW fame, are plant-eaters.  Their camouflage was designed for tree trunks, not green leaves.

Although this DADDY LONGLEGS looks like it came for the water, its camouflage will allow it to nab some unsuspecting, visiting insect. 

A LAND SNAIL takes advantage of some water and maybe rasps the cup-plant’s leaves looking for algae, fungi, and leaf-bits to eat.

A DIMORPHIC JUMPING SPIDER subdued something that had very long, slender legs.  Another daddy longlegs?

The CICADA is one of the Dog-day/Annual cicadas in the genus Neotibicen.  Unlike the fancy Periodical cicadas https://bugguide.net/node/view/1973693/bgimage with their dramatic outbreaks, these are our everyday cicadas.  They take several years to develop underground, but the generations overlap and so they are present every year (which is why they’re called “annual”).  They get their liquid by poking their strong “beaks” into twigs and drinking the watery sap, so the cup was just a perch for it. 

CANDY-STRIPED LEAFHOPPER – what a gem!

FORK-TAILED BUSH KATYDIDS are found in grasslands, woodlands, and thickets across most of North America from Mexico well north into Canada.  There are some odd color forms in the southern parts of their range https://bugguide.net/node/view/1017342/bgimage.  The BugLady loves their gem-like nymphs https://bugguide.net/node/view/789204/bgimage.  They don’t yell “Katy-did” – in fact, they don’t say much at all, and they don’t say it very loudly https://soundcloud.com/lisa-rainsong/fork-tailed-bush-katydid-recorded-in-terrarium?in=malte/sets/crickets.

The PRAYING MANTIS did not just come for the view.

TIGER SWALLOWTAIL – the BugLady’s favorite large, showy butterfly.

Not all of the cup-plant’s visitors are invertebrates – the BugLady often sees TREE FROGS cooling off in cup-plant water on hot summer days, and small birds drink water there.. 

This is the second in the Cup-plant Cosmos series (for the first installment, see https://uwm.edu/field-station/bug-of-the-week/cup-plant-cosmos/).  The BugLady has also seen paper wasps, yellowjackets, a two-striped grasshopper, mirid plant bugs, a variety of flies, a land snail, and a spring peeper on its flowers and leaves. 

For Northern BugFans, those colors are Green and Yellow.  You remember them. 

Kate Redmond, The BugLady

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

Bug o’the Week – The Twelve (or so) Bugs of Christmas

Bug o’the Week
by Kate Redmond

The Twelve (or so) Bugs of Christmas

Season’s Greetings, BugFans,

It’s time to celebrate a dozen (or so) of the beautiful bugs that posed for the BugLady this year (and that have already graced their own episodes).

This GREAT SPANGLED FRITILLARY on the aptly-named butterfly weed.

EUROPEAN MANTIS – the BugLady intercepted this mantis as it was attempting to cross the road and moved it to a friendlier spot.  The tiny bulls-eye in its tiny armpit tells us that it’s a European, not a Chinese mantis.  Both are non-native, invited to God’s Country by gardeners who buy them and release them as pest control (alas, to a mantis, a honey bee looks as tasty as a cabbage worm). 

When fall freezes come, they die, leaving behind ooethecae (egg cases) that look like a dried blob of aerosol shaving cream https://bugguide.net/node/view/2248160/bgimage).  Eggs in ooethecae can survive a mild winter here but not a Polar Vortex; they hatch in spring https://bugguide.net/node/view/73199/bgimage.  Every fall, The BugLady gets asked if it’s possible to keep a pet mantis alive in a terrarium over the winter.  Short answer – No – its biological clock is ticking pretty loud.

GRAY FIELD SLUG – it was an unusually hot and muggy day, a day when the cooler air above the Lake did not quite reach inland (15 yards) to the BugLady’s front door.  She glanced out and saw a gray field slug extended at least six inches on the storm door.  For more info on gray field slugs, see https://uwm.edu/field-station/bug-of-the-week/gray-field-slug-2-25-2019/.

CANDY-STRIPED LEAFHOPPER – when a spectacular insect picks an equally spectacular perch.  What a treat!

