Today I didn't see anywhere near as many bugs as yesterday (and took about a third as many pictures). What was the difference? I have no idea. Only the bugs know.
Backyard Bug of the Day:
Tree louse
Other Bugs:
I think this is a potter's wasp. It has a smiley face on its back; I have never noticed that before.
Cricket
Camouflage looper caterpillar that has covered itself in plant debris in order to look like, well, plant debris.
Milkweed tussock moth caterpillar on the move
The Japanese knotweed is in bloom, and it's not attracting as many bugs as it has in the past. However, I did find a few species of flies on the plants:
I can see my reflection on the fly's abdomen.
I looked for the smaller parasa caterpillar that was BBotD yesterday and couldn't find it, but I found another one on a different tree:
I think it has recently shed its skin, and that is what is on the leaf behind it. Note the spikes are mostly retracted...
... and now they are out, so I must have annoyed it.
Later I did find the one from yesterday, and I noticed in looking at the pictures that it appears to have a parasite egg on it. I checked yesterday's pictures, and it was not there yesterday.
I've been checking on these eggs for the last few days, hoping to find out what would hatch out of them:
Today I saw that most of them had hatched, but there was nothing there that had hatched from them.
Interesting to see. Some of the eggs don't look viable. Some of them you can see the insect that is inside of them.
Fall webworms in their web...
... and out on their own:
These two wanderers are much larger, later instars, but they have more growing to do.
This one is on my husband's school bag.
I found this large egg mass a few days ago sandwiched between a couple of leaves. I assumed it was a spider egg mass, but there is an earwig in between the leaves with it. I don't know if the earwig is just hiding out there, as they like to hide in little sheltered spaces, or if it is protecting its own egg mass. Earwigs are unusual in the insect world (at least in non-social insects) in that they care for their young.
A couple of leaf-footed bugs:
Banded tussock moth caterpillar
Swamp milkweed beetle
I don't know what kind of moth these are, but I saw several of them in the backyard today:
Tree cricket
Hoppers on hazelnut
Arachnid Appreciation:
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The other day when I first saw that these eggs had turned red, there was a mite on them. It looks like the mite is still hanging around. I don't think these can be mite eggs, though, because they are almost as big as the mite.
Spider carrying her egg sac
I looked to see if I could find the remains of the damselfly that was eaten by the spider yesterday (no), and the spider was still there, on the same dead plant stem:
Just underneath it was this spider:
And attached to the dead stem was the web for this spider:
Bowl-and-doily spider
Six-spotted orb weaver, I think.
Jumping spider
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