Imperfect Memory

Today was a more fun and interesting bug walk than I have had lately. If this site ever gets its picture uploader fixed I will be happy to show you what I saw. Until then, this is just a placeholder post. I am now completing this post on August 13, 2020. The difficulty with this delay in writing is that I don't remember what was particularly fun or interesting about that day's bug walk almost a month ago. It's a shame, really, that I have been unable to post for so long, because I have had some really fun and interesting bug walks, and seen some cool things, and now I don't remember the details. Particularly because in some cases I saw interesting things and was not able to get pictures, but if I had been able to post on the days I saw them, I could have at least told about them. Though, now that I think of it, I could have just done text posts on those days. Drat. I wish I had thought of that. On some days I did consider jotting down some notes, but I am too lazy. Anyway, moving on with what I saw on July 16.

Backyard Bug of the Day:

I don't know what this is, and I confess that I did not bother to look it up, but it is not out of laziness. It is obvious from the undeveloped wings that this is a nymph, not an adult insect, and so it won't be in any of my books. They only rarely show nymphs, and I am sure that this will not be in there. It does look like a Hemiptera of some kind, but other than that I have no idea.

Other Bugs:

There were several of these moths around today. My guess is females (from the thin antennae), probably sitting around hoping a male will come by.

 

Once again a great deal of the insect activity in the backyard was centered around the milkweed patch. There were the two monarch caterpillars:

Katydid nymph

Bumblebees, of course

And where there are bugs to eat, there will be other bugs to eat them, like this assassin but lurking among the flowers:

Red milkweed beetle

At first glance this probably looks like a hopper nymph and a hopper, but notice the white object on the upper left has legs; it is another hopper nymph. It could be the nymph form of the gray hopper, but I don't know for sure:

I found this curious thing on a leaf of what I think is a black cherry tree:

It was moving, and I realized...

... that inside it was a caterpillar that was cutting sections out of the leaf and attaching it to its "house."

Fall webworm caterpillar

Cricket

Milkweed tussock moth caterpillars:

Lady beetle. I think it's a twenty-spot lady beetle

Thick-headed fly

I am not sure what kind of moth this is; I was going to say Virginia Ctenucha, but I don't think that's right. It is obviously trying to look like a wasp.

Another species of thick-headed fly

Once again I found multiple instars of lacebugs on a leaf, but there are more than just the two that are obvious here, an adult and later instar nymphs:

There are some early instar nymphs, too. I did not see them when I took the picture, and only noticed them when I looked at it on the computer.

There is a story behind this picture, but I don't remember what it was (the sad effect of having to wait almost a month to post about it), other than that my husband was up on the roof working and dropped this tape measure, and I put it on the back porch for him. That is his shoe in the upper right of the picture:

It's a pearl crescent butterfly.

I didn't bother to look this up. There are several caterpillars that look like this, and I am not in the mood to figure out the intricacies of its markings.

Arachnid Appreciation:

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Orchard spider with prey

I did not notice the spider when I took this picture. Do you see it?