Note: All links leave to external sites. Howdy BugFans, Instead of slaving over a hot computer, the BugLady has been hanging out on the hawk tower. The Red-tails were blowing past sideways on Tuesday. Here’s a rerun from eight years… Read More
Greetings, BugFans, The BugLady has been enjoying the recent “tropical” temperatures (in the high 40’s) and her thoughts have been turning to butterflies. Someone asked her recently what butterflies might be aloft as spring approaches. Along with the Mourning Cloaks… Read More
Howdy, BugFans, The BugLady found this velvety, deeply maroon caterpillar at the Land Trust’s CESA site on a fine June day. It’s the larva of a Straight-toothed sallow moth (Eupsilia vinulenta) (probably). (Full disclosure – the experts caution us that the… Read More
Howdy, BugFans, Last week’s episode was the 600th original (not rerun or tweaked) episode, and the BugLady is going to take a two-week victory lap (but she will fill the space with tasteful reruns). The BugLady has been hanging out on… Read More
Howdy, BugFans, As she cruises through her moth books trying to identify what she’s photographed, the BugLady sees pictures of AMAZING caterpillars – not drab brown or grass-green caterpillars, but caterpillars that eschew camouflage in favor of some pretty gaudy… Read More
The BugLady photographed these beautiful caterpillars on a cold and blustery day at the start of October, a day when nearby New England asters were topped by sluggish bumblebees (bumblebees are sometimes called, only half-jokingly, a “warm-blooded bees”). The caterpillars weren’t too active, either. They’re called Zebra Caterpillars (of course!),
The leaves are starting to fall here in God’s Country, the birds are moving, and as of yesterday it’s officially autumn (Yikes!). But there are still some bugs out there – like wildflowers, some species of insects bloom in the spring, some in the summer, and others in the fall. The imperative to reproduce is strong as the days get shorter; most insects live for about a calendar year, mainly in their immature stages, with a short-but-productive adult stage. Most leave behind eggs or pupae or partly-grown offspring to weather the winter.
The BugLady’s favorite insect is the Tiger Swallowtail (Mom likes me best), but in the crowded field for second place, the Luna Moth is pretty close to the top. Luna moths (Actias luna) are in the Giant Silkworm/Royal Moth family Saturnidae (of previous BOTW fame), whose family members have ringed eyespots reminiscent of Saturn.
This wonderful caterpillar dropped down onto the railing the other day while the BugLady was eating breakfast on the porch. The Silver-spotted skipper was mentioned briefly ten years ago in a general BOTW about skippers, in which the BugLady confessed, not for the last time, that she is Skipper Challenged (Brock and Kaufman, in the Field Guide to Butterflies of North America, say that “Beginners are often driven to despair by the skippers because there are so many of them and because they are so subtle, so challenging to identify. Experienced butterfly watchers may love the skippers for exactly the same reasons.”). It deserves an episode of its own.
Another week, another Maple Spanworm. This one, the Large Maple Spanworm (Prochoerodes lineola) is also in the family Geometridae. The BugLady didn’t have to play her usual game of Identification Roulette because, of the seven New World species in this primarily tropical genus, this is the only one that occurs in eastern North America.