The Bugs in the Backyard: What We Don't Know

The interesting thing I found out about today relates to the Backyard Bug of the Day, so I am going to show you that before I tell you the interesting thing. Although, come to think of it, it's not so much the thing I found out as the implications of that thing that is so interesting. But this makes no sense to you right now so...

Backyard Bug of the Day:

I have seen these before, but this is the first time I have ever gotten a look at its face, and the first time I have seen one standing up on its legs - usually they are more crouched down against the leaf. The thing about these leaf beetles - and that's what this is, a leaf beetle - is that most of the time when you see one, it's really hard to tell if you're looking at an insect or something else. Usually they look (to me, at least) like little clods of dirt. But the thing I always wonder, which is what makes me look more closely, is, why is there a little clod of dirt on a leaf? So I look more closely, and discover that it is an insect. This one in particular is a smaller species than I have seen before, so I couldn't tell what it was at all until I looked through my camera - all I saw was a dark something on this leaf, and assumed it was an insect, mostly based on the way it was sitting on the edge of a leaf while the leaf was perpendicular to the ground. In order for something to be perched there it would have to be able to hang on. But even when I was looking at it through my camera, seeing the details that showed it was an insect, I couldn't help but think that it looked more like a piece of frass than a beetle (and actually, it wasn't until I looked it up in my book that I found out it was a beetle - before then I didn't know if it was a Coleoptera (beetle) or a Hemiptera).

But about the book... From the book I found out that this is a leaf beetle, of the genus Exema, but I don't know what species. To quote from Kauftman's Field Guide to Insects of North America, "Members of the genus Exema look like animated caterpillar droppings." Ha! So I am not the only one who thinks this looks like frass! Although, it wasn't particularly animated - in fact, it wasn't animated at all, because it didn't move. But I could see its legs, so I knew it could if it wanted to. Come to think of it, I don't think I have ever seen one of these move. In fact, I have known them to sit in the exact same spot on the exact same leaf for days. Another interesting thing I read in Kaufman's FGtIoNA is "When disturbed, the beetles feign death and roll of the leaf." Well, as I said, I have often seen them sitting on the exact same spot for days, and my in-your-face insect photography activities have often disturbed other bugs. But what's so interesting about that little fact is more that as far as I have seen, that is not a trait specific to these beetles. It is very, very common among insects, Coleoptera and Hemiptera both.

So, what was the interesting thing I learned? Well, re-reading that section of the book I realize that what I read was not about this genus, but a similar one, Chlamisus (which I think the other insects like this I have seen belong to, because they are larger than this). What it said about Chlamisus foveolatus is "Larvae probably feed on the same plants as adults, but their habits are poorly known." And THAT is what I thought was interesting food for thought, that there is this species of insects, and it has a name, and they know what the adults eat, but the scientific world has not yet really learned everything there is to know about them, because they don't know the habits of the larvae. Which got me thinking about how much science knows about so many things, but not only have scientists not found every species on the earth yet, they don't even know everything - or in many cases, much of anything - about the ones they have found. There is a vast collection of questions still to be answered about our world, and many of them are about tiny things, like what do the larvae of Chlamisus foveolatus eat?

Random Bugs:

Fly

Hopper

I am thinking wasp...

Leaf bugs?

This is a lady beetle larva. I don't know why it is covered in lint. Note the green things to the right of the picture - those are aphid larva. Guess what lady beetles eat?

Ichneumon wasp

Beetle

I think this is a hopper nymph. I didn't get a really close look at it.

Beetle

Aphids - notice the drop of honeydew being excreted by one of the nymphs. This is the same group of nymphs that I have been observing for the last week - conveniently located at about my eye level on a tree trunk. Yesterday they were spread apart a bit, and the adult has been separate from the young ones for most of the week, but for some reason today all of the nymphs had moved to where the adult is.

Looper/geometrid caterpillar

Click beetle

Another click beetle - including the one that was BBotD yesterday, that's three in the last two days.

Pretending to be a daisy petal

Leaf bug

Hopper

I found this pretty little insect egg on a maple leaf that had fallen to the ground (the wind the last couple of days has been fierce, and ripped a lot of leaves off the trees). I decided to bring it into the house to wait and see what emerges from it - which I will then take back outside and place on the maple tree.

It's a bad picture, but I included this because I find it interesting that different species of bugs/insects often share the same plant/leaf/flower/blade of grass without being bothered at all by the presence of others. In this case these are both Hemiptera that feed by sucking juices out of the plant.

Of course, other insect relationships are slightly less congenial - for at least one of the insects, anyway...

Saddleback leaf hopper

I think this is a beetle larva.

'Tis the season for hoverflies:

Eating a daisy

I don't know if this is a different species, or these are the same species, but male and female. Their body shapes are different, and the second one is smaller.