A BROWN-MARMORATED STINK BUG shared the hawk tower with the BugLady on a cool day in late October.  They’re a huge pest in the East because they eat orchard crops in summer and hole up/stink up in your house/closets/attics/coat pockets/boots in winter, and they’re becoming more numerous here.  Remember – not every brown stink bug is a BMS – look for the pale stripes on the antennae and on the legs.

ORANGE SULPHURS are very common, and they don’t put on airs, they’re just quietly beautiful.

TACHINID FLY – when the BugLady thinks about Tachinid flies, she pictures the bristly, house-fly-on-steroids species that frequent the prairie flowers in late summer, but tachinid flies also come in “tubular.”  The larvae of this one, in the genus Cylindromyia, make a living by parasitizing some moths and grasshoppers and a few species of predatory stink bugs (for which efforts they are not appreciated, because the predatory stink bugs are busy preying on plant pests).  The adults, which are considered wasp mimics, feed on nectar. 

EBONY JEWELWINGS are frequent flyers on these pages.  The spectacular males usually have a metallic, Kelly-green body, but some individuals, in some light, appear royal blue.

SHAMROCK ORBWEAVER – the BugLady loves the big Argiope and Araneus orbweavers – tiny when they hatch in spring https://bugguide.net/node/view/1141628/bgimage, they grow slowly throughout the summer until they reach a startling size.  Most go through the winter in egg cases – some hatch early but stay inside and ride out the winter in the case, eating yolk material and their siblings, and others hatch in spring.  They emerge from the egg sac, and after a few days, balloon away in the breezes.  Page through https://bugguide.net/node/view/11644/bgimage to see all the colors Shamrock orbweavers come in (and see why, like the Marbled orbweaver, they’re sometimes called Pumpkin orbweavers).  

SKIMMING BLUET – note to self – ask insects to pose on the very photogenic leaves of Arrow Arum. 

RED-VELVET MITE – the BugLady is frequently struck by the fact that the weather data we rely on was measured by instruments inside a louvered box that sits five feet above the ground, but the vast majority of animals – vertebrate and invertebrate alike – never get five feet off the ground in their lives.  The weather they experience depends on microclimates created by the vegetation and topography in the small area where they live.  Red velvet mites search for tiny animals and insect eggs to eat; their young form temporary tick-ish attachments to other invertebrates as they go through a dizzying array of life stages (OK – prelarva, larva, protonymph, deutonymph, tritonymph, adult).  Read more about them here https://uwm.edu/field-station/bug-of-the-week/red-velvet-mite-again/.

BUSH KATYDID – what child is this?  A nymph of a bush katydid (Scudderia). 

ANTS WITH APHIDS – while shepherds watched their flocks at night……  Some kinds of ants “farm” aphids and tree hoppers, guarding them from predators, guiding them to succulent spots to feed, and “milking” them – harvesting the sweet honeydew that the aphids exude from their stern while overindulging in plant sap.

And an EASTERN PONDHAWK in a pear tree.

Whatever Holidays you celebrate, may they be merry and bright and filled with laughter.

Kate Redmond, The BugLady

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

Bug o’the Week – Rough Stink Bug

Bug o’the Week
by Kate Redmond

Rough Stink Bug

Greetings, BugFans,

The BugLady has a thing for stink bugs.  They’re like bumble bees and water lilies – she can’t walk past one without taking its picture.  She especially likes stink bugs in the genus Brochymena, the Rough stink bugs, which look like walking fossils.  But before we talk about the Brochymena, which have made a few brief appearances in BOTW, here’s a brief Stink Bug 101:

Stink bugs are in the family Pentatomidae, which means “five sections” and refers to the number of segments in the antennae.  In the UK, they’re called shield bugs, a name that is applied here casually to members of the Pentatomidae, and more specifically to members of a different family.  About 220 of the globe’s 5,000 stink bug species live in North America.

“Stink bug” because they are chemically defended – when alarmed, they can release a lingering odor that may be unpleasant (or not), noxious, or even toxic (think “cyanide”).  As a defense against predators, the odor is imperfect.  Most birds have no sense of smell, but a smaller predator that got a face full of chemical spray would be deterred, and some parasitic wasps and flies actually locate stink bugs by their odor. . 

And, of course, common names being what they are, the name can and is applied to any unrelated insect that has an odor.

