I love butterflies. Just about everybody loves butterflies, right? Just about everyone thinks they are beautiful? So maybe it will disappoint you that I am not going to post pictures of either of the butterflies I saw today on this blog. I am not holding out on you, I just didn't get pictures of either one of them. They both fluttered right past my head, and when I pleaded with them to land so I could take their pictures, the flew away. One flew way up into the trees, and the other just took off in a hurry, and I lost sight of it. I didn't even get a good enough look at them to be able to tell you what they were - butterflies can fly surprisingly fast. One of them may have been a Baltimore checkerspot, and the other was either a monarch or a viceroy. I was disappointed that I didn't get a better look at them, much less a picture or two of each, and I often am disappointed when butterflies elude me - which happens a lot. I see a lot more butterflies than ever appear on this blog. But then I got to thinking that it's silly that I should be disappointed by not getting to see a couple of butterflies up close. I got to see them flying, and that is a beautiful sight. And I got to see a whole lot of other things today that were beautiful, or amazing, or both. I don't need the butterflies to have something wonderful to see (and this is not a message to the butterflies to stop coming around!). I just need to go beyond what we all conventionally agree is beautiful and appreciate a bright pink beetle.
Yes, that's right. I present to you Backyard Bug of the Day:
This is the kind of bug that I can't believe really exists, especially in my backyard. When you think beetle, you probably don't think of this color, do you? I know I don't. But here it is. It's not in my book, so I don't know what it is (and this is not what comes up when you type "pink beetle" into a search engine), but it's incredible. I know you don't get any size context from the picture, either, so I have to tell you that this is a really small beetle - maybe about an eighth of an inch long.
I saw it in this curled up bit of leaf, and wondered what was in there that was such a bright color. I was amazed that it was a beetle. Actually, I was amazed that it was really this color - I assumed it was just some sort of weird reflection, or a trick of the light. I didn't expect to find something like this.
After well over a decade of using the same program to view pictures on my computer, I discovered the magnifier tool. Previously when I wanted to look at a small detail in a picture I had to zoom in the whole picture, but now that I discovered this (and it's so stupid that I never noticed it before, or wondered what it did), I can take pictures like this (which is a screenshot of the magnifier on the picture). Be prepared for more of this kind of thing in the coming days, until I get bored with it. Which may never happen.
When I first found the beetle it played dead, as beetles like to do.
The backyard today did not have quite the thrilling variety of yesterday, but there was some pretty fascinating stuff to see. Also, plenty of spiders, though not as many as yesterday.
Random Bugs:
I am not sure what's going on here, whether the ambush bug is eating something, or if that is its own skin it just shed.
There's been an interesting turn of events with the aphid that has been surrounded by ants all week on a tree trunk. Today suddenly there are a bunch of very small insects there. I thought at first sight that they were sowbugs, and thought that was weird that the ants were allowing them in, but then I realized that they were young aphids! So now I am wondering - do aphids bear live young? And is that even an aphid? And do ants act as midwives? (I am pretty sure the answer to that last one is no, but it could be yes...).
This time of year I find a lot of discarded wings. I think they might be from the ants that swarmed a few weeks ago. More on this one later...
The white hickory tussock moth caterpillars are much more scarce now. I guess they have mostly gone of to become pupae.
And speaking of pupae...
Remember a while back I posted a picture of a white marked tussock moth caterpillar one day, and its cocoon the next? Well, here it is! Now, I know what you are thinking: what is that white thing, and why does the moth look so weird? Well, the female white marked tussock moth has no wings! I guess that makes more sense than the female gypsy moths, which have wings, but can't fly. But it's still a bit strange. The white stuff is her egg mass - after emerging from her cocoon (you can see the opening at the top where she emerged), she lays her eggs on the cocoon she came out of. I presume she mated with a male first, but I didn't see that part of the proceedings.
Close-up of her face.
I found another leaf miner caterpillar pupal case, this one attached to a tree, where I presume the caterpillar is pupating inside.
Here's another one, dangling from a thread.
Magnified. You can just barely see the head sticking out the top. I would guess, given the lighting, that you can see the shadow of the caterpillar inside. This is about the size of a sesame seed.
Weevil
I think this is a fall webworm caterpillar.
Caterpillar close-up
Large milkweed bugs inside a milkweed seed pod. I wonder if their feeding on the seeds affects the seeds' ability to germinate.
Moth
It looks like a leaf, but this too is a moth.
It's it amazing?
Moth and stilt bug silhouettes
Grasshopper
I think this is a Tachinid fly.
Flies can be beautiful, too.
I was sitting at the picnic table reading a book after my lunch today, and happened to see this tiny caterpillar scooting around:
It was really, really tiny. Maybe 1/16th of an inch long.
I think these are from the eggs on the blueberry netting. I'll have to look at them tomorrow. If so, that's some impressive crawling for such tiny creatures - it's not exactly all the way across the yard, but it's at least ten feet, through grass. Unless they cast out a thread and let the wind carry them. All I know is, I was carefully about where I placed my book after I saw it.
Then I noticed that there were others, too.
This is a lesser grapevine looper moth. It's a pretty common visitor to the porches when the lights are on. It has a weird way of sitting...
Moth yoga?
Some of the spiders I saw today were the same ones from yesterday (as in, the actual same spiders), but others were different. Arachnid Appreciation:
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Most of the spiders in the backyard lately have been really, really small. So small they are even difficult to see. They are even more difficult to get pictures of, because it's hard to get close enough to a spider in a web (and the breeze doesn't help. And there's almost always a breeze). This one was over my head, so this was as close as I could get. Fortunately, this was not one of the smallest spiders.
I'm not sure how this spider catches prey.
Remember the random wing in a spider web from above? It was in this spider's web...
... until the spider decided it didn't want the wing there, and it zoomed over to it (as seen here), and then plucked it off the web and carried it over to where the web attached to a twig, and left the wing by the twig.
So small, and so fast...
Here you see the funnel web spider...
... aaaaaaand there it goes into the tunnel. (Can you see it?)
To get your mind around how small this is, those are goldenrod flowers. Of course, that information only helps if you have seen how small goldenrod flowers are.
This is the spider whose web I half-wrecked yesterday with my head. I may have ruined the rest of it today, also with my head. I really need to watch where I'm going...
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