Insects In Action

Sometimes when you go to the zoo, particularly on a hot day, you see the animals just lying in the shade, not moving, trying to stay cool, maybe even somewhere in their enclosures where you can barely even see them, and as beautiful as the animals are, you wish they would do something, something interesting. And then sometimes you see the lioness pacing, and she decides she wants to lie down, but the lion is in the spot where she wants to lie down, so she goes over to him and picks a fight, and he looks like he's going to bite her head off, but ultimately he gives in, and gives up his spot on the rock, and the female lion lies down in the spot where he was, and the male goes off somewhere else to sulk, and it is dramatic and fun to watch (Yes, I saw this happen once at the zoo). Watching the bugs in the backyard is something like this. Yes, it is MUCH easier to take pictures of them if they are just sitting there, but it is much more interesting to LOOK at them when they are doing something more. Then sometimes you get lucky, and what they are doing involves them not moving, but it's still more interesting that the regular just sitting there.

And with that, I give you Backyard Bugs of the Day:

 Woodwasp. The first one I found was just sitting there.

 Then, on the same branch, I spotted this one, and she was doing something - ovipositing, or laying eggs. When I looked it up in Kaufman's Field Guide to Insects of North America it said that they lay their eggs in dead or dying maple trees, and this maple branch is definitely looking unhealthy.

 Looking around, I saw quite a few of these wasps on the branch.

 In this shot you can see the ovipositor at the back end of the wasp.

You can see it a little better here.

 Another one came around, looking for a place to lay her eggs...

 And she found one.

 

Now, when it comes to animals, I prefer that they just sit there, so I can get a good picture of them. They rarely comply.

 I almost stepped on this toad. It didn't move when I took this shot...

 ... and it didn't move when I took this one...

 But when I tried to walk around it to take a picture from another angle, it decided I was annoying, and hopped away.

There are other animals that are almost impossible to get pictures of. I mentioned a while back that there were times when I could hear animals moving under the leaf litter, and could even see the leaf litter move. I wasn't sure if it was snakes, or small mammals, or both. I recently found out that yes, there are snakes under there, but I think you can actually tell by the sound and the movement of the leaves if the animal underneath is a snake or something else. I have continued to watch the leaves move, and recently got lucky and saw a tiny head poke up. The animal looked a little like a mouse, but not really, as it had a much snoutier face. It also looked a little like a mole, but not really. It was dark in color. I didn't see the whole thing. I was videotaping at the time, but due to some very inept camera work, I actually missed the moment when the animal poked out. Then a couple of days ago I found another place in the yard where the animals were running under the leaves, but in that area their leaf tunnels had gaps, so I saw two of the animals in full body. Mouse sized, dark color, pointy face, short tail... I looked up online, the difference between a shrew and a vole. I found a site that had the difference between a shrew, a mole, and a vole, and very helpfully only had a picture of a mole, which I already knew was not the animal I saw (too small, and above ground). But I found another site that described the shrew and the vole (funny that no one had a picture of a shrew... I can guess why...), and I am pretty sure that the animals I saw were shrews. Specifically, because the shrew has a pointy face, which is what these animals have. I spotted a couple more today (this involves a lot of patient standing around while watching leaves move), in one case seeing the face poking out of the leaves, definitely a pointy snout, which I did not get a picture of, and in another case just basically a glimpse of a small, dark, furry creature that heard my camera click and dove back under the leaves, refusing to come up again.

 Can you see it?

Here, this will help...

Random Bugs:

 Beetle

 Stinkbug

 Bee

 

 Assassin bug

I tossed out a loaf of stale bread last night, and today I found it with a hole eaten into it, and when I looked in the hole (I don't even know why I did that), I found a few insects inside:

 The ant you know, and the other two I believe are larvae of some kind. The brown one I think is a beetle grub, but I think the green one might be a caterpillar.

 The green one seemed like it didn't want to be there, and was trying very hard to climb up the bread. I can't help but wonder if it was in there by accident. It if was a caterpillar, I don't think bread is something it would eat. They have very particular diets, eating leaves, and in the case of some caterpillars, are extremely selective to the point that they only eat one type of leaf. So it is possible that this caterpillar (if caterpillar it is) fell in, or was dropped in somehow.

 I was very impressed at how it climbed up. The ant came over to inspect it.

 That view of the face is partly why I think it was a caterpillar. That really looks like a caterpillar head. I couldn't really tell what its proleg situation was. It moved more like what are called slug-like caterpillars, though. When it got to the top of the bread, it basically FLUNG itself off into the grass. It was quite amusing to see.

 Speaking of caterpillars, I have some sad caterpillar news. After a whole winter of waiting and hoping, today I noticed that the chrysalis of the tiger swallowtail that I raised last fall has a hole in it, which means that something ate it. I don't know how anything could have gotten into its enclosure to do that, but it is possible that it had a parasite before I adopted it, and the parasite matured and ate its way out. I am very sad about this. This is the second time I have adopted a tiger swallowtail caterpillar and had it end this way.

Arachnid Appreciation:
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 A mopey looking jumping spider. It is on the rain gauge. I suspect it was disappointed that the rain gauge was empty, because it was supposed to rain today.

 It's hard to see, but this one has some prey underneath it.