Many stink bugs are plant feeders (some damage agricultural crops), and others are carnivores that help to control unwanted insects.  And some, in cuisines around the world, are prized for the spiciness they add to a dish.  All feed by poking their piercing-sucking mouthparts into their food of choice and injecting a saliva that predigests tissue so it can be siphoned up.

Most stink bugs come in utilitarian greens, grays, or browns, but some come in pretty flashy colors https://bugguide.net/node/view/531728/bgpage, especially as nymphs https://bugguide.net/node/view/344542/bgpage.

A few species of stink bugs exhibit maternal care – https://bugguide.net/node/view/1329274/bgimage.   

ROUGH/TREE/ARBOREAL STINK BUGS – Brochymena – are one genus (with 17 species) of one tribe (Halvini) of one subfamily (Pentatominae) of the stink bug family.  Based on images they’ve received from their community, bugguide.net shows the Brochymena occurring from sea to shining sea, except North Dakota and Manitoba, and their range extends south into Panama.  They’re typically found on trees and shrubs.   

They’re typically found on trees and shrubs, but their cryptic colors and textures can make them difficult to find because they look like a bit of bark or lichen on six legs.  At about 5/8”, they’re large for stink bugs. 

For the Brochymena, everything was going swimmingly until 1998, when a new stink bug came to town.  It was the Brown marmorated stink bug https://bugguide.net/node/view/2232265/bgimage, which is a huge pest in orchards and agricultural fields and, in the winter, in homes.  The two look similar – the BMSB has wide pale bands on its antennae and one white band on its hind legs; while the Brochymena have two white bands on their hind legs, a protruding, square/pointy face with antennae noticeably in front of their eyes, and toothed “shoulder pads” that look like a bit of cog wheel.  If you see a lot of them, they’re BMSBs. 

There’s some discussion about their diet.  Bugguide.net says that they are “Phytophagous [plant-eating] (some reports of predation).”  They’re known to feed on the sap and leaves and seeds of many species of trees and shrubs including ash, willow, and box elder, with brief, opportunistic forays into carnivory.  Unlike many other species of stink bug, they’re not considered harmful, and because they’re not considered pests, they haven’t been exhaustively studied.  Other sources say that their forays into carnivory are more than occasional, and that they eat caterpillars, leaf beetle larvae, aphids, and other soft-bodied insects that they come across. 

A Rough stink bug’s “stink” – said by one source to smell like maraschino cherries, and by another, like almonds – may not deter ants, tachinid flies, sand wasps, and a variety of birds (especially vireos, says one source).  Eric Eaton, in his Bug Eric blog, writes that “Given their cryptic nature, it amazes me that any other creature could find them and make a meal out of them.”  He continues, “Feather-legged flies in the genus Trichopoda glue their eggs to the top of the stink bug’s body, where the insect cannot reach to groom them off.  The fly larva that hatches bores through the exoskeleton of the host and feeds as an internal parasite, usually killing the bug eventually.” 

Adult Brochymena overwinter, sheltered in leaf litter, mulch, bark crevices or logs (some pick stacks of firewood, and are then brought inside in winter), and they’re sometimes seen out and about on warm winter days.  They emerge to mate in late spring, and females lay eggs in clusters of 10 to 20 on twigs.  Adults die by the end of June, and nymphs are found throughout summer.  There’s only one brood a year.

Eggs
Nymphs

Isn’t this “probably unnamed” Arizona species a beauty https://bugguide.net/node/view/2355448/bgpage!

Kate Redmond, The BugLady

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

Bug o’the Week – Cereal bug

Bug o’the Week
by Kate Redmond

Cereal bug

Greetings, BugFans,

The BugLady loves finding an insect she’s never seen before.  When she saw it walking along a cordwalk (boardwalk on sand) in the dunes at Kohler-Andrae State Park, she knew that this guy/gal was in the stink bug family (Pentatomidae), but it’s more spindle-shaped and lacks the “shoulder pads” of a generic stink bug https://bugguide.net/node/view/2125170/bgpage (younger BugFans may have to Google “shoulder pads”).

