The Bracken Borer Moth (maybe)\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When the BugLady photographed this beautiful moth on her back porch rail in mid-September, she knew that it was in the genus\u00a0Papaipema<\/em>\u00a0(the borer moths) (in the Owlet moth family Noctuidae), but which species?\u00a0Caterpillars of a few\u00a0Papaipema<\/em>\u00a0species are somewhat generalist feeders, but many are highly specific about host choice, as is evidenced by names like Blazing star borer, meadow rue borer moth, pitcher plant, burdock, iron weed, hop, and rattlesnake master borer, Joe-Pye, aster, columbine, sunflower, coneflower, turtlehead, royal fern, and cinnamon fern borer, and more (there are 50 species).\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s a genus of moths that flies and reproduces in late summer and early fall and that are generally found near their host species.\u00a0The eggs overwinter and hatch in spring, and the\u00a0modus operandi<\/em>\u00a0of their rarely-seen caterpillars<\/a>\u00a0is to bore into the roots, rhizomes, and\/or stems of their (non-woody) host plants, feed in seclusion, pupate in summer, and emerge in fall.\u00a0Bugguide.net remarks that \u201cMany species are rare or locally distributed. Numbers have generally declined since historical times due to loss of wetland and prairie habitat, and the resulting scarcity of particular food plants upon which some species depend (the names of various Papaipema species appear on a number of state lists of “species in greatest need of conservation”).<\/em>\u201d Wagner, et al, in\u00a0Owlet Caterpillars of Eastern North America\u00a0write that \u201cthe genus seems to be speciating rapidly as evidenced by the number of species that are known to be geographically localized\u2026.\u00a0 As might be expected of a large genus with specialized habits, a number of species seem to be slipping toward extinction.\u00a0Close to a third of Connecticut\u2019s 30 species have not been seen in more than three decades\u2026<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n So, who was BugLady’s visitor? It looked an awful lot like the Bracken Borer moth (Papaipema pterisii<\/em>)<\/a>, whose food plant is Bracken fern<\/a>. The problem was that the BugLady hasn\u2019t seen any bracken fern in her neighborhood, but she and the moth were 20 feet away from lots of Ostrich fern.\u00a0Is there an Ostrich fern borer?\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n She found a picture of a \u201cpotential\u201d Ostrich fern borer<\/a>, and the plot thickened.\u00a0It hasn\u2019t really been described or named yet (it\u2019s one of several possibly-emerging new\u00a0Papaipema<\/em>\u00a0species), but the DNRs and Natural Heritage Departments of a number of Northeastern states refer to it as \u201cunnamed\u00a0Papaipena<\/em>\u00a0species #2\u201d or call it \u201cPapaipema<\/em>\u00a0sp. 2 nr.\u00a0Pterisii,<\/em>\u201d and they\u2019re keeping an eye on it. It\u2019s described as being larger and more richly colored than, and flying a bit later in the fall than the Bracken fern borer.\u00a0It feeds on Ostrich fern (first in the stem and later in the roots), and its pupae are found in the soil at the base of Ostrich fern stalks.\u00a0You can\u2019t tell the difference between it and the Bracken borer in a photograph.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But what is its status in Wisconsin, the BugLady wondered?\u00a0She asked PJ, and PJ asked Les, and Les recommended sticking with Bracken borer for now \u2013 it\u2019s not known if the Bracken borer might be using more than one host, and identifications shouldn\u2019t be made just on the basis of host plants.\u00a0It is likely not a valid species, said Les, but a publication due out in early 2025 may shed more light on it.\u00a0Thanks, Gentlemen.\u00a0Stay tuned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yellow-Faced Swiftwing – Version 1 \u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n How do you tell a fly from a bee? Easy – hymenopterans (bees, wasps, etc.) have four wings and flies have two. Except that, hymenopterans typically perch with their wings more-or-less stacked, and very few are cooperative enough to spread their wings so that we can count them. The BugLady recognized this bumble bee mimic as a fly because of its (wimpy) antennae and because of the large, flattened eyes<\/a>.\u00a0One entomologist calls them \u201cwanna bees<\/em>.