Breaking Habitats

Today, girls and boys, we're going to talk about habitat loss. It's a problem. All over the world, wildlife is pushed out when their habitat is changed, for instance, from forest to subdivision. Or swamp to highway. Or meadow to airport. Or rainforest to short-lived farm (rainforest soil is shallow and poor quality. If you cut down the rainforest to farm, you're only going to get a couple of years of farming out of the land before it will be useless. Then you have no farm AND no rainforest, and rainforest doesn't regenerate quite as well as other forests do). If the conditions change, the things that live there have to leave. Sometimes the condition changes from wild lands to 450 identical, beige, vinyl-sided houses. For obvious reasons, almost all of the wild things living in the wild lands have to move out when the people move in. I know people need houses and highways. But people could also be more responsible about what they build and where. And people don't really need lawns as much as they think they do.

Habitat change isn't always man-made. A field can become a forest all on its own. My backyard is sort of doing that. There are more trees and less grassy areas than there used to be only ten years ago. And what is growing in the grassy/wildflowery areas has changed, too, and I have seen a change in what kinds of bugs appear there due to this change in habitat. The meadowy areas of my backyard used to have a lot of tall grasses of various species in greater abundance than are there now. Other plants (mostly goldenrod) have displaced them. One thing I have noticed in my four or five years of looking at every bug I can find is that there are a couple of species of bugs that I used to see on the seed heads of these grasses that I don't see in the backyard anymore, now that those grasses are not growing there in great abundance. Except lately I have noticed a few places where individual plants of those grasses are growing, and today I found one of those species of bug on the seed head of the plant.

Backyard Bug of the Day:

 I don't know what this is, naturally, but I know it likes grass seeds. There are a couple of similar species that I used to see on the grass heads all the time. Last year I don't think I saw any at all, and I don't think I have ever seen them anywhere other than on grass heads.

Bees:

 I am not sure, but I think there is another bug of some kind lurking behind the flower petals on the left.

 I realized when I saw this bee today that it has been a while since I have seen a bumblebee.

Caterpillars:

 I tried to identify this one and failed. There are a lot of caterpillars that look a lot like this. I don't think it's the banded hairstreak again.

Beetles:

 Ladybug heaven

 I think this is some kind of beetle larva.

 Weevil

Random Bugs:

 Long-legged fly

 I have been thinking that this is a grape leaf roller moth, but looking at it now, I am not so sure... hmmm... A quick search through the internet says it is a white spotted sable moth, but my books won't confirm that for me.

 Hoverfly. I know I sometimes post too many pictures of a given bug, and I am a terrible editor, but sometimes it takes a couple of pictures for you to see all the interesting angles and behaviors.

 Like this interesting angle.

And this one.

 Hopper nymph?

 Sawfly larvae before I poked their leaf with a blade of grass...

 Sawfly larvae after I poked their leaf with a blade of grass.

Ants and aphids

 I think this is a robber fly.

 This skipper sat in this exact spot for over an hour. I saw it every time I walked by while doing yard work.

 And it didn't mind me taking its picture.

Some Weirdness:

 This appears to be a cocoon made out of frass held together with silk. Frass, as you may remember, is caterpillar poop. There are several leaves on the hazelnut bushes that have been pulled together with silk with something dark colored inside them, and this particular one was more open than the others, so I could see what the dark thing was. I may have been happier not knowing...

 There's a hole on the end covered with more silk. It's not clear to me if the structure was closed off and something came out of it, making that hole, or if it was built with that opening - it kind of looks that way, because of the way the silk covers the edge of the opening. I am guessing the inside is line with silk. Man, I really hope so. Because otherwise it's lined with...

Anyway, more weirdness...

 A gall, a large, fascinating gall. Its diameter is probably somewhere between that of a nickel and a quarter (I can't always picture these things away from the scene), and heavy.

 With a light shining through it there is a shadowy something inside, no doubt whatever larva is growing in there. I think it might be full of liquid, too, accounting for the weight. Very curious...

 Arachnid Appreciation:
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 I believe this is a six-spotted orb weaver, even though that is not an orb web.

 Jumping spider, adorable as always

Not being an actual entomologist or anything, I am not so organized as to keep track of every species I see. I also don't remember them all. But I am pretty sure this is a spider I have not seen before. That's always exciting to find.