It turned out to be a stink bug in the large subfamily Pentatominae and in the very small tribe Aeliini, which has only 37 species worldwide.  There are 8 species in the tribe in North America (in two genera), and this is the only species in its genus here.  The BugLady borrowed the name “Cereal bug” from one of the European species because she couldn’t find a common name for it.

Cereal bugs (Aelia americana) have an odd, patchwork range (based on pictures submitted by bugguide members https://bugguide.net/node/view/668478/data) that lies mostly west of the Mississippi – from British Columbia to Arizona to Alabama to Michigan, and within their range, they’re not very common.   

They feed by day on the ripening seeds of grasses, including agricultural crops like wheat, barley, and rye (https://bugguide.net/node/view/2241245/bgimage).  The BugLady found some brief write-ups about them from grain-producing areas of the upper Great Plains into Canada, but they’re not common enough to be a nuisance here.  Like other Hemipterans, they insert their beak into the plant, pump in some digestive juices, and suck out the softened tissue.     

Eggs are laid in late spring and early summer, and the nymphs reach maturity by fall and overwinter as adults.

[In the “Eternal Job Security” category that is insect taxonomy, the BugLady found a paper titled “Opening Pandora’s box: molecular phylogeny of the stink bugs (Hemiptera: Heteroptera: Pentatomidae) reveals great incongruences in the current classification.”  It reminded her of a quote she found years ago when she was writing about a moth, “The genus Haploa …… has furnished a great deal of amusement to classificationists.”  Presumably, the Hemiptera taxonomists are similarly amused.]  

Along with grasses, they have been collected from apple trees in orchards, and according to a paper published by the Michigan Entomological Society, adults have been found overwintering in grass clumps and under mullein leaves. 

Some genus members are considered pests in the Middle East and around the Mediterranean, though, and the BugLady found a lot more information about a closely-related-and-very-similar-looking European species called (wonderfully) the Bishop’s mitre (Aelia acuminata) than she did about our domestic species, but she suspects that the two are up to some of the same tricks. 

The Bishop’s mitre (a mitre/miter is a bishop’s peaked, ceremonial hat) is found feeding on grasses in dry meadows and damaging cereal crops across Europe, North Africa, and northern Asia, and the britishbugs.org website added that they may be found in sand dunes, too.  One British site said that the bugs resemble a grass seed (https://www.britishbugs.org.uk/heteroptera/Pentatomidae/aelia_acuminata.html).  They winter in grain fields, in leaf litter and other sheltered spots, and they migrate to wheat fields in spring when the wheat shoots appear (they’re good flyers).  Before the seeds are formed, they feed on juices from the stems of young plants.  After harvest, they move to wild grasses.    

Studies have shown that they enter diapause/dormancy/developmental arrest when the weather gets too hot in summer and go into hibernation when the weather gets too cold in fall.  The increasing day lengths of spring stimulate egg-laying, but if there’s a cold snap, females will stop ovipositing. 

Aelia americana was named by a British entomologist named William Sweetland (W.S.) Dallas (1824 – 1890).  He published a book in 1857 called Elements of Entomology: An Outline of the Natural History and Classification of British Insects which is still in print today and about which the folks at Amazon say “This book is an essential resource for amateur and professional entomologists alike.  This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it.” 

Kate Redmond, The BugLady

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

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

Bug o’the Week
by Kate Redmond

Bug o’the Week Monochromatic Stink Bug-Hunting Wasp

Howdy, BugFans,

Another wasp with a dynamite name!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Kate Redmond, The BugLady

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

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

Bug o’the Week
by Kate Redmond

Bug o’the Week Bugs at the End of Summer

Howdy, BugFans,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(And, of course, they’re awesome.)

Kate Redmond, The BugLady

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

Bug o’the Week – The Twelve Bugs of Christmas 2022

Bug o’the Week

The Twelve Bugs of Christmas 2022

Greetings of the Season, BugFans,

Wow!  The 10th annual installment of The Twelve (or Thirteen) Bugs of Christmas!  The Bugs of Christmas features shots, taken throughout the year, of insects and spiders who have already had their own BOTW, but who posed nicely.

The next two paragraphs were borrowed from Christmas 2016, because the BugLady is still amazed by the history of this ubiquitous Holiday Classic.

