Bug of the Week

Dancing Damselflies (Family Coenagrionidae)

Damselflies are found near ponds, dancers are generally associated with slow streams and rivers. Male Dancers may defend loose territories that change daily. Damselflies aquatic naiads are short and stout and often striped/patterned. Like their Mothers, most are drab brown/olive, but the Varied dancer’s naiad has a purple tinge. Their flattened shape allows them to shelter under rocks and other debris on the bottom of wetlands. They overwinter as naiads, probably in one of their last instars.

Chigger Rerun (Family Trombiculidae)

Chiggers are said to live in dry or damp, forest or grassland, in dense or sparse vegetation, worldwide. Their love for shade and damp is debatable, and the BugLady has most often encountered them in dry, long grass. They don’t particularly like mountains or deserts, and in North America, they prefer the Midwest and the Southeast. They are happiest when the ambient temperature is 77 to 86 degrees F.

Four-spotted Skimmer (Family Libellulidae)

The range of the Four-spotted Skimmer is circumpolar, and turns up in Asia and from European countries where it’s called the Four-spotted chaser. Its American range is listed as the northern half of North America. These are dragonflies of marshy lakes, fens, acid bogs, plant-filled ponds, and very slow streams. Adults are found over fields and along woody edges and they may form swarms over open water; juveniles are often seen far from water. They like to perch on emergent vegetation but are also found near or on the ground.

Margined Carrion Beetle (Family Silphidae)

Margined Carrion Beetles are found throughout eastern North America into the Great Plains except, says Bugguide.net, in the Deep South. They live in grasslands and, rarely, marshes, but research has shown that they have a preference for deciduous forests. Although a few Silphid family members may be found in trees, the Margined Carrion Beetle stays close to the ground.

Nursery Web Spider (Family Pisauridae)

Nursery Web Spiders are found in tall grass, along wooded edges, and in shrubs (and sometimes houses) from the Atlantic into the Great Plains (the species is also found in Europe), and one spider expert speculates that Pisaura mira may be one of the most common spiders in eastern North America.

Wildflower Watch – Dawdling among Dandelions

Dandelions produce both nectar and pollen and so are appreciated by wildlife, especially early bees and butterflies (100 species of pollinators have been tallied). The BugLady has been dawdling among dandelions to see who else appreciates them. She saw representatives of 8 kinds of hymenopterans (ants/bees/wasps), 4 kinds of flies, 3 of arachnids (spiders and spider relatives), and 1 beetle. Seen, but not photographed, were a few cabbage butterflies.

Lightning Beetle Redux (Family Lamphyridae)

Lightning Bugs float silently (but brilliantly) over the dark fields and wetlands of June and July, inspiring poets and children of all ages. Also called Fireflies, they are neither flies nor true bugs; they are members of the order Coleoptera and are more correctly called Lightning beetles (LBs). And yes, their ethereal light show is all about sex.

Three Spring Dragonflies Plus One

The 2016 dragonfly season is starting slowly—some migratory darners appeared a few weeks ago but then disappeared when colder weather came back. In the past week, the BugLady has seen a Common whitetail, a Chalk-fronted corporal, and some Whitefaces, plus a handful of damselflies. If you check the archives at the UWM Field Station link below, you’ll find that dragonflies have not been neglected.

Small, Blue Butterflies (Family Lycaenidae)

Three small, blue “look-alike” butterflies—the Spring Azure and the Summer Azure, often referred to as the Spring Spring Azure and the Summer Spring Azure, and the Eastern Tailed Blue. The Spring Azures have long been considered to be one large and gloriously diverse species made up of several sub-species. Now they’re thought by many to be a number of full species. Ten or eleven species of Blues/Azures occur in Wisconsin.

Cherish the (Butterfly) Ladies (Family Nymphalidae)

The American Lady a year-round resident of the southern U.S. (south into South America and even the Galapagos), its summer wanderings bring it here to God’s country. Like the Painted Lady, it likes sunny, open spaces, and like the Painted Lady, it is an early migrant from the south that re-establishes populations in the North and East annually (it was recorded in Wisconsin in the first week of May this year). Unlike the Painted Lady, its caterpillars are tied to a smaller list of host plants, including the everlastings and pussytoes, and a few other species.

UWM Land Acknowledgement: We acknowledge in Milwaukee that we are on traditional Potawatomi, Ho-Chunk and Menominee homeland along the southwest shores of Michigami, North America’s largest system of freshwater lakes, where the Milwaukee, Menominee and Kinnickinnic rivers meet and the people of Wisconsin’s sovereign Anishinaabe, Ho-Chunk, Menominee, Oneida and Mohican nations remain present.   |   To learn more, visit the Electa Quinney Institute website.