Appearances

 It's always fun to find a bug that is working very hard to look like something else. Well, not, that's not the right way to put it–mostly they probably have no idea what they look like. In fact, I often wonder if they even know that they are functionally invisible. Camouflage can be so interesting, though, because sometimes it is incredibly specific. Take today's Backyard Bug of the Day:

You know there's an insect there, so maybe it's easy for you to see, but I only found this caterpillar because I saw the pile of frass on the leaf underneath. And even then it took me a couple of seconds of looking to find it. It's not just a green caterpillar that blends into a leaf, it is green and brown, with a jagged silhouette, and it holds onto the edge of the leaf so that it becomes a part of the line of the leaf edge, looking like a torn edge that has turned brown in parts. It's so effective. I would not have noticed it if the frass had not been evidence of a caterpillar nearby.

I think this is a unicorn prominent. It becomes a mottled, brown moth.

See how much that looks like a browning edge of a torn leaf? It even has that yellow line to look like a vein in the leaf.

Other Bugs:

The new hatchling from yesterday hasn't gone far from its egg; it is on the next leaf over on the bleeding heart plant where it hatched.

Photobombed by a springtail

Plant bug on hydrangea blossom

Weevil on hydrangea bud

Weevil playing dead on hydrangea buds because I got too close with my camera.

So, I am getting bugs on my hydrangea, just not the bees, butterflies, and other pollinators I was hoping for. But I don't care, I like them anyway. The bugs, not the hydrangeas. Well, obviously, I like the hydrangeas too. And I don't plant flowers just to attract bugs, I plant them because I like them, and see attracting bugs as an extra benefit.

Some day I am going to get a good picture of a tumbling flower beetle. Today is not that day.

Caterpillar in a silk tent

Some kind of insect eggs. I have never seen any like this before. On a stalk of dried grass.

This fly (or others just like it) has been taunting me for days, pretending it is going to let me take a picture and then flying away. Today it finally agreed to sit for me. Interesting thing about this species (and I think it's a species of tachinid fly) is that I almost always see it on the side of my house, within an area of about ten feet. 

Damselfly:

With dramatic lighting...

... and without. It was way too high above my head for a better shot.

Ailanthus webworm moth on milkweed leaf. I think this must be one from last year; it looks very faded. There should be dark blue around those "flowers" on its wings.

Thick-headed fly on milkweed leaf. I don't have pictures to back it up, but there have been a lot of bumblebees on the milkweed flowers the last few days, and that would be why this fly is there, looking for a bumblebee to parasitize by laying an egg inside it.

The bugs were really uncooperative today...

Cockroach. I have seen a lot more of these this year than I have ever seen, but that is partly because I see a lot of them on my nighttime woods walks. But even in my regular backyard they seem numerous this year. I don't know what, if anything, that means.

I checked out the milkweed patch at the end of my nighttime woods walk again. Last night there were no moths, but tonight there were  a good number. Of course a lot of them disappeared when I got my camera, but I got a couple:

Arachnid Appreciation:

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I'm not sure what kind of spider this is; it looks like a nursery web spider, but I have never seen one this big. She was a little bit aggressive before she scurried off to hide.

I think these are her eggs.

It's a Bug!

 A tiny, momentous event occurred in the backyard today...

The egg hatched!

Backyard Bug of the Day:

It's a bug! A newly hatched leaf footed bug nymph.

When you see insects next to the eggs they have just hatched out of it can be difficult to believe that they fit in there. But in this case, if you look back at the picture I posted of the egg yesterday, you can definitely tell that this is the bug that was in there.

I have noticed that a lot of insects are pale just after molting, and that seems to be the case with this bug after hatching; this is several hours after those first photos, and its color has developed more, especially in the spines on the back end.

Other Bugs:

Lady beetle

Tiny insects caught in a spider web. I couldn't find the spider.

Wasp. I think it's an Ichneumon wasp, and you can see from the ovipositor that it is a female. It was quite small, only about half an inch long.

Beetle

Red milkweed beetle
 

I think red milkweed beetles are adorable, but their color clashes with the milkweed flowers.
 

But they can look very cuddly.

I saw quite a few different Hemiptera nymphs, like this leaf hopper nymph...

... but most of the pictures look like this shot of a buffalo tree hopper nymph.

I have been seeing these tiny moths all over the backyard in the last few days, and this is the only one that has allowed me to get closer than about 3 feet.

Arachnid Appreciation:

Harvestman

Spider egg sac. There was one spiderling dangling from it, but I can't tell if the rest have hatched and gone, or if that spiderling was an early one. Or not at all related to this.

To get a sense of how small this spiderling is, that is the seed head of a grass stalk.

Surface Charm

 My macro lens lets me see things up close, but when something is tiny, that's not always enough. So when it looked like there were more changes in this insect egg today:

The egg is darker, and it looks like there's more to see inside. But it's so small, it's hard to see, so...

I decided to magnify it, and though it's still really hard to see what's what inside, now I know about the interesting surface of the egg, which I have never seen before. Using the ring flash to take the picture makes it harder to see what's inside, but it illuminates the surface quite nicely. 

Backyard Bug of the Day:

A planthopper nymph. I figured out which one this was last year, but I have forgotten again. Note the photobomber on the lower right.

I have noticed that these hopper nymphs are very often found in proximity to these:

Usually I will see both species clustered in the same area on a vine or stem.

The fluff on the back ends of both species is a waxy secretion that I have read is involved in defense, but I don't know how.

Last night we went for a night hike in the woods, and these two crane flies fluttered through the beam of my flashlight and landed on this plant. 

The female is the larger one above. Note her pointy ovipositor.

'Tis definitely the season for Hemiptera nymphs.

Moth

Caterpillar on a sassafras leaf

I did my abbreviated bug walk in the early evening, and saw a couple of red milkweed beetles and some bumblebees...

Then we started out on our woods walk at dusk, so it was dark by the time we got back. I went to have a look at the milkweed patch by flashlight:

There were several moths doing the pollination night shift.