“The Twelve Days of Christmas” is an English carol that was probably borrowed from the French and that was originally an acapella chant/call-and-response/children’s memory game.  There’s an alternative explanation about the various lords, rings, etc. being Christian code words for catechism during a time of religious repression (which seems a bit like playing Beatles songs backwards).  It first appeared in writing in 1780, and there were (and still are) many variations of it, though the words were more-or-less standardized when an official melody was finally written for it in 1909 (and the insect verse was, alas, dropped.  “Thirteen Bugs a’ buzzing”).

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Twelve_Days_of_Christmas_(song) so you can hold your own in Holiday Trivia at parties (I’ll take Christmas Songs for $300, Alex).  With apologies to all those Lords a’ Leaping, it’s time once again to celebrate a year of bugs with this baker’s dozen collection of the beautiful, the odd, and the mysterious.  Gifts.  Right under our noses.  All the time.

POTTER WASP – Throughout this BOTW series, we have noted the many places where insects deposit their eggs – in plant stems, in underwater vegetation, in dead trees, in flower buds, in mushrooms, in the BugLady’s wind chimes, in carcasses, in holes and tunnels underground, in other insects, in cells made of wax or paper, in egg sacs.  The BugLady’s favorite is the small, mud pot attached to a twig or leaf by a potter wasp. 

SEDGE SPRITE – The BugLady is a tall person, and Sedge Sprites (her favorite damselflies) are tiny damselflies, barely an inch long, that mostly fly at altitudes lower than her knees.  Photographing one involves tracking an insect the size of a sewing needle through sedges and other boggy vegetation.  What a beauty!

BUMBLE BEE – The plant is called Common Hound’s-tongue (Cynoglossum officinale) (aka houndstooth, dog’s tongue, Gypsy flower, and Rats and Mice (because it’s said to smell like them).  Lots of small flowers on a plant that may grow 4 feet tall.  It’s from Europe; it probably came over in the 19th century in a bag of agricultural seed, and it’s considered a noxious weed in parts of North America (but it’s rare in Ireland).  It contains chemicals (alkaloids) that are toxic to livestock, its bristly seeds are not wholesome to ingest, and they irritate the skin, too.  Historically, it was used as a cure for madness and to treat inflammatory diseases, lung issues, and “it heals all manner of wounds and punctures, and those foul ulcers that arise by the French pox’” (Culpeper’s Complete Herbal).

The bumble bee doesn’t know any of that, and doesn’t care.

LADYBUG and SHINING FLOWER BEETLE – Multicolored Asian Ladybird Beetles come in a variety of shades of red and orange with spots ranging from zero to many, but you can tell them by the “W” or “M” on the thorax (depending on whether they’re walking toward you or away from you).  Adults eat aphids and scale insects, and their larvae eat even more aphids and scale insects, and some eggs of butterflies and moths.  The BugLady couldn’t find anything that suggested that they might chow down on a small beetle like this Shining flower beetle, but the ladybug sure was interested in it and followed it all around the surface of the leaf.

GIANT ICHNEUMON WASPS are among the BugLady’s favorite insects (Why?  See https://uwm.edu/field-station/giant-ichneumon-wasp/).  There are two species of rust and yellow Giant Ichneumons around here https://bugguide.net/node/view/1701906/bgimage, plus Black Giant Ichneumonid Wasp https://bugguide.net/node/view/1742321/bgimage.  This is a male Black Giant Ichneumonid Wasp.  

SPIDER WEB – an abandoned trap web, toward the end of summer.

DARNER EXUVIA – In today’s usage, the empty, shed skin of an insect or spider is (mostly-but-not-always) called an exuvia (Pl. exuviae), from the Latin for “things stripped, drawn, or pulled from the body”.  The BugLady, who likes etymology as well as entomology, wanted to find out more about the word, so down the rabbit hole she went.  She discovered that even her two favorite dragonfly and damselfly books don’t agree with each other. 

