Guessing Games

Today is my birthday! Mother Nature did NOT give me a nice present. It was cold, dark and rainy, which is the kind of weather bugs hate - I almost didn't get to go out to do a bug walk at all. Family members were more generous; I got a new monopod and backup batteries for my camera. Things that will make my photography easier. Huzzah!

Backyard Bug of the Day:

 A leafhopper. The specific species is not in any of my books. I love its intricate pattern.

When I was posting so many pictures of assassin bugs yesterday I should have posted some of these:

 There are about a million of these in the backyard. I usually don't bother to take pictures of them, because they don't photograph well, but sometimes I give it a try.

There are so many assassin bugs, of various species, in my backyard that I sometimes entertain the idea that the reason I am having so much trouble finding bugs this year is because the assassins are killing them all. But there must be enough bugs around to provide food for all those assassins...

Random Bugs:

 This time of year I often play a fun game called "Is That a Bug or a Dried Leaf?" The object of the game is to determine as quickly as possible whether I am looking at an insect or a bit of dead foliage. I really thought this was a dried leaf at first, something made me look closer, and then I saw that it was a bug ON a dried leaf.

 It took me a while to figure out it was actually a bug on another bug! (And these are bugs, true bugs. Note the proboscides. These are Hemiptera. I can never figure out if they are plant eaters or bug eaters, though. There are too many bugs of both kinds that look like this.

 Even the bees were scarce today. The only ones I saw were sluggish bumblebees, and even they were in short supply. Except on this particular plant.

 Dagger moth caterpillar (I think). Spotted Apatelodes. It's a little bedraggled from the rain. On the left you can see a bit of its face as it eats the leaf. Also on the left, on the leaf behind it, is a stinkbug. They are on That Tree, of course.

 Firefly. I haven't seen one of these in ages.

 Aphid

 Cranefly. With rain.

 Leafhopper

 Praying mantis with rain.

 I have mentioned a number of times the difficulty sometimes in discerning whether a thing is an insect or bird droppings. I had a hard time with this one. I am 99% sure this is insectoid - specifically, a caterpillar. What I can't decide is whether it is dead, or whether it is chrysalized.

Here's the other end of it. If it is chrysalized, I am not sure that is the most secure attatchment to the plant. However, as usual, I have to trust that the caterpillar knows what it's doing. Unless it's dead.

 I noticed two interesting things about this wasp. First, that it appears to be missing most of one of its legs. Second, that it is holding onto the stem with its mandibles. Also, it was not moving at all, which I assume is because it was cold.

 Ambush bug.

 Is it just me, or does its head look like a cartoon puppy?

See?

This white hickory tussock moth caterpillar seems to have a bit of a pinkish hue.

Arachnid Appreciation:
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This spider was crawling up a thread across the path. I went around.

Failure is Not an Option

Today I actually thought that I was not going to be able to post a Backyard Bug of the Day, because I could not find anything that had not been Backyard Bug of the Day already this year. I found plenty of bugs, but I was finding lots of the same things, nothing that had not been chosen already (though I admit at this point I have been doing this for long enough that I have trouble remembering what has been featured, and what has not. There have been about 150 blog posts, but I actually started posting BBotD in March this year. Add in the last two years. It's hard to know what I have used). I didn't find anything really new. I did get a great picture of a bug that is a big favorite of mine, but it was BBotD not long ago.

Perseverance pays off, however, so eventually, almost at the end of my walk, I found a good bug to feature. It is not a new one, and I have posted pictures of it before, but because of the nature of the pictures I was able to get, I am choosing it as Backyard Bug of the Day.

Backyard Bug of the Day:

 I am sure it will not surprise you at all to hear that I have no idea what kind of caterpillar this is. I tried looking it up, but none of my books are good about caterpillars. Only one has a section specifically on caterpillars, and it is a small section. The others only show the caterpillars of some of the moths and butterflies, and the pictures are really small. There are about 20 caterpillars that look pretty much just like this in one of the books, and the pictures are way too small to be able to see details that might help, like the pattern of the skin, or the color of the legs. So, this will remain a mystery. (Googling 'green caterpillar' is obviously no help). [I am informed in the comments that this is a white dotted prominent caterpillar.]

 I love those feet!

 Aren't they adorable?

The face. You can see one eye pretty well. I love that the antennae and its real legs are pink! I also think the leopard-like pattern on its head is cool.

This was another candidate for Backyard Bug of the Day, but I decided against it. No, you know what, let's make it Backyard Co-Bug of the Day, because after I post all these pictures of it today, it would be dumb to make it Backyard Bug of the Day another day. The caterpillar is now Backyard Co-Bug of the Day #1.

