Itsy, Bitsy...

Today I saw a butterfly get hit by a truck. On the scale of traumatic things to witness this is, I know, pretty low, but you know how I feel about butterflies. It was a monarch. I was just sitting in a restaurant, enjoying my lunch, and saw the butterfly flitting across the parking lot. How lovely, I thought. Then I saw that it was heading for the road. I saw the truck coming, too. Butterflies obviously don't know how to cross the street safely, and it probably had no understanding of what was about to happen to it - animals with much bigger brains than butterflies' are confounded by oncoming traffic. I doubt the truck driver saw it at all, and I don't imagine it would have mattered - who slams on their brakes to avoid hitting a butterfly? (Well, I might, but really, I doubt there'd be time).
I said to my husband, "I just saw a butterfly get hit by a truck," and he turned to look out the window in some alarm.
Seeing nothing noteworthy, he turned back to look at me. "Where?" He gave me a look like I was crazy, and I soon figured out why.
I pointed to the street.
"It's gone now, I mean, it was a butterfly."
"I thought you said you just saw a bicyclist get hit by a truck."
No wonder he looked at me funny. He thought I had just seen a person get run over by a truck and was just sitting calmly at a table eating an egg sandwich instead of calling 911. No, it was nothing tragic like that. But it was a sad thing for me to see. Even though it was just a little thing, every insect that is killed by people is just a little thing, but eventually you have a situation like we have now, where monarch butterflies are, according to scientists, headed down the road to extinction. It's probably not a coincidence that I have only seen one maybe three times all year. The plight of the monarch is not primarily due to butterflies being hit by trucks, of course, but it is due to human activity. Loss of habitat, mostly. Not enough to eat, nowhere to lay eggs, pesticides all around.
The butterfly didn't see it coming, and the truck driver didn't see it coming, but from where I was sitting, I saw it coming, and there wasn't anything I could do to stop it. But when I can stop the bad things from happening, I do my best. That's why I have a backyard full of milkweed. I can't save all of the monarch butterflies just in my backyard, I know, any more than I could save that one today from the truck, but I am doing my best.
Now don't you want to plant some milkweed in your yard?

 Backyard Bug of the Day:

 A fly. I am still trying to see if it's in any of my books. With my extremely limited knowledge of such things I would guess it is a kind of tachinid fly, but don't go by that. Wait, no, I think it is a flower fly. Or maybe a bee fly. I don't know what I am talking about. HA! Yes! Found it in Kaufman's Field Guide to Insects of North America - it IS a tachinid fly. That is a family, not a species - there are many kinds of tachinid flies. This one is Gymnosoma fuliginosa. I know that scientists prefer the scientific names, because they are scientists, but I like it when insects have common names. Especially because I am never going to remember Gymnosoma fuliginosa.

 It's pretty funky looking, that I know. And as an added attraction, this is a new bug for me. Huzzah!

Random Bugs:

 I am pretty sure this is a tachnid fly. They are parasitic (actually parasitoid, according to Kaufman's Field Guide to Insects of North America. I am not going to tell you the difference, because it's kind of gross. Look it up if you want to know) to many other insects, so if you don't like caterpillars chewing on the cabbages in your garden, then you should like these. That is to say, they are considered beneficial insects. But I don't take sides. It's a bug-eat-bug world.

Speaking of parasites...

 

Quite a splendid hopper nymph. I wonder if this is a later instar of the funky hopper nymphs from last week.

 Another hopper, hiding

 Hiding must be the thing today.

Always photograph a buffalo tree hopper when you can find one willing to cooperate, and some day you'll get the perfect shot. That is my motto.

 I think this is an itsy, bitsy, teensy little baby assassin bug. More proof that everything is cute in baby form. More on this bug coming up in Arachnid Appreciation (even though it is not an arachnid).

 Remember this larva (can't tell if it's a caterpillar or not from this view) when we get to Arachnid Appreciation.

Wow. That was all the random bugs today. And nothing on a milkweed plant. I didn't realize it was so few... I think there must be a perfect time of day to find bugs, but I haven't figured out what it is yet. Not 4:30, evidently.

I did find a lot of spiders, though. Tiny spiders, mostly. That's been a thing the last couple of days. Much to admire in Arachnid Appreciation:
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
In an unusual turn of events, I have more spider pictures to post today than bug pictures.

 This little beauty is short a couple of legs on one side.

 This plant was an interesting find for me today. It's a very prickly, bramly thing but very popular with the spiders. It's not a great shot of either, but you can actually see two spiders in this picture, one on each of the two leaves you can see.

 Here's one...

 Quite a beauty, eh?

 But it is not alone on its leaf. Look closely - do you remember the baby assassin bug from above?

 On the leaf next door, this spider was crawling around.

 Then on another leaf behind that, this spider was hanging out. Also, that tiny larva was on another leaf by this one.

 Whatever these flowers are, they are a popular hangout for crab spiders.

 So are these.

 A twofer. I wonder how well they get along.

This is the biggest spider I have seen in days, and it's less than half an inch long. It was nice to see it - after seeing so many jumping spiders everywhere a couple of months ago, they've been scarce lately.