Early Riser

I'm posting more than twelve hours earlier than I usually do, because I did my bug walk in the morning today. I had a dream of maybe seeing a luna moth, but it was not to be. Alas. Just the usual bugs.

What is unusual in the backyard the last couple of days is the smell. There are quite a few different kinds of flowers that perfume the air beautifully when they are in full bloom, like the multiflora rose, milkweed, and honeysuckle, and though two of those are blooming right now, the backyard smells terrible. I thought it might be the catalpa trees' blooms as they fell to the ground and decayed, but that seems to be done with, and the backyard still smells kind of gross.

I just had a horrible thought. What if that terrible smell is the odor of thousands of rotting gypsy moth caterpillars? Oh, well, if it is, I would rather have the smell than the live monsters. I thought today might finally be the day in which I saw no live GMCs at all, but that was not the case. They have not ALL succumbed to the fungus, and there were several still crawling around.

Backyard Bug of the Day:

 Four lined plant bug. You can tell that it is from the order Hemiptera because you can see its proboscis, which it jabs into plants to suck out the juices.

Other bugs:

 Tiny wasp?

 Borer

 This is the caterpillar that was Backyard Bug of the Day a couple of days ago.

 It seems hairier now.

 When insects (like dragonflies) or birds eat butterflies, they don't eat the wings.

 Bumblebee

 Long-legged fly

 So many little moths...

 Hopper nymph

Here's something for you to compare, the development of two hopper nymphs of the same species:

 Note that this one has the beginnings of wings.

 The shape is slightly different.

 Still don't know what kind of nymphs these are.

 Cabbage white butterfly on lavender

Another tiny moth

This blog is going on hiatus for about a week for technical reasons. Hopefully by then I won't be seeing any more GMCs, and there will be lots of other interesting bugs in the backyard.

Arachnid Appreciation:
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