Dimming Lights

I heard somewhere a while back that firefly populations are dwindling, and I believe it. Most nights when I go outside to look at the night, I will only see one, if I see any at all. Tonight I saw two, and that was astounding. It makes me very sad. I know that most people don't care if bugs diminish, and it's not like the dwindling population of fireflies is as dire as the collapsing populations of bees, both domestic and wild, since those actually affect our food supplies - although fireflies are pretty beloved as bugs go, so you'd think more people would be concerned. Maybe the enjoyment of fireflies is another one of those things that people have just forgotten about in this busy, modern world, and they are content to think of them with nostalgia, but don't notice that there aren't so many of them anymore. But the value of a living thing should not be determined by its usefulness to humans. However, if we are going to be so self-centered as to only care about the things that affect us, the disappearance of any specie should give us pause to wonder how our environment has changed, and if that will eventually be harmful to us. You can't fill the world with poison without eventually feeling the effects of it.

The nighttime sounds tonight included owls and coyotes, and I caught a quick glimpse of something flying that was either a bat or an enormous moth, so my sky time was still interesting.

As to the bugs I did see today, I didn't get pictures of them, but today when I went outside to get the mail I saw two damselflies. They are the first I have seen this year. So beautiful and delicate, flitting around my feet as I walked up the driveway.

In truth, I didn't see many bugs at all today because I didn't get to do my bug walk until evening as dusk was setting in. The two damselflies were the highlight of my outdoor time today. But when I got home in the evening there was an eight-spotted forester moth on the side of the house, sitting there just to mock me, because naturally it was gone when I came back out. It made an appearance again just so that it could take off before I could get a picture. Hmph.

Backyard Bug of the Day:

 Some kind of leaf bug, I think.

Random Bugs:

 I didn't get a good look at this (or a good shot), but I think it is some kind of immature Hemiptera.

 Rove beetle? On a mushroom.

 Ant tending to aphids. There is a sadness to this picture that you will find out at the end of the blog.

One of the difficult things about insect macrophotography is that it is very difficult to give a sense of scale. I took pictures of two craneflies today, and in the pictures they look very similar:

 But this one is about half the size of the next one.

 

 I suppose I shouldn't say that I didn't see a lot of bugs today. There are at least seven in this picture.

The above vine is not the only one that had a variety of bugs:

 This one...

 ... this one...

... and this one were all within about three inches of each other on another vine.

 I think this is a spittle bug.

 Assassin bug

 An unusual congregation of ants on the side of the house.

 This is what I needed the other day when I was trying to show the insect life cycle - this is a sawfly laying eggs in a leaf. You can just see her ovipositor sticking into the leaf.

There was some drama with a spider today, along with two more spider species, bringing my count to... I forget. 23? Over... is it 4 days or 5? I don't know. Suffice to say, there are a lot of different species of spiders in my backyard. Arachnid Appreciation:
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 I found this spider on the trunk of a tree. If you recall the ant and aphids from above, this spider was about a foot above them on the tree trunk, but at the time, there were two ants there. I took this picture, and was trying to focus to take a closer one when there was a commotion. It happened so fast (the macro lens magnifies everything, including action) that I really don't know what happened - I know that the spider disappeared off to the left of my lens, but I really can't say if the ant attacked the spider, or if the spider attacked the ant. I think that it was the ant that attacked the spider, but it was a blur even when it happened. You'd think having such a close-up look would have made it clear, but no, it didn't.

 In the blink of an eye both the spider and the ant moved back in front of my lens, which I hadn't even had time to move. I thought I read somewhere that spiders avoid ants, and don't attack them, because ants have a very good defense mechanism, which is that they make formic acid, which they can spray on attackers. But whoever attacked first, this spider had no problem taking on this ant.

 They scuffled together...

 It became clear really fast that whichever one had attacked first, the spider was the victor. The ant was clearly under the affects of the spider's venom. You can see a couple of places on the tree trunk where there are little puddles of liquid. I don't know if these are formic acid, from the ant trying to defend itself, or if it's spilled spider venom (does that happen?), or some other bodily fluid from one of them (most likely the ant).

 Very quickly there appeared some more insects - these three gnats, apparently attracted to the scene like hyenas to a lion's kill.

 Here the spider is using its back legs to wrap up the ant a bit with silk.

 The last I saw of them was the spider dragging the ant behind it off to the other side of the tree trunk, with the gnats following.

So, maybe you are wondering why I thought this was sad? I know it is sappy of me, but I couldn't help but feel bad for the other ant, the one in the picture above tending to the aphids. It was probably expecting this ant to return, and it never would. I don't usually get sentimental about this tiny acts of predation that take place before my eyes, or my lens anyway, on a regular basis, but for some reason this one struck me.

Huge spider on the outside of my window screen. It appeared just after I opened the window. That leg span from front to back was easily three inches. Both of these spiders today are new ones to my list of recent sightings.