Howdy BugFans,
The BugLady is deep into putting together a newsletter she curates, so here are someone else’s words for a change. If it’s a bit ant-heavy, well, there are a lot of ants.
BUT – a little housekeeping before we get to the main event. The BugLady sends BOTW out directly to about 150 people. In order not to have it look like spam, she splits the list in two batches, sends the first half, and then forwards the other half (yes, there are undoubtedly six different ways to do this more efficiently, but remember – the BugLady is still backing into the 21st century and is only marginally computer literate).
A few months ago, she started receiving a bounce-back saying that “the email was undeliverable to Microsoft teams (for some spam related reason),” (and who is Microsoft Teams, anyway?). This week, she’s dividing the list into three sections, so maybe she can sneak under the Microsoft Teams Spam Radar Nose-Count.
So: If you have been receiving BOTW all along – great!
If you have not been receiving BOTW, it is still in business, and here you can find the episodes you may have missed archived.
Fingers crossed.
INSECT ANCESTORS:
The latest chapter in the story of how insect ancestors may have started on the road from marine invertebrates to the six-legged land critters we love today:
BUTTERFLIES AND CLIMATE CHANGE:
Tiger Swallowtails, the BugLady’s favorite butterfly (favorite insect!) have been pretty scarce this summer (though heat and humidity have kept her off the trail more than usual). She feels that the weather patterns connected with climate change – early, cool, wet springs (interspersed with mini-heat waves), very hot, dry summers, early autumns, and wet winters – are tough on the occupants of chrysalises and pupal cases, and many don’t survive getting wet and then cold. There are two generations of Tigers each year. The brood that overwinters has a high mortality, and if the summer brood, which has life a little easier, doesn’t pick up the slack, the numbers are low going into winter, and the cycle continues.
Here’s a different kind of fallout.
TREE CRICKETS:
It must be autumn (meteorological autumn, at this point) because the tree crickets are singing their hearts out in the bushes and tall grasses. Some are using megaphones.
MANHATTANTS:
There’s a new ant in town, and it’s kicking butt and taking names.
MORE ANTS:
And speaking of ants, there sure are a lot of them! As Ed McMahon used to say, “How many ARE there?”
EVEN MORE ANTS:
Ants like junk foods – is that a problem?
BUMBLE BEES:
The Federally-endangered Rusty-patched bumblebee.
AND ONE LAST ANT:
This spider catapults ants.
The BugLady