Due to circumstances beyond my control, I didn't have a lot of time for a bug walk today. Due to more circumstances beyond my control, I didn't see a lot of bugs on my bug walk today. I took just under 200 pictures today, and more than half of them were of a reptile, and a few of an amphibian. So you can imagine how few bugs are included among the pictures today.
Here's the Amphibian of the Day:
This is the third different frog species I have seen in the last week. The Week of Species Diversity in my backyard has extended to amphibians, I guess.
I don't even have a Backyard Bug of the Day. I think most of the insects I found today have already been BBotD at some point this year. Weirdly, mostly what I found today were fuzzy, brown caterpillars:
You have to watch your step in the backyard lately.
There are caterpillars everywhere.
I'm not sure what's going on with this woolly bear, but it looks like it's covered in slug slime.
Not all of the caterpillars are brown and fuzzy.
Other Bugs:
Wasp
Stinkbug nymph
Stinkbug
Stinkbug nymph
Plant bug
Crane fly and a caterpillar of dubious health. I couldn't get closer because there were a lot of thorns between me and these insects.
Ambush bug. I am not sure if that is a twig behind it, or an ailanthus webworm caterpillar that it has preyed on and sucked the life out of.
Tree cricket
Katydid
Ladybeetle larva
Arachnid Appreciation:
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Jumping spider
Flower crab spider
Jumping Spider feeding on a moth
Backyard Reptile of the Day:
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I was alerted to the presence of a snake in my yard by the man who had just fixed a leak in my roof. He pointed it out to me and left, and then I went inside and got my camera.
At first I assumed that it was a black racer, because I don't know much about snakes, and it looked like a plain, black snake at first. But I was suspicious when it didn't zoom away–black racers don't like people, and they get that name because they are fast, and will speed off if you get close to them. This one didn't seem to care much that I was standing there, and meandered around the area. It seemed to be hunting, tasting the air and looking around a lot.
Next hint that it was not a black racer: it wasn't completely black. I looked it up, and it turns out that it is an eastern rat snake. Not venomous. I learned some interesting things about it. It is patterned when it is young, and turns black as it matures, so this one is probably almost mature. It was at least 3 feet long.
There is definitely a bit of a pattern on its back. Here is is also in a defensive posture, pulled back in an s-shaped spring, to look intimidating and be able to strike. Just to be clear, I was not standing very close to this.
In this position you can see a little bit of the "checkerboard" pattern on its belly, another way to distinguish it from a black racer.
Another thing it does for defense, although I don't see how this works (this is what I read), is it flattens its head out, making it look wider. And, to my limited experience with snake identification, it makes it look like a venomous snake, because I have read that they have triangular shaped heads.
Another way to identify this (which I only did on the computer, not while I was looking at it outside): the eastern rat snake has keeled scales–note the ridges on them like the keel of a boat. Black racers have smooth scales.
I don't know what this was about, but it cocked its head and started licking this plant.
Now, when I was outside taking these pictures I still thought it might be a black racer, which I have read is semi-arboreal. Which means it can climb trees. And then it did this:
This was kind of cool, and kind of horrifyingly nightmarish to witness. Apparently eastern rat snakes are good tree climbers, and have been found as much as 40 feet up in trees. This is not the kind of thing I like to think about when I am outside walking in my tree-filled backyard.
It looks so smug...
I really wish that occasionally the Backyard Reptile of the Day could be a tortoise, but I have never seen one in my backyard.
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