So, Backyard Co-Bug of the Day #2:

 Great shot, eh?

 I actually know what this one is called - Small Milkweed Bug (One of my books calls it the Small Eastern Milkweed Bug). I usually see it on milkweed, but lately have seen it in other parts of the yard, too. If you look at the upper right of this picture you can see a very blurry bit of the bug from the previous picture. It scurried under the leaf after I took its picture, and when I looked under the leaf I found this other Small Milkweed Bug, and a whole lot of aphids.

 Look closely and you can see its proboscis. It is a Hemiptera, and I think it feeds on the sap of the milkweed plant (which is toxic, but a lot of insects don't seem to mind that), and not on aphids, so the aphids are safe! (I just looked it up. They feed on the seeds, immature and mature. And, like many insects that feed on milkweed, including monarch caterpillars, they are immune to the toxins in the plant, but it makes the bugs themselves toxic to predators. Also, sometimes the adults suck the fluids out of dead insects. Yum. It doesn't say that they kill those insects themselves, though, and the wording implies that they don't).

 I have not seen as many of these this summer as I am used to seeing, which is part of a general dearth of bugs on the milkweed. However, last week I was collecting milkweed pods for someone who wants to plant milkweed in his yard, and when I opened the pods I found quite a number of Small Milkweed Bugs inside some of them.

 I saw quite a lot of these today, in different parts of the yard. (But mostly in the front yard milkweed patch).

There are several other bugs that look very similar to this one, but the black heart on the back is distinctive. Funny thing about that, though, is that when I was looking up information about it in the books, one of them described it as being black with a red X on the back. I had never looked at it that way. I have always seen it as red with black markings, including a black heart.
This one, obviously, is not on milkweed, but on a species of nightshade (related to the tomato, as you can probably see). According to my book*, some of these bugs eat plants other than milkweed, and therefore don't end up being toxic (and bitter tasting) like the ones that do, but their coloration is still a warning to predators. Nightshade is toxic, though, so I wonder if feeding on this plant (if it was feeding on it, and not just walking on it) would also make the bug toxic. I have no intention of eating one to find out.

Another bug I saw all over the yard today was this kind of assassin bug:

 Only from this angle do they really look like they did as nymphs. They still have the black and white stripes, but as nymphs the body is all orange, and spiky. No wings when they're young, of course.

 They blend in somewhat better as adults. I wonder why that is? I get why they would blend in as adults, but I would think that when they are young it would also be useful to be less obvious to those they are stalking, and those who stalk them.

I spend a lot of time in the backyard watching other creatures. Sometimes they watch me:

I was sitting on the back porch eating an apple and I happened to look off to the side and saw this fawn standing about twenty feet away, staring at me. It ran when I got up to get my camera, but it didn't go far, so I was able to get this shot.

We haven't had many flowers lately...

 Purple coneflower blossoms are amazingly long lasting. Individual flowers will last for months - it is obvious in my yard that they are the same flowers, because there are not many of them. The camouflaged looper caterpillar has been on the same bloom for weeks. This summer the blooms have not been as brilliantly colored as usual, which I think is due to the lack of rain. This one is brighter than the others, though.

These are not flowers, they are sepals. Pokeweed is even beautiful after the blooms are gone and the fruit has been taken by birds. The sepals of the flowers are themselves beautiful.

Milkweed seeds, ready to take flight.

Random Bugs:

 Yes, I know you are a dangerous assassin, but I can't take you seriously when you are covered in fuzzy, yellow pollen.

 Same goes for you.

 I have never seen a stinkbug this color. Mutant?

 One of my favorite bugs, because it is such gorgeous colors. Cuckoo wasp.

The bug I took pictures of the day it was Backyard Bug of the Day was missing one of its wings, but this one has the full set. And used them to fly away after this picture.

 Vision test: How many bugs do you see?

 Moth in the wild.

I think this is the underside of this looper. I don't often see this side.

A few jumping spiders today for Arachnid Appreciation:
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 No this one is not a jumping spider.

 This one is. Gorgeous, isn't it?

 And so adorable! I should point out that the white rings in the eyes are reflections of the ring flash on my camera. Those are not there in normal situations.

 Same kind of spider, different specimen elsewhere in the yard. You can just barely see that it is giving me the stinkeye for trying to take its picture. Like I am going to steal its dead bug.

 This one looks totally peeved.

*National Audubon Society Field Guide to Insects and Spiders - Lorus and Margery Milne