The Bugs in the Backyard: Antics

Aaaah... A warm day... that two months ago I would have called a cold day... It was sort of sunny and in the 60s today, which was wonderful for taking a walk in the backyard. I didn't know what to expect - it was obviously a great kind of day for bugs, but at this point in the year, who knows if the warm weather will bring them out?

It sort of did. And there are Co-Bugs again today... Plus some Bug Comedy.

Backyard Co-Bug of the Day #1:

Woolly aphid. I know I have posted pictures of these before, but they were half buried in the bark of the tree. Today I spotted a couple walking around. Of course, the fact that they were walking meant that they were not easy to photograph, but I am pretending that the reason the focus is kind of blurry is because the bug is so fluffy. I know that this is a different species than the other aphids I have been posting, but it is kind of amusing to imagine that it's really the same species, but wearing woolly underwear for winter.

Backyard Co-Bug of the Day #2:

I don't know what these are, but I love their wings. Sort of like a sailboat of some kind. Or maybe a windsurfer.

Bug Comedy:

I spotted this wasp flitting from leaf to leaf on this plant. I waited for it to land somewhere that I could take a picture of it. It landed on this branch and started to walk along it... And came upon another bug, this thorn mimic leaf hopper...

... And just kept walking.

It reached the main branch of the plant and found...

... another hopper of a different species. It roughed this one up a bit...

Then it moved on...

And somehow the wasp and the hopper managed to get tangled in the thorns of the plant.

It vented its frustrations by knocking the little hopper down again (Not nice).
I was going to call this slapstick comedy, but I don't think that's a good term to use with bugs... They are probably sensitive about the whole slapping thing.

So, after that I took some close-up shots of the thorn mimic. An amazing bug. (It has already been BBotD, in case you are wondering why I didn't choose this).

In order to take close-ups of the thorn mimic I held onto the branch with my hand, and when I was done, I noticed that the wasp had crawled onto my thumbnail.

Random Bugs:

The lawn furniture is still a good source for bugs. Here's another one of those weird, pulsating things. This one is small, and very dark in color, and looks like it has fungus growing on it - or something stuck to it, anyway.

I know this looks like that one kind of fly I keep posting pictures of, but if you have been looking closely at those flies, you'll see instantly that this is something else.

Yesterday I saw a lot of really tiny bugs flitting about in the grass, but I never saw where any of them landed to get a picture. They sort of looking like tiny moths. Well, today I found out that they are these amazingly tiny leaf hoppers.

Aphid and ant. When I saw these two on the same branch today I thought about something I read about the relationship between ants and aphids, about how ants herd aphids to drink their honeydew, and in return they provide protection for the aphids from predators. Sounds like a good arrangement - after all, it's not like the ants are being parasitic - they are excreting the honeydew, it's not something they need that is being sucked out of them. They are probably indifferent to having it consumed by other bugs. But I have also read that ants will chew off the wings of the aphids to keep them from flying off. Which makes me think that they whole deal with the ants protecting the aphids from predators is not quite as great a deal as it seems to be - if they had their wings, maybe they wouldn't need protecting. Of course, there's a million things out in the yard that want to eat the aphids, so maybe it's worth it for them.

You can see the aphid's proboscis stuck in the branch of the tree, sucking out liquid.

Another hopper. I saw so many today.

I heard more crickets today than yesterday. And I found this tree cricket - on a tree.

I only found one of these today. I wonder if the rest have completed their life cycle (a nice way of saying they have mated, laid egg, and died).

Itsy bitsy spiders are the theme of today's Arachnid Appreciation:
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

I found this cutie on the lawn chair.

I wonder if it was contemplating eating that hopper.

I found this beauty on another chair, in the arbor. This is not as small as the springtail, but it was small enough that without looking through the camera it was nothing but a white speck, and it was only after I looked that I saw that it was a spider.