Backyard Biodiversity

The amazing variety of the bugs in my backyard will be evident by the end of this post. I posted pictures of a lot of bugs yesterday, of multiple Orders. Today I don't have as many, but they are almost all bugs that I did not see yesterday. And then tomorrow I am going to go outside and have a look around my backyard, and will see bugs that I didn't see yesterday or today. Most of them will be bugs that I have seen many times before–although I do continue to see new species even after 7 years of studying the bug populations in my backyard–but it still shows the biodiversity of just one acre (plus a bit) of land.
Backyard Bug of the Day:

 Beetle. This is the kind of insect that I see and think is a new one for me, but I have seen so many insects of the last few years that I don't really know if that's true. I could have seen one last week and just don't remember it. I am not going to look it up; I have already spent over three hours on this post and am not done yet.

 It's pretty small for a beetle. Before I looked at it through my camera I thought it was a fly, or a gnat, or a tiny wasp.

I am so tired right now, and frustrated that all of my picture files that I uploaded got dumped, so I had to do them all over again, that I am just going to go through these in the order they uploaded (except maybe I will rearrange some of them that got separated by the unreliability of the internet). So... Other Bugs:

 Four-lined leaf bug. Such a prosaic name...

 I don't know what this is called; it might be a kind of spittle bug. It's one of those bugs that I have a hard time telling which end is the front, and which is the back (the front is to the right in this picture).

 Bee, wasp, hornet, something along those lines. I am not looking anything up tonight.

An interesting thing happened while I was photographing this caterpillar.

 Well, two interesting things, but one of them is only of interest to me, which is that I knelt down on the ground to get close to it, and that is noteworthy because of my recent knee surgery, and the fact that before the surgery I would have had a hard time doing that. The other thing is...

 ... suddenly that drop of liquid appeared...

... and seemed to get bigger. I don't know if that came from the caterpillar–and I have NO idea how that would have happened–or from the leaf, which also seems kind of unplausible.

 Any guesses as to how I happened to spot this caterpillar, which blends in quite well with its surroundings?

 Buffalo leaf hopper giving a fairly convincing impression of a thorn–from this direction, at least.

 Not so much from this one.

 Beetle larva. I have never figured out which species. It is my favorite beetle larva because it is blue.

 Katydid nymph

 Caterpillar

 I hardly ever see these in the wild, meaning somewhere other than on my porch, attracted to the light.

 On a pepper plant in my vegetable garden. I wonder if that white spot is an insect egg. I didn't notice it when I was taking the picture. I really don't want insect eggs in my garden.

 

 This year I have seen way more tortoise beetles than I have ever seen. I have certainly never seen a gathering like this.

 I realized that picture makes them hard to see, because of the depth of field issue of a macro lens, so I'll point them out to you. I think this one picture shows more tortoise beetles than I usually see in a year. Still no actual tortoises in my backyard, though.

 Closer look at the tortoise beetle.

Hoverflies/ Syrphid flies

 Some kind of Hemiptera nymph

 Bee. Bees were really scarce today. Almost completely absent, in fact. That is a worrisome feature of this entire year, actually.

 A couple of tent caterpillars

 Closer look at a tent caterpillar

 Some of the syrphid fly larvae were gone from the aphid colonies on that one sapling, but others remained, and were still completely ignored by the ants, who just walked over them like they were part of the plant.

Arachnid Appreciation:
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 This is an orchard spider, I think, and I generally find these on their orb webs, but this one was just hanging upside down from a thread, no web in sight.

As I typed that, I just saw a spider crawl over to my shoe... I hope it doesn't crawl in... now it is on top of my shoe... Oh, good, it just crawled off...

 Not cooperative, jumping spider.

 I don't know why this little scene amused me, but it did.

 I was about to take a picture of an insect on this vine, but before I could even get close enough to see what it was, this spider zoomed in from out of nowhere, and the insect jumped off.

 I found this mite on my finger while I was trying to take a picture of a spider. I did not get a picture of the spider.