The Bugs in the Backyard: Time Out

I am feeling incredibly stressed out right now, and I am sorry, I don't have it in me
to write a blog tonight. I will post one picture of the Backyard Bug of the Day, and then I am calling it a night. If I am feeling better tomorrow I will add a few more pictures (I didn't find many bugs anyway). But for now... If I was a less hardy person than I am, I would say it was cold today. As it is, I would say it was chilly. I waited for the temperature to get up into the 60s to do my bug walk, which didn't happen until almost the middle of the afternoon. The bees were only active among flowers that were in the sun. There weren't many other bugs to be seen at all.

Backyard Bug of the Day:

Some kind of beetle larva. It was really small. I only spotted it because I was looking at something else very close up through the camera lens when it crawled into sight. I don't know what species it is.

I think it's actually a little bit funny how I found it...

I saw something glint on the trunk of a tree, and I wasn't sure if it was a bug, or a drop of sap. I checked it out, and it was a small beetle that actually looked like it was dead, based on the fact that it was on its back. While I was looking at the beetle, I saw something else moving among the crevices of the tree bark. It disappeared...

It reemerged shortly after...

I recognized it as a beetle larva, but I don't know what kind, and my books don't really show many larvae.

Very beetle-larva-ish head

Yesterday I noticed that a small tree in my backyard had been nearly denuded. I was surprised to have not noticed, because it was suddenly so glaringly obvious. I examined the tree, but could not see what had eaten all of the leaves, and was surprised that it could have happened without me seeing something eating them. Up near the top there were a few leaves left that were held together by webbing. I figured that whatever had eaten the leaves must be inside that leaf shelter, but it still seemed odd that they could have eaten almost every leaf on the tree without being seen on any of my bug walks. Today, I looked at the tree again, and saw:

There were caterpillars crawling around on the tree.

And eating what was left of the leaf stems:

I looked it up, and these are Poplar Tentmaker caterpillars. And can I say that it is extremely gratifying to look up a caterpillar and not only find out what it is, but learn thing about its behavior that you have actually observed. For instance:

The book, Caterpillars of Eastern North America, by David L. Wagner, mentions that the caterpillars use silk to stick leaves together, and that is where they spend the day. Which I suppose means they feed at night, and that would be why I did not see them on my bug walks before, because they were hiding up in their enclosure. It also says they "occasionally defoliate small trees and saplings." Well, that's what they have done here. I think the reason I saw them today is probably because they are getting ready to go off and pupate, and are leaving the group, and eating what they can before they go.