The word Dragonfly is probably taken equally from mythical dragons and from the Greek dragon, drakos—the dragon of fly, which had a “terrible eye” (Dragonflies seem to be all compound eye.) Both immature and adult dragonflies are voracious carnivores. Nymphs spend their allotted days, scarfing down anything that’s smaller and slower-moving than they are; they’ll even take tadpoles and fish.
Sometimes when the insects are playing hard to get, there are still plenty of signs that insects are around. Keep that in mind on your own hikes.
Like dragonflies, Damselflies are in the Order Odonata. Despite the fact that the immature insect looks very different than the adult, like dragonflies they practice simple/incomplete metamorphosis, growing through eggYmdash;naiad—adult stages. Like dragonflies, their nurseries are aquatic, often in the quiet waters of the pond’s edge.
Most wasps live solitary lives, and when the time comes to lay eggs, they build a variety of types of nursery chambers, provision them with food for their potential young. This small, black mud dauber, also called the Jug Builder Wasp, throws a pot the shape of a small (about ½ inch) jug. She commonly builds several jugs in a row on a small branch, finding and transporting, one by one, small globs of mud.
Centipedes have one leg on each side of each body segment and millipedes. Typical Wisconsin centipedes have about 15 leg-bearing segments (which, alas, leaves us substantially shy of 100 legs). Their first pair of legs has been adapted with small, lobster-like claws, complete with poison ducts that allow centipedes to grab, subdue, handle, and tear their prey. Centipedes are carnivores that spend the daylight hours in the dark and humid world under leaves, logs and soil. They emerge at night to hunt for insects and other small invertebrates.
Aphids consume plant juice. Lots and lots of plant juice. The majority of aphids are picky eaters who are attracted to a particular plant species or family. Entertaining a few aphids won’t compromise a plant, but hosting a whole battalion can damage the plant or impair the production of seeds. As an aphid feeds on plant sap, it excretes the unneeded portion in the form of small drops of honeydew.
The three dragonflies included here, Eastern/Common Pondhawks, Eastern Amberwing, and Chalk-fronted Corporals, are all in the Skimmer family, Libellulidae. Despite the fact that the young are aquatic and the adults are not, and the young (naiads) look different than the adults, they are considered to have simple or incomplete metamorphosis.
Adult Click Beetles are long skinny beetles with grooves running down their wing covers. Most adult Click Beetles are 12-30 mm long, a few species get up to 45 mm. The front of their heads and the back end of their wing covers are rounded. The hard-coated click beetle grubs, which may spend up to four years in that stage, are called “wireworms”.
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.