\u201d \u00a0View a bumble bee for comparison<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s a syrphid\/hover\/flower fly (family Syrphidae) in the genus\u00a0Volucella<\/em>\u00a0(the Swiftwings), a genus that according to most internet sources has four species in North America.\u00a0Probably a Yellow-faced Swiftwing (Volucella facialis<\/em>) (if it\u2019s not, it\u2019s an Eastern Swiftwing (V. evecta<\/em>). Members of the genus look a little \u201chippy\u201d (no judgement) (\u201cbroad-bodied,\u201d says one source), have triangular faces, and their \u201carista\u201d (the bristle that juts off of the antenna) is plumose (feathery)<\/a>. View the glamour shot<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yellow-Faced Swiftwing – Version 2 \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n So, the BugLady had settled on the narrative above, but then she found an article from the University of California, written in 2020, that pretty much upended it. According to entomologist Andrew Young, there is only one species of\u00a0Volucella<\/em>\u00a0fly in North America, and it\u2019s\u00a0Volucella bombylans<\/em>, whose range stretches across Eurasia (it\u2019s called the Bumblebee hover fly in England), the Near East, and North America. There was no suggestion of whether it had or had not immigrated here from someplace else.\u00a0 All the \u201cother\u201d\u00a0Volucellas<\/em>\u00a0in this country, says Young, are simply varieties of\u00a0V. bombylans<\/em>, and they probably exist as a \u201cspecies complex,\u201d a group of closely-related species that look so much alike that\u00a0we<\/em>\u00a0can\u2019t differentiate among them and that may be able to hybridize.\u00a0Hold your horses, say other biologists, there\u00a0are<\/em>\u00a0no species complexes, it\u2019s just that our meager observational skills don\u2019t yet allow us to detect their differences.\u00a0Scott King, in his\u00a0The Flower Flies of Minnesota\u00a0(2021), writes that \u201cthe Volucella bombylans species complex was only recently unraveled into three Nearctic\u00a0<\/em>[New World]\u00a0species, two of which\u00a0<\/em>[V. facialis<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0V.evecta<\/em>]\u00a0live in Minnesota.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Whatever the name, the life histories of these flies is similar – they lay their eggs in the nests of social wasps and especially of bumble bees (whose nests they have no trouble entering).\u00a0When the eggs hatch, the fly larvae are detritivores, feeding on organic debris in the nest, including dead bees, and on bee larvae, too, and some eat bee and wasp pupae within the nest.\u00a0They are\u00a0inquilines<\/em>\u00a0\u2013 animals that live in another animal\u2019s space (from the Latin word \u201cinquilinus<\/em>,\u201d meaning tenant or lodger).\u00a0Some inquilines don\u2019t eat their hosts, but some do. The esteemed French naturalist and entomologist Henri Fabre (1823 to 1915) wondered how the larvae could survive inside a wasp nest: \u201cWhat has it to make itself thus respected?\u00a0Strength?\u00a0Certainly not. It is a harmless creature which the Wasp could rip open with a blow of her shears, while a touch of the sting would mean lightening death<\/em>.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Adult\u00a0Volucella<\/em>\u00a0are nectar feeders that, says Wikipedia, like to sun themselves on leaves, and it also says that the genus is strongly migratory and that males are often territorial. Syrphids are important pollinators.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n The BugLady<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Howdy, BugFans, In her program about insect Natural History, the BugLady says to the audience \u201cso \u2013 we\u2019ve been studying insects for hundreds of years \u2013 we\u2019ve got it all nailed down, right?\u201d Sure. The BugLady has had some interesting …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32664,"featured_media":15402,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","uwm_wg_additional_authors":[]},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15401","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bug-of-the-week"],"yoast_head":"\n![\"moth](\"https:\/\/uwm.edu\/field-station\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/380\/2024\/11\/moth-papaipema24-5rz-300x214.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n![\"fly](\"https:\/\/uwm.edu\/field-station\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/380\/2024\/11\/fly-volucella-fbmp24-1rz-300x300.jpg\")
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