Great Golden Diggers Wasps are identified by the golden pubescence on its head and thorax, its reddish orange legs, and partly reddish orange body. GGDWs make vertical tunnels, constructing several cells at the end of each tunnel. Then they go hunting—katydids and crickets are favorite prey; a wasp that is big enough to hunt, sting and paralyze, and fly off with a katydid is a sizeable wasp.
When you are scrutinizing the prairie flowers in late summer and you spy a “plus-sized” fly with a teeny tiny tutu, it’s probably a Tachinid fly. Instead of laying their eggs in another insect’s nest, they lay one to two eggs in an unsuspecting caterpillar’s “hard-to-reach spots”. The maggots live as internal parasites, consuming their hosts’ less important tissues first and not finishing off the vital organs until they are ready to pupate.
Tiger Beetles are wolves of the insect world and are described as having “wicked jaws and bulging eyes.” They spot and chase down their prey—ants, caterpillars, aphids, and other small invertebrates—overtaking them, grabbing them with their pinchers, and banging their little bodies against the ground to kill them. Then they suck out the tender-bits and eat some of the crunchy-bits. Beetles have “complete” metamorphosis—like humans, their path to maturity passes through egg, larval and pupal stages before reaching adulthood.
These prehistoric-looking insect, Green Lacewings and Fishflies are members of the Order Neuroptera, named for the network of veins in their wings. They have complete metamorphosis—egg to larva to pupa to adult—involving a complete change of appearance.
The Cecropia, Promethea, Polyphemus and the Luna are members of the Giant Silk Moth family or Saturnids, and some are giants indeed, measuring in the 4” to 6”. Saturnids are distantly related to the moth that is used in silk production, and some Asian and South American Saturnids are semi-domesticated and the silk spun by their larvae is harvested.
Monarchs, famously, migrate, but they are not the only insect that travels—snout, buckeye, painted lady and red admiral butterflies and a variety of large dragonflies like darners and saddlebags also migrate (watching dragonflies drift down the west shore of Lake Michigan on a soft, fall day can be mind-boggling). But, monarchs are the long-distance champs.
In insects that have complete metamorphosis—egg to larva to pupa to adult—the pupal stage is the resting/changing stage where the ugly duckling turns into the beautiful swan. Think of it—the critter enters its pupa looking, well, worm-like, and exits 2 days to 10 months later, looking vastly different. So different that it’s not uncommon in insects with complete metamorphosis for the adult to have entirely different mouthparts and a different diet than it did as a larva, and even to live in a different habitat.
June Bugs are beetles that often appear at the end of May (and so are sometimes called May Beetles) and can be found through part of July. June bugs spend the day sheltered under the ground. They emerge after sunset, over a period of several hours; eating leaves at night. At at dawn, the whole population will disappear within ten minutes.
Sphinx moths are also known as hawk moths because they are strong and fast fliers. They sometimes hover over flowers when sipping nectar; many fly in the late afternoon and are mistaken for small hummingbirds, and some night-flowering plants are pollinated by sphinx moths. The hornworms (as in the notorious Tomato hornworm) are Sphinx caterpillars.
Daddy longlegs or Harvestman are not true spiders. They belong in the Order Opiliones, not with the true spiders in the Order Araneae. Harvestmen may congregate in large numbers in fall, which is thought to be a warming strategy. They are found in fields and meadows, both nocturnally and on bright days. Up to 40 pale green eggs are laid underground in fall. Head-of-a-pin-sized young hatch in spring, live one summer, mate, lay eggs and die. They produce neither web nor nest.