Cerambycids can be remarkably long-lived—some exist as larvae for a decade and as adults for a few additional years. While their elders feed on flowers, fungi, sap, and leaves, the larvae of many species bore into dead and dying trees—they’re great for decomposition, because their tunnels are doorways for water, bacteria, and fungi.
Sawfly larvae are fussy eaters, with many species tied to just a few host plants, and some larvae are considered pests. Larval defense strategies include communal feeding (potential predators have trouble figuring out where one larva stops and the next one starts) and spitting vile liquids from their mouths.
Everywhere you look, you see adult insects, young insects, and the kinds of activity that will result in them. Here are some sights from the BugLady’s walks in southeastern Wisconsin.
Thick-headed flies nectar on flowers, but Ms. Myopa has an ulterior motive for being there—she’s looking for hosts for her offspring. When she spies a potential host, she flies up, intercepts the incoming bee in flight, grabs it, and inserts a single egg between two of its abdominal segments.
Horsemint tortoise beetles (Physonota unipunctata) are horsemint specialists. That name is a bit deceiving, because there are several species of horsemints (genus Monarda) . The Horsemint tortoise beetle is tied to a mint that isn’t generally called Wild bergamot (Monarda fistulosa).
It’s National Moth Week! Right now (July 23rd – 31st)! Moths are diverse, successful, showy, drab, cryptic, abundant, huge (a few have wingspreads close to 12”), micro, tasty, toxic objects of our admiration, confusion, superstition, and reverence.
Arrow Clubtails (Stylurus spiniceps) are fairly-common/widespread-but-not-abundant inhabitants of the northeast quadrant of the U.S. They prefer good-sized rivers with muddy/sandy bottoms and with trees along the edges. Unlike the Pond clubtails, the Arrow clubtail is a Hanging clubtail, one of 11 North American species in the genus Stylurus.
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.
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.
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.