Right Under My Nose

I was sitting at my computer, trying to find something from my bug walk that was interesting so that I could have a good Backyard Bug of the Day, and feeling discouraged that nothing really jumped out at me as THE bug for today, when it landed right in front of my computer.

Backyard Bug of the Day:

 In addition to being an absolutely extraordinary-looking insect, and being new to me (Yay! New species!), I didn't have even the slightest idea what this is. It sort of looks like a moth, but not really, and sort of looks like a caddisfly, but not really. I just don't know enough about bugs to guess where to even look it up (though I did look under moths and caddisflies). I asked for help in an insect group on facebook, and someone identified it as a Derbid planthopper (from the family Derbidae). He said the species is Apache degeeri. So, I looked that up in Kaufman's Field Guide to Insects of North America. I hadn't even considered looking under planthoppers, because that's not what it looked like to me at all, but there was one very similar. This particular species was not there, but one that was shaped like it, but differently colored, was. The book describes these planthoppers as "resembl[ing] small moths or caddisflies, but have a pronounced broad snout." So, there you go. I am not the only person who saw that resemblance.

 I almost didn't bother to look closely at it at all, because I thought it was just a small, brown moth, and I was going to shoo it away, but something made me pick up my camera (which was nearby) and have a look, and I am so glad that I did. Sometimes things look completely different when you look at them close up. There's a lesson in that.

The colors of it are wonderful.

As you can probably guess, my bug walk was not quite so extraordinary. However, by coincidence, I did find another Derbid planthopper, though I didn't realize it was closely related to the Backyard Bug of the Day until I happened to see it on the same page in the bug book:

 It is from the genus Scolops, but the book doesn't say what species. There were two of them, on leaves near to each other. They both look like they are about to lay eggs, but that could just be a part of its anatomy, I suppose.

Random Bugs:

 Katydid

 Grasshopper

 Ladybeetle

 Assassin bug

 Here's what's left of the tree the caterpillars were on. You can see one caterpillar in this picture, because that's all that was there today. Sort of.

 This is the leaf that yesterday had a caterpillar folded up inside it. I don't know if it ate its own way out, or if another caterpillar devoured its leaf.

But there was another leaf folded over...

 ... and that's what's inside it. I really don't know exactly what we're looking at here, but it does look like some caterpillar legs there.

 And speaking of caterpillar legs...

... here's some caterpillar prolegs.

Caterpillar close-up.

 Robber fly

 I think this is an assassin bug

 Bee

Having a tree growing through the back porch seems to have increased the number of bugs attracted by the back porch light. Until this summer, the front porch light always attracted way more bugs than the back porch light, but lately it seems more even.

 Here's a cricket on the back porch tree.

 

 A moth attracted by the back porch light.

Arachnid Appreciation:
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Orchard spider

Another orchard spider

Neighborly Bugs

I've been trying not to be so complainy about the weather, but... WHY DOES IT HAVE TO BE SO HOT ALL THE TIME?

I am already pining for next spring, my favorite season. Actually, all I want is some normal weather, no matter what season it is.

Backyard Co-Bug of the Day #1:

 Leaf hopper. I haven't seen a lot of leaf hoppers around lately. I blame the drought. I saw a few today, though, and here is one of them.

Backyard Co-Bug of the Day #2:

 Really tiny moth. More on this later...

The moth was not alone on that flower. Here's one of its neighbors:

 Lots of bees around lately.

Here's the sapling where the caterpillars I have been obsessed with lately have been living. Note the lack of leaves at the top. There aren't many leaves left on the plant.

 You can see a couple of caterpillars here, but there are fewer today than there were yesterday.

 This is at the top of the plant, a curled up leaf.

 There's an opening at the top of the curled up leaf, and looking inside, you can see one of the caterpillars inside, ready to make a cocoon. I am not sure if it will be eclosing this summer, or if it will overwinter in there. It could do either, and I am not sure at what point in the summer it would decide one or the other.

 I have done some investigating about this caterpillar. The first time I saw a caterpillar with tails like this, I looked up to see if it was venomous, like some caterpillars are. I wanted to make sure that while taking pictures I was not going to be jabbed with a venomous barb from the back end of the caterpillar. I found out that they are not venomous, and those tails are not going to stab me, but...

 ... See that little spike? I have now read that they can spray formic acid. So, not venomous, not going to stab me, but I should still probably try not to annoy them too much.

After getting these pictures today I am sure that this is a black-etched prominent caterpillar (which refers to how the moth looks, not the caterpillar). It is not in the genus Furcula (it is in the genus Cerura), but it is in the same Family as the furcula - Notodontidae, or the Prominent family. I feel kind of silly that I couldn't figure this out before, but in my defense, this caterpillar did not look like the picture in the book until the last few days. This is why I think caterpillar books should show all the instars. Sometimes when you find a caterpillar it doesn't look the way it is eventually going to look, in color and sometimes even shape, and it's usually the last instar that's in the books.

 Sharpshooter

 Hopper

 I think this is a spittle bug

 Discarded exoskeleton from a stinkbug

 Weevils

 Looper caterpillar

 There is a huge rock in my backyard that is often covered with tiny bugs that zoom around in unison, but in random directions. There were a huge number of them today. It looks like either different species, or different stages of development are represented here, because they are different sizes. Oh, and one bug that is different altogether (that looks like a tiny rove beetle, but I didn't get a close enough look to know).

 It's nearly impossible to get a good picture of these, because they scatter when I get close with the camera. But here you can at least see two different sizes of the bugs.

 Small milkweed bugs in various stages of development.

Wasp

Arachnid Appreciation:
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Here's the Backyard Co-Bug of the Day with one of its other neighbors. Remember the yellow blob in the background of the picture? Well, you probably didn't notice it, but you can probably tell here what it was...

A flower crab spider. The spider was facing the other way when I leaned in to take its picture, but before I did, I saw a tiny bit of movement, and apparently so did the spider - it was the tiny moth landing on the flower, and the spider turned around to face it. It was a bit out of reach for the spider to catch, but I think it was trying to be ready in case the moth flew closer.

 Kind of crowded on that flower.