The British use “exuvium” for the singular and “exuvia” or “exuviums” for the plural.  When she did a bit more delving into “exuvium,” the BugLady found this awesome excerpt from a letter written by Sir Thomas Browne to his son Thomas, dated May 29, 1679: “I have sent you, by Mrs. Peirce, a skinne of the palme of a woemans hand, cast of at the end of a fever, or in the declination thereof; I called it exuvium palmæ muliebris, the Latin word being exuvia in the plurall, butt I named it exuvium, or exuvia in the singular number.  It is neat and is worthy to be showne when you speake of the skinne. …. A palmister might read a lecture on it.” 

A post in a bugguide.net discussion further muddies the waters by stating that the cast-off skin of an insect should be referred to in the plural (exuviae) because “a single cast skin is a collection of insect parts and is thus an exuviae.” 

There’s no logical equivalent in Classical Latin, but Scientific Latin takes liberties with the Classical.  The entomology community tacitly agrees that it’s a “we-know-it’s-not-correct-but-we’re doing-it-anyway” situation. 

The snail had nothing to do with the emerging dragonfly and, the BugLady guesses, is passing by.

BUMBLE FLOWER BEETLES – When the BugLady found some of these and wrote about them one fall https://uwm.edu/field-station/bumble-flower-beetle/, BugFan Chris told her that they’re also around in the spring.  Sure enough – she spotted this one in mid-May. 

MOURNING CLOAKS aren’t splashy, and they eschew wildflowers in favor of dripping sap, but they’re pretty spiffy nonetheless, and they’ve got a cool life story.  In a group (the order Lepidoptera) where the adult portion of a lifespan is usually measured in a few, short months, these are long-lived and complicated butterflies.  They overwinter as adults, mate, and lay eggs in spring.  Their offspring feed on willow leaves, form chrysalises, and emerge as adults in late spring or early summer.  After feeding for a while, they go into a state of aestivation (summer dormancy) to avoid wear and tear.  They wake in fall, feed some more, and then overwinter as adults in a state of suspended animation called diapause, which is similar to hibernation, tucked up in a cloistered spot called a hibernaculum that shelters them from the elements, and protected from the effects of freezing by glycerol (antifreeze) in their bodies.  They may fly during a January thaw or on mild days in late winter, but they can reenter diapause when the temperature drops.  When they emerge and mate in spring, they’re about 10 months old. 

This pretty CLICK BEETLE by the name of Ampedus sanguinipennis (sanguinipennis means “blood wing”) is found in wooded areas – its larvae develop in, feed on, and then pupate in very rotten wood, emerging as adults by fall, but hunkering down within the pupal cell for the winter.  Adults are pollen feeders that shelter under loose bark.  Somewhere in its travels, this beetle encountered some mites, which hitched a ride.  The harmless transporting of other organisms is called phoresy.  Here’s a glamour shot https://bugguide.net/node/view/20063.

If you’re a CRAB SPIDER and you don’t spin trap webs, you need a different strategy for finding dinner.  Crab spiders employ camouflage and ambush.  The flower is a tallgrass prairie plant called leadplant. 

COMMON GREEN STINKBUGS (Chinavia hilaris) are considered persona non grata in agricultural fields and orchards because both the nymphs and the adults feed on fruit and developing seeds.  And yet.  Hilaris means “lively” and “cheerful,” and that’s the vibe this stink bug was sending on a sunny day.

And an EASTERN AMBERWING Dragonfly in a pear tree. 

Kate Redmond, The BugLady

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

Bug o’the Week – Two Stink Bugs

Bug o’the Week

Two Stink Bugs

Howdy, BugFans,

The BugLady thinks stink bugs are cool https://bugguide.net/node/view/1685642/bgimage, and she loves finding species she hasn’t seen before.  This year, she saw two new ones – the first one in a sand dune, and the second in a bog – but she suspects that habitat is secondary in the stink bugs’ game plan to the availability of food.

They’re called “stink bugs” because they have glands in the thorax that produce, as Eric Eaton says in the Field Guide to Insects of North America, “volatile aromatic compounds sure to repel all but the most desperate predators.”  One author adds that “Stink bugs can smell pretty bad. Even my hens turn up their beaks when one crawls by…..”

Some stink bugs are predaceous, but most are plant-eaters, and many, including today’s pair, aren’t picky about the plant species they feed on.  They are “true bugs” in the order Hemiptera (Hemiptera means “half-wing,” which refers to wings that are leathery at the near end and membranous at the far end https://bugguide.net/node/view/471688/bgimage), and they’re in the family Pentatomidae.

