Closed for June – Feast or Famine
Continuing with June’s BOTW Lite, we have tales of plenty and of scarcity. In the first, insects are so plentiful that they show up on radar. First ladybugs, and then there’s a mayfly hatch along the Mississippi.
Bug of the Week
Iris Weevils at Play
As long-time BugFans know, the BugLady gets a kick out of weevils. She found these cute little Iris weevils recently, scampering around on flowers at the Ozaukee Washington Land Trust’s Cedarburg Environmental Study Area site.
Closed for June
Well, the air is warm(er) and the BugLady’s photo files are getting thin, and the trails are beckoning. She will hit the restart button in July, but will post assorted short subjects during June. Please enjoy this story of an African park that is being rejuvenated. The slide show pictures some strange and wonderful creatures, and there’s a great time-lapse video of dung beetles, of recent BOTW fame.
Luna Moth
The BugLady’s favorite insect is the Tiger Swallowtail (Mom likes me best), but in the crowded field for second place, the Luna Moth is pretty close to the top. Luna moths (Actias luna) are in the Giant Silkworm/Royal Moth family Saturnidae (of previous BOTW fame), whose family members have ringed eyespots reminiscent of Saturn.
Water Boatmen and Backswimmers Rerun
Life is busy, and besides, May is National Wetland Month, so here’s a rerun from ten years ago. A few new words and pictures. The BugLady will visit these guys together because even though they are, in a sense, photo-negatives of each other, they are often mistaken for one another.
Stories, not Atoms
The poet Muriel Rukeyser once wrote, “The universe is made of stories, not of atoms.” The BugLady sees lots of tableaux unfolding as she ambles across the landscape. Because she was taught, at an impressionable age, by a professor who said “Don’t just tell them what it is, tell them ‘what about it,’” she tries to read the stories and understand the “what-about-its”
Two-striped Grasshopper
The BugLady always enjoys photographing these large, handsome grasshoppers as they ricochet off the prairie plants in late summer. She has danced around them in several episodes – in a generalized discussion of their genus, Melanoplus and as eye-candy in several summer insect picture collections – but they deserve their own biography.
Sculptors of Leaves
Leaves are coming. Promise! And soon after they emerge, we’ll see leaves that are folded, rolled, or otherwise harnessed by a variety of insects, for a variety of reasons. The architects are mostly small moths- but there are also some skipper butterflies, beetles, sawflies, and spiders in the bunch, plus this cute little Carolina leaf roller cricket.
Three Spring Dragonflies Plus Two
They’re big, they’re beautiful, and they’re back! The BugLady has been out on the trail and has been enjoying the first butterflies and dragonflies of the season. Anyway, this episode started out nine years ago as “Spring Dragonflies,” continued six years later as “Three Spring Dragonflies plus One,” and reappears today as “Three Spring Dragonflies plus Two.”
Gray Hairstreak Butterfly
Gray Hairstreaks are the most widely distributed American hairstreak, and they spill over into Canada, Central America, and the northern edge of South America. They’ve been seen in more than half of Wisconsin counties. Why “hairstreak?” These small butterflies have one or two slim (hair-like) tails on the lower “corner” of each hindwing.