Tenacity and Grass

Contrary to my expectation based on the weather forecast, today was excessively hot, which in my parlance means it was in the 90s. And very humid. I did not want to go outside. My excuse for a while was that there was a thunderstorm–it was to the north of us, but the rule of thumb is, if you can hear the thunder, you are close enough to the storm to be struck by lightning. But eventually that stopped, and since I had about an hour (I thought) before the next line of storms would come to us, I finally went out looking for bugs. It was quite dark from the forbidding clouds, but it had cooled down a bit to the upper 80s, so it wasn't completely awful. Still, I think I got my comeuppance in having to lie face down on the ground with my head under a bush to get pictures of one of today's Backyard Co-Bugs of the Day.

Do you remember last weekend I posted a blurry picture of an insect that I said would have been named Backyard Bug of the Day that day if I had managed to get a good picture of it, because it was something I had never seen before? It was something that looked like a cross between a beetle and an ant, and moved really fast, and I couldn't even get a good look at it to figure out what kind of bug it was. Well, since then I have been checking that same tree trunk in the hopes that I would see it again. Whenever I didn't see it I told myself that it was silly to expect to see it there again; it was the only time I have ever seen it at all, so why should I see it again? But sometimes bugs will hang around the same area for a while. There was a fly last summer that I saw every day for probably two weeks on the same tree trunk. Anyway, today I finally saw the bug again–on that tree trunk!–and it was running too fast for me to get a picture of it. Disgruntled, I continued my walk, but my tenacity required me to check the tree one last time before I went back inside at the end of my walk, and there it was. Or rather, there they were.

Backyard Co-Bugs of the Day #1:

 Red-headed ash borers. I believe that the larger one is the female. Even in this position, they were able to scurry over the trunk of the tree quite rapidly. (Photobomb by a sow bug).

 At this point another male entered the scene and showed an inclination to court the female. A very brief scuffle ensued.

 Finally, one of the males sat still for a while for me. Unfortunately, this was way at the bottom of the tree trunk, and I ended up lying down in the grass with my head under a bush trying to get pictures. In spite of the stillness of the beetle, I had only this limited success due to the awkward location.

Backyard Co-Bug of the Day #2:

 Some kind of flower longhorn beetle. I've been seeing them on the sumac all week, but this is the first time I've been able to get a decent picture. I think this species may be a new one for me (well, whenever I first saw it this week, anyway).

The sumac continues to be attractive to a wide range of insects, of many orders:

 Here we have Coleoptera (beetle) and Hymenoptera (wasp)

 Lepidoptera–the first ailanthus webworm moth I have seen this year.

 A couple more Hymenoptera

 And another–a very delicate female wasp (Ichneumon?), with an impressive ovipositor

 Note also the fly–order Diptera

So many wasps. They are not as dangerous or aggressive as people think. I was in among them very intrusively today and did not get stung.

 Hover fly

 Another beetle, and a bumblebee

Other Bugs:

 I don't know what this is, and it burrowed into the ground (or at least deeper into the grass) before I could get a better look, but it appears to be a beetle larva of some kind. A really big one, over an inch long.

It is wonderful to no longer have to encounter gypsy moth caterpillars when I go for my walk...

 ... at least, not live ones. Or their frass. But here, though you see some who died of the fungus, there is another female who survived, and is laying eggs.

 Immature tree cricket

Arachnid Appreciation:
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 Missing a leg on each side