Bug of the Week

Red-tailed Mining bee

The BugLady visited Riveredge Nature Center recently looking for adventure, and she found it even before she hit the trails. A dozen or so mining bees were flying around over a dirt bank near a bench – they were either nesting there or thinking about it (she came back a week later, and nesting was well-established). Mining bees are solitary, ground-nesting bees in the family Andrenidae, a large family with about 3,000 species, almost half of which are in the genus Andrena (there are 450 Andrenas in North America).

Phantom Midge Redux

Phantom midge larvae orient horizontally in the water, turning slowly, rising and sinking in the water column, reminding the BugLady of a young pickerel she once knew. One of the great rewards of scooping in the ephemeral pond is finding phantom midge larvae. Phantom midges (family Chaoboridae) are flies in the order Diptera. They are not mosquitoes, but they’re often lumped with mosquitoes (family Culicidae) and midges (family Chironomidae) in field guides.

Tufted Bird-lime Moth

The BugLady was visited by another moth recently, this time a Tufted Bird-lime/Tufted Bird-dropping Moth/Cherry Agate (Cerma cerintha) that appeared in her bathroom and, later, in her kitchen. It’s a lovely little moth with a one inch-ish wingspan, in the Owlet moth family Noctuidae.

Eastern Long-legged Cobweaver

The BugLady’s message to people who are pining for the wildflower season to begin is this: Get thee to a wetland and watch the non-flowering plants. Mosses, especially, are going crazy these days, their green leaflets (the gametophyte part of the plant) bristling with the stalks of sporophytes, topped by variously-shaped spore capsules. They’re happier now than when the canopy above leafs out and casts them into shade. Ground-hugging liverworts are covered by reproductive pits and umbrellas, and any day now, cinnamon ferns will push up through the dead leaves and dried fronds that top the wetland hummocks. It’s beyond life-affirming.

A Sproing of Springtails

The BugLady was working on this week’s episode about a lovely little spider, but then she took a walk at the north end of the Bog and encountered a mob of springtails. She searched for a collective noun for springtails and found a few on-line discussions about it. “Mass aggregation” is the science-y choice, but other suggestions were cluster, swarm, sprinkle (for a small swarm), furcula (in honor of the springtail’s jumping appendage – teachable moment), and sproing.

Nematodes for Poets

The BugLady has been elbow deep in her tax packet, and she’s bummed by the global pandemic (as one author put it, we’ll probably learn a lesson from this affair, but probably not the lesson that needs learning), so she offers this rerun from 2014, which includes an suggestion of what the earth might look like if we vanish from the face of it (the Beat, BugFan Tom, will go on).

Bugs without Bios IX

Bugs without Bios celebrates the small-but-mighty insects that, mostly unsung, sneak below our radar daily. Today’s catch have three things in common – their identifications are all “probable;” they’re all carnivores; and on each of the three, the BugLady’s Google search ran out in fewer than ten pages.

Texas Ironclad Beetle

When BugFan Kine sent this “what is it” picture, the BugLady’s first reaction was to raise her hand and say “Teacher, teacher! Ask me! Ask me!” She didn’t recall its name, but she knew she had seen a picture of it in Kaufman’s Field Guide to Insects of North America (it’s also in the Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Insects and Spiders).

Wasp Mantidfly

A number of years ago, BugFan Tod sent the BugLady a “what-is-it” picture of a mantisfly on a door-jamb, and she confesses to feeling a twinge of envy. This fall, BugFan Tom shared this shot, taken by his wife Andrea, and the BugLady got a little greener. She seriously wants to see one of these curious insects. We’ll take a look at the Wasp Mantidfly in more detail.

Neokolla hieroglyphica Leafhopper

Although this cute little leafhopper has several names – Neokolla hieroglyphica and, formerly Graphocephala gothica, it doesn’t have a common name. It’s in the leafhopper family Cicadellidae (sik-ah-DELL-ih-dee), a group that the BugLady used to call “pop-bugs” in her youth because they landed on her jeans in the fields, and when she touched their rear ends, they popped away.