Drama on a Flower

Sunday, July 27, 2014

Due to some ill-timed rain, a basketball game, and a two-ton pile of gravel, I didn't have much time for exploring the backyard today, so I don't have much for you, but I hope you will like it, because it is high in drama. Actually, it might be a little bit traumatic. On the bright side, if you are afraid of spiders you don't have to worry about seeing any here today, because I didn't find any. No arachnids to appreciate at all.

Backyard Bud of the Day:

I was dodging raindrops to get this. Then I had to get my camera under cover and run for the house. Shortest bug walk of all time - didn't even have a chance to see a bug.

The Backyard Bug of the Day had to wait for later.

And here it is:

 The BBotD is the white bug, not the fly. It is the nymph of an ambush bug, according to my bug book, but it does not get specific about which of the 22 species of ambush bugs it is.

 Ambush bugs are related to assassin bugs, and, as you have probably guessed, are True Bugs, aka Hemiptera. The sit on flowers and wait for other bugs to come by, then they grab them, and suck the life out of them. That fly would appear to be prey for this bug, but in the past I have seen adult ambush bugs take down some pretty big stuff.

 This bug is totally white (that yellow is a reflection or something), and now I get why we were always told not to wear white on school picture day. It doesn't photograph well.

 I've loaded you up on pictures of it, in the hopes that you'll get some sense of what it looks like, which is hard to do even in real life, much less in pictures.

 In this and the next one it looks like it has its proboscis stuck in the prey bug. (These pictures are all out of order in which I took them; these two at the end should be at the beginning if I was posting them chronologically, which I am not).

Okay, now for the promised drama, which involves this same bug, but later on.

 I'm sure you've noticed how much I love finding multiple bugs on the same flower. So I was tickled pink to see this fly (or whatever it is) approach the flower where the BBotD was, and to notice the little beetle on there as well.

 I was busy trying to focus on the fly, and I did not notice - nor did the fly, apparently - that the ambush bug was creeping up - until it grabbed the fly by its proboscis!

 The fly struggled to get away.

I don't think that ambush bugs envenomate their prey to kill them, but the fly basically keeled over. I couldn't watch anymore, so I walked away. But when I came back a couple of minutes later, the fly was gone. Now, it could have fallen off the flower, but I like to think it got over the shock and flew away. Not that I should be making judgements over which bugs deserve to win in any struggle. But it was a little bit startling, at least, to see this all happen in macro.

There were more of those flies around the astilbe, but none of them were so cooperative:

 I know these pictures are horrible, but I think they are funny.

 Actually, that bug in the middle of the picture is a hoverfly, not that other kind of fly. Also, look up Ted Geisel's advertising cartoons for Flit ("Quick, Henry, the Flit!"). That fly looks like it's right out of his drawings.

A very sedate bee.

Well, that's all I have for you today. I wouldn't normally load up so many bad pictures, but in the case of BBotD, I don't think I have ever gotten a good picture of that bug, and I wanted you to at least see it. I guess this just adds to its sense of mystery, which is a charming quality in a bug.