Sawflies are primitive (non-stinging) members of the wasp family, sometimes called “plant wasps.” Adults of some species look wasp-like; others are described as resembling flies, and their offspring look decidedly like caterpillars. Sawflies in warmer climes may emerge the same summer and produce a second, and even a third generation. Sawflies and moths make up a large percentage of skeletonizers (Japanese beetles and some species of leaf beetles are also guilty).
Almost all weevils are plant-eaters. As its name suggests, the Cattail Billbug is found on cattails, reeds, sedges and other monocots in wetlands. The Rhubarb Curculio is an American weevil that like open spaces, especially around water. The adults feed on rhubarb and the larvae enjoy it too, but rhubarb plants are distinctly unfriendly to RC reproduction.
Thrips belong in the insect order Thysanoptera, which means “fringed wings.” North America boasts some 700 of the 5,000 to 6,000 species of Thrips described thus far, and about 100 species inhabit the Great Lakes area. Thrips enter the fossil record in Permian times (about 250 million years ago), but it took them another 100 million years to become abundant.
The Bad Wing, Green Leuconycta, and Green-patched Looper are three admirable moths that are outfitted in emerald.
Ladybugs are not bugs in the Order Hemiptera. A more appropriate name is lady beetle or ladybird beetle. It seems that back in the Middle Ages, the European grape crop was threatened by a horde of aphids. Adult ladybugs eat aphids, and larval ladybugs eat aphids, and lady beetles rode to the rescue. A female may lay as many as 1,000 eggs over a few weeks, usually near aphid herds. Some of the eggs are fertile and some are not. If aphids are scarce, the sterile eggs serve as food for the larvae.
Bog Coppers, also called Cranberry-bog Coppers, are with hairstreaks, coppers, and blues in the Gossamer-wing family Lycaenidae. They occur in a band across North America on either side of the Canadian border, as far south as northern Ohio/Pennsylvania/New Jersey, and Maryland, and never far from cranberry plants. They are extreme food specialists, the caterpillars eat only cranberry leaves.
Daphnia are oval-ish, shape-shifting, widely-distributed, exhaustively-studied planktonic, freshwater crustaceans. They are found in all sorts of aquatic habitats, including ephemeral ponds but not including fast-moving or polluted waters. A large, compound eye rotates constantly, sensing changes in light intensity. They don’t like light much, and many species move from a pond’s surface to its floor several times during a 24 hour period.
Strawberry Root Weevils are often described as pear-shaped or light bulb-shaped, with noticeable snouts and with antennae situated partway down the snout. SRWs love to overwinter in houses (sometimes in large numbers), where they are harmless. They are herbivores as both larvae and adults, with the larvae feeding mainly on roots in the soil and the adults feeding on foliage or bark
Signal Flies are usually seen in fields and edges. SFs are small—these guys/gals are about 6mm long, with patterns on their wings and often on their faces and with metallic colors elsewhere. SFs have protruding mouthparts that resemble a gas mask.
Stink Bugs use their piercing-sucking mouthparts to inject a “saliva” that pre-digests their food, and the mouthparts are tucked “under their chin” when not in use. It’s not a huge family—maybe 250 species in North America and 5,000 worldwide.