Lately, The BugLady’s been thinking about prairies. She led a walk at Riveredge Nature Center’s excellent “Knee Deep in Prairies” celebration, and she spends a lot of quality time on the prairie because she loves its ever-changing palettes and patterns. By some estimates, the biomass of the insects on pre-settlement American prairies equaled that of the bison. Here are some pollinators and predators and plant feeders of the prairie – and the flowers they visit.
With a lower case “t,” technicolor refers to something that is vividly colorful. But long before the creation of color motion pictures, nature has been demonstrating the word’s meaning. Especially when it comes to bugs!
If the first rule of looking for insects is “check the flowers,” then wild geraniums(Geranium maculatum) are the flower to watch right now. Insects perceive UV light differently than we do, and the transparent veins that lead them across the petals to the payload at the center of the flower (they’re called “nectar guides”) are far more conspicuous to them.
Another celebration of insects that are not good enough nor bad enough nor beautiful enough nor bizarre enough to have fan clubs, or common names, or even much of a biography.
The wonder of ephemeral pools is that they are populated by animals that take this annual disappearing act in stride—animals that are prepared to dry up with the pond or to get out of Dodge (timing is everything), and therein lie many tales. An astonishing array of animals use ephemeral ponds as a place to drink, hunt, and breed, but an ephemeral pond is a challenging place to call home. The still, shallow water warms quickly (which encourages speedy metamorphoses) but contains little oxygen.
Two species grace our area, the Asparagus/Common Asparagus Beetle and the Spotted/12-spotted Asparagus Beetle. Both species overwinter as adults in hollow asparagus stems, or under leaf litter, garden debris, or loose bark, The Common Asparagus Beetle is the first to wake up, and it also feeds on the lacy leaves, which can defoliate and weaken the plant. It lays its eggs in rows of 3 to 8 on the new spears, leaves or flower buds. The 12-spotted emerges a little later in spring, and it also eats the spears and leaves, but its larvae concentrate on the fruits and don’t damage the plant. It lays one egg at a time on the leaves; the larvae hatch, head for the fruits, and burrow inside.
The Water Lily Leaf Beetle is found throughout North America, wherever its host plants grow, and in northern Europe. They feed primarily on water lilies and smartweeds; each of the two distinct plant families presents unique feeding challenges, and it has been suggested that there are two, specialized races of WLLBs, with slightly different sizes, colors and jaw widths. A study in which larvae were mixed and matched with either food plant showed that not all host plants are created equal—beetles preferred, grew faster on, and had higher survival rates on their natal plants.
The BugLady’s #3 child nailed it years ago when she proclaimed her mother an “Essoterrorist”—someone with a fondness for squirreling away obscure facts. Here are some of the Bug Facts that she’s come across while looking for something else.
Bombardier Beetles dark-colored, speedy, long-lived, nocturnal carnivores. Many of the more talented members of the family are able to produce noxious chemicals to spray on their enemies. The False Bombardier Beetle spray consists mainly (80%) of concentrated formic acid (which is also deployed by ants), with some acetic acid and wetting agents thrown in.
The Dogwood Tree Borer’s name is a study in confusion. Despite its common name, its larvae have catholic tastes and are at home on a variety of woody plants including plum, viburnum, willow, mulberry, elm, laurel, dogwood, fruit trees, and blueberry. It can be found from the Atlantic through Kansas and the Dakotas.