Like other Hemipterans, they feed by puncturing their food with their piercing-sucking mouthparts https://bugguide.net/node/view/1864018/bgimage, injecting enzymes that soften the tissues, and then sucking out the contents.  If they’re feeding on, say, a peach, the puncture may inadvertently inoculate the immediate area with bacteria, causing rot, and soft fruits develop “dimples” called cat-facing, both of which make the fruit less attractive in your grocery store. 

Both of today’s species are divided up into several subspecies, and the BugLady was surprised to see that there were differences within each species not only in color, but also in the spiny-ness of their “shoulders,” depending on their geography and even season.  

RED-SHOULDERED STINK BUGS (Thyanta custator) occur across North America from Canada to Guatemala, and from sea to shining sea; the BugLady found this lovely, pastel stink bug in the dunes.  There are three subspecies, the most common of which is Thyanta custator accera.  

At about ½” long, Red-shouldered stink bugs (Thyanta custator) are fairly large, as stink bugs go.  They come in varying shades of green and tan, and the red on their shoulders can be very conspicuous or absent https://bugguide.net/node/view/1228797/bgimage, https://bugguide.net/node/view/253073,

https://bugguide.net/node/view/1035753/bgimage, , https://bugguide.net/node/view/401270/bgimage. 

And so can their spines https://bugguide.net/node/view/1312629/bgimage.

Young stink bugs (nymphs) are often much more colorful than their elders https://bugguide.net/node/view/710344/bgimage, https://bugguide.net/node/view/768528/bgimage.   

Females lay clusters of barrel-shaped eggs on the leaves and stems of plants https://bugguide.net/node/view/1625073/bgimage, and the nymphs feed on young leaves, buds, flowers, and developing seeds of their natal plants.  When they mature (in about a month) and have functional wings, they spread out to neighboring plants.  The RSSB has been found on many species of plants in more than a dozen plant families, some of them agricultural crops like wheat, beans, alfalfa, some fruits, and hemp, but they’re not on USDA Wanted Posters because they mainly damage seed production.

They overwinter as adults in leaf litter, but like other stink bugs, they will happily spend the colder months in a warm house.  In spring, they awake and spread out to find vegetation – and other RSSBs https://bugguide.net/node/view/41009/bgimage.   

The second species was the nymph of (probably) a DUSKY STINK BUG (Euschistus tristigmus luridus). Of the two forms/subspecies in North America, Euschistus tristigmus luridus) occurs the farthest north.  The subspecies that’s found in the South and into Central America, Euschistus tristigmus tristigmus, is smaller, and the front edges of its thorax are pointier https://bugguide.net/node/view/1993459/bgimage.  Dusky stink bugs are found in grasslands, woodlands, and riparian edges (and, apparently, bogs).

Quick Euschistus tristigmus luridus Dictionary Side Trip: Five hundred years ago, “lurid” meant “pale (so pale that you glow in the darkness), sickly, the color of bruises, ghastly, or yellowish.”  By the 1700s, its meaning was shifting and the word was used to describe the faint red glow of a fire shrouded by smoke.  In about 1850, its meaning changed again, to something like today’s common usage – “sensational, shocking, horrifying, or bright, intense, and vivid.”  

Here are the three spots suggested by “tristigmus,” though not all individuals have them https://bugguide.net/node/view/73486/bgimage. 

The broad strokes of the Dusky stink bug’s natural history are similar to those of the RSSB, with adults overwintering and laying eggs as vegetation starts growing in spring.  It uses a different set of food plants than the RSSB, including some wildflowers like clover, goldenrod, and Black-eyed Susan, some ash and oak species, fruits like blackberries and red delicious apples, and some field crops (and bugguide.net says that it is “occasionally predaceous”). The BugLady sees nymphs of other bugs, like leaf-footed bugs, near bird droppings; they get minerals from them, and she wonders if stink bugs do, too.  Like the RSSB, it has little to no economic impact (and it sure is cute).

The BugLady gives thanks for dragonflies (and she would like to know where the mosquito that she photographed in her house on November 11 has been for the past month).

Kate Redmond, The BugLady

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

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