Horntails (family Siricidae) are often called “wood wasps” because their eggs are laid in wood and their young spend both their larval and pupal stages there. Horntails practice “complete metamorphosis,” going through an egg stage, a larval (eating) stage and a pupal (resting/changing) stage before emerging as a very different-looking adult.
Woolly aphids are spectacular when sitting on twigs in large assemblages, and startling as individuals, flying through the air like bits of fluff or feathers. A female aphid reproduces parthenogenetically, popping out live young (clones) all over her host plant without benefit of male companionship and without eggs. Decreasing day length signals the alder crowd to produce winged generation, and they make for the maples again. Eggs are laid (just one per female!) in crevices in the bark.
Tortoise Beetles belong to the Leaf beetle family Chrysomelidae, a huge 1,700+ species in North America alone. As their names suggest, this is a bunch of plant eaters who are often very attached to a single species or group of plant species.
Checkered Beetles live in a variety of habitats in North America (there are about 3,500 species worldwide). As a group they are small-ish, hairy, long and narrow, and brightly-patterned. CBs can be seen on flowers and in trees. Most species are meat eaters as both larvae and adults—the majority hunt on and under the bark of trees; some sit on flowers or sap flows and prey on visiting insects; still others consume insect eggs and a few are scavengers.
Two-banded Petrophilias are found near the rivers and streams in eastern North America that their larvae inhabit. The hind wings of adult Petrophila moths have a row of black/metallic spots that make one spider enthusiast theorize that they’re Jumping Spider mimics.
Glowworm Beetles are in the glowworm beetle family Phengodidae, a New World family of about 250 species with representatives living from the southern edge of Canada all the way to Chile. Most species live south of the Rio Grande. Other common names include “glow-worms” (a name shared with larval Lightning beetles) and “railroad worms.”
Golden-backed Snipe flies (Chrysopilus thoracicus—chrysopilusmeans “golden hair” and thoracicus refers to the thorax) ply the tall grasses, sedges and thickets around wetlands east of the Great Plains. Look down—the BugLady rarely sees them higher than two feet off the ground.
Prairie Mound Ants build mounds in peaty, wetland soils, and their lives are governed by the water table. While their prairie relatives may tunnel five feet into the earth, nests in wetlands are shallower, and ants must be prepared to move up above ground level, into the mound, if the water rises.
The Forked Fungus Beetle is in the Darkling beetle family Tenebrionidae and is the only species in its genus. It’s found east of the Mississippi, at night, in the woods, in the company of woody, polypore shelf fungi. All stages of the beetle live and overwinter and reproduce and feed in/on woody shelf fungi.
Fishflies can be found throughout much of eastern North America. Adults are generally found near the water that their aquatic larvae require. Various species of Fishflies may live in streams and rivers or in still ponds; some, reported from ephemeral ponds or streams, can survive a short dry spell if well-buried in wet mud.