Similar Things

The two words that are most evocative of the backyard this afternoon are spiders and humidity.

Of the two, I very much prefer the spiders. But more about those anon.

Backyard Bug of the Day:

 I realize that you might think that this has already been Backyard Bug of the Day this summer. But you are probably thinking of the gray hairstreak butterfly, which looks a lot like this. Or maybe the red-banded hairstreak butterfly, which looks a lot like this. In fact, there are several hairstreak butterflies that look a lot like this. In order to tell them apart you have to look at the specific patterns and placement of the marks on the wings. And having scrutinized this butterfly and compared it with a lot of pictures on websites devoted to identifying hairstreak butterflies I have determined that this is a White M Hairstreak Butterfly. Probably because of the white M mark on its hindwing.

 It's in really good shape; its 'tails' are intact. In fact, it is in such good shape that I couldn't get even the tiniest peek at the color of the dorsal side of the wings. It didn't even do that hairstreak thing where they rub their wings together, giving a glimpse of the other side. It's too bad, really, because the other side, from what I have read and seen on identification sites, is iridescent blue. I really wish I had seen it.

 However, what I did get a tiny peek at was the fact that part of the back of its body is also iridescent blue. You can see a hint of that in this picture, even though it's out of focus.

There was a great diversity of bugs to be found in the backyard today (notwithstanding the fact that about half of what I saw was spiders. Although that might be a slight exaggeration). I have a pretty good selection to show you, and that's not even accounting for the ones I didn't even try to take pictures of (the extremely busy bees all over the goldenrod) or the Ones That Got Away, which were legion (also an exaggeration).

Random Bugs:

 Cricket

 These ants are still hanging around that aphid, which is looking rather bloated.

 I was a total bug magnet today, especially for grasshoppers. They landed on my camera, they landed on me... This is the one I brushed off the back of my neck.

 I don't usually take pictures of mosquitoes, but I thought I would post this in order to point out that male mosquitoes feed only on plant nectar - they don't bite. And female mosquitoes mostly feed on plant nectar. The reason they also drink blood is because of a nutrient they need to lay eggs, or something like that.

 I think this is a species of Derbid planthopper. I like it because it's blue.

 Tree cricket.

 Back on the subject of me being a bug magnet today, I found these two larval cases hanging from silk threads off my arm. I placed them on this leaf, which I thought was a better place for them.

 Can you see the caterpillar's head?

 How about this one?

 Net-winged beetle

 I don't know why they do it, but net-winged beetles often sit on leaves and flex their elytra, showing off their wings.

 They do this over and over. I would guess it's some kind of signaling behavior.

 This assassin bug came so close to snagging a bumblebee, but the bumblebee swerved away at the last second. You can see that the assassin bug is poised to grab something, anything that comes close enough.

 Wasp

 

 This caterpillar was dangling from a tree. The white speck you see near its head is the silk thread that it is dangling from; it gathers up the thread with its legs as it climbs up.

 I found this one dangling from my hair.

 Assassin bug. These were plentiful today. I saw several of them fly, which is kind of an unusual sight for me. Even though they have wings, I hardly ever see them fly; even when they are trying to avoid me and my camera they usually just scurry around to the other side of whatever leaf or branch they are on.

 Another unusual sight - a white hickory tussock moth caterpillar on the ground. I almost always see them on tree trunks.

 Candy striped leaf hopper

 Brown marmorated stinkbug

 Moth on the roof of the back porch - in the daytime.

 Tiny beetle of some kind on the picnic table while I was eating my lunch.

 Hopper of some kind of the storm door.

 Moth attracted to the porch light.

Now, the spiders. There were spiders everywhere in the backyard today. I didn't even try to take pictures of all of them. There were a variety of species, and many of them feeding on prey - obviously the buggyness of the day was good for the spiders. I walked through more webs than I care to think about, too - mostly just single threads across the paths. In one case I saw the thread in time and walked a long way out of my way to not disturb the spider.  Even so, I have spent the whole day just hoping that after all that, I don't have spiders in my hair.

Arachnid Appreciation:
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 Jumping spider

 This is a bad picture, but I wanted to show this spider because a) it was tiny, and b) it had a long thread - about three feet long, that it zoomed across like an expert tightrope walker. Which I guess is what it is.

 The reason this orchard spider has only half a web is because I broke the other half. With my head.

The other side, later.

Do you see the spider?

How about now?

Don't be too impressed that I found this - I only saw it because I was looking at its web, which was attached to this stick, and I saw the spider move. Otherwise I am pretty sure this would have escaped my notice.

Jumping spider with prey

Ditto.

Jumping spider without prey.

Same one...

Same one...

This spider was funny to watch. When I first saw it, it charged at a sowbug, which it was not successful in catching. Then, while I was focused in to take this picture, just after I did, a sowbug zoomed in, charging right at the spider, and chasing it away!

This picture was taken just after it walked right over that sowbug.

And then this one was taken as that sowbug was poking at it, which then made the spider run away. That spider has a complicated relationship with the sowbugs (which were everywhere today, because everything was damp from yesterday's rain and today's humidity.

Another jumping spider

Bowl and doily spider

This is the spider whose web I respected enough to walk all the way around the house to avoid breaking it. I couldn't tell exactly where it went (which is why I didn't just try to duck under it), but it was at least six feet long.

I haven't seen one of these all summer.

The above spider had a neighbor - yet another jumping spider. I am not sure, but the jumping spider might have actually been climbing the other spider's web.

If you can find them both (the jumping spider is in the upper left of the picture) you can see how close they were.

This big, beautiful spider was on the front of the garden shed when we got home from grocery shopping tonight; I saw it when the car's headlights shone on the shed. When I went out with my camera the spider scooted over the top of the door into the shed, which is where I ended up getting this picture.