Up and Down

I think it was about two weeks ago that I had a couple of really stellar days bug hunting in the backyard. It's been waning a lot since then, and today, after spending about 20 minutes of my bug walk finding no bugs at all, I was feeling pretty woeful about that. I felt like I never find anything interesting anymore, much less anything new. Then I remembered that there were lady beetle eggs on a plant I had already walked by, and decided to go check them out, and on that plant found one of today's two Backyard Co-Bugs of the Day, not something new, but something rare for me, and that I had not seen yet this year. And later, when I was taking a break from mowing the lawn in a fruitless chase of a dragonfly, I found the other Backyard Co-Bug of the Day, something new for me. A bad day becomes a good day just like that. Also, about half of these bugs were found while I was mowing the lawn, not while I was out looking for bugs.

Backyard Co-Bug of the Day #1:

 Partridge bug. Order Hemiptera. Genus Scolops. Feeds on plant sap. That's all I know about it, other than that it is one of those bugs that looks like it was put together with spare parts.

Backyard Co-Bug of the Day #2:

 This is the biggest fly I have ever seen, and a new bug for me. Over an inch and a half long, I'd guess. When it first landed near me, I thought it was a cicada, and when I saw that it wasn't I was disappointed, until I saw how cool it was.

 I almost got a great head-on view of its eyes, but a certain person came along and scared it away just before I could get the shot.

Other Bugs:

 A couple of different leaf hoppers.

A couple of skippers decided to cooperate at least a little today, after yesterday's blog snark about Lepidoptera:

 It may take a minute to see why I like this picture even though it's out of focus...

 One of the things I love about butterflies is their curly probosces.

   

 Enough.

 

 Semi-cooperative Great Spangled Fritillary

 That jagged ambush bug looks ambitious...

 The purple coneflowers are kind of crowded sometimes.

 Looper caterpillar, head down in the flower

Remember yesterday I posted a picture of lady beetle eggs? It was good timing:

 Today they hatched. The eggs look orange, but they are really white/clear, and what makes them look orange is the color of the larvae inside. After they emerge they darken. On the left you see one still in the process of climbing out of the egg. On the right is an unhatched egg. The emerging one should be careful; lady beetle larvae mainly feed on aphids, but they will also eat their siblings.

The hornets have been doing some digging.

 And I think that is a leaf in there.

 Stink bug nymph

 The seed pods of the catalpa tree were covered with them.

 Gnats on gypsy moth caterpillar egg mass

 Lace bug with broken elytron

 Cricket

 

 Another cricket

 

 Instead of the butterflies learning from the dragonflies how to pose nicely for me, the dragonflies seem to have learned from the butterflies how to frustrate me.

 Hmmm... Leaf damage on a milkweed leaf... What will I find on the other side?

 Baby monarch caterpillar!

 Here's a couple of the monarchs I adopted. I think the one on the left was in its final gorging stage today, and will start looking for a spot to pupate tomorrow. I worry about that spot on the smaller one, that it has been attacked and has a parasite inside it. Also, I didn't notice before that there are aphids on the plant. Well, they won't bother the caterpillars.

Red-headed ash borers. There were about ten or so of them running around on their tree today. What I read about them laying their eggs in sick, dead, or dying trees appears to be true–the tree appears to have died in the last month.

Arachnid Appreciation:
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