A Phase

Tada!

Or perhaps I should just say, Backyard Bug of the Day:

 Caterpillar #1 in the dining room has become a chrysalis! In about 10 days or so there will be a butterfly. I know this particular caterpillar was BBotD already, but it has entered a new phase, so it is eligible again. And guess what will happen when it turns into a butterfly?

 There's another caterpillar in the backyard that had a sadder fate. Remember the one from yesterday that had a pile of what looked like larvae of some kind on it's back? Today it was dead, completely flattened out. In this picture it looks like some of those larvae are underneath the caterpillar's body. And there is an assassin bug nymph there, too. The caterpillar's body looks like it has been drained, but I don't think the assassin could have sucked EVERYTHING out so soon...

I can't tell what those larvae are. The look like snails.

Other Bugs:

 Today was the first non-cloudy day that I have been able to go out in the afternoon lately. The bees must like it, because I saw a lot of them today. I saw a few bumblebees, but it was mostly sweat bees.

 

The goldenrod is just starting to bloom, and it's a popular hiding place for jagged ambush bugs. Here's one that has caught a bee. You can see it proboscis, probing for a place to suck the liquids out of the bee.

 

 

 Ladybeetle

 This is one of those bugs that's so small you can't tell if it's a bug or a spec of something on a flower.

 Yes, it's a bug, some kind of Hemiptera, and it appears to be dining on a thrips, which is so small I didn't see it when I was taking the picture.

 Net-winged beetle

 Robber fly

 The side view of a lace bug

Sometimes butterflies make me so mad!

Arachnid Appreciation:
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Some kind of micrathena spider

Ready to Change

The real excitement today was not in the backyard, but in the dining room. We were away last night, and were gone about 30 hours total, but an important change happened while I was away. The biggest of the monarch caterpillars is preparing to become a chrysalis.

The pictures aren't good, but I'll explain what's happening:

 When I got home, the caterpillar was not eating the plants anymore, but was on the top of the enclosure. This is beginning of preparations to change into a butterfly. It will sit like this for at least a day, as I recall. But it does something else, too. It spins silk from an organ near its mouth, and deposits a blob of this silk on the surface where it is going to pupate. Notice near its head (on the right of the picture) it is starting to turn green.

 Later on in the evening it had turned around. This is the next step, because it will insert a barbed post (I can't remember what it's called) from inside its body into the silk. This is what will hold it to the surface while it is pupating. Again, notice near its head, which is now on the left of the picture, it is turning green, and is more green than in the previous picture.

 Later still this had happened. The caterpillar will now hang upside down in this J shape for about a day. You can see the white blob of silk where it is attached to the surface. It is even greener now, and will get progressively greener. If I am lucky enough to catch the moment, I will know it is about to change into a chrysalis because it will relax out of the J shape and just dangle, and its "antennae," which are not actually antennae, will go limp. This will happen at some point tomorrow, but whether it happens when I am home to see it will be up to luck. It happens fast, too, so if I don't happen to notice when it goes limp, I will probably miss it!

I had some lucky timing outside, though:

 I found 3 more caterpillars, and this one, which is about an eighth of an inch long, was in the process of molting when I found it.

 This one was on the same plant, and maybe just a tad bigger; it had probably molted into this instar within the same day. They are both probably second instar.

Here's the other one I found today. About medium size, and maybe not as big as it looks in the picture. It's about the size of caterpillar #2 from before, but not the size it was yesterday when I posted a picture of it, the size it is today. Never mind, this is confusing. Anyway, this one has a bit of growing to do.

Backyard Bug of the Day:

 Moth on purple cone flower. I don't know the species, but this isn't the kind of moth I usually see on flowers. More like tree trunks, or the front porch.

It's a dangerous place, so close to a jagged ambush bug, but I think it is far enough away that the bug won't attack it... unless it moves closer...

Other bugs:

 There are so many of these in the backyard lately (and I am sure you can see that there are two in the picture, different colors).

 Nymph and ants; no doubt the ants are there for honeydew from the nymph.

 Stink bug

 I have seen caterpillars with parasite eggs on them before, but this one seems to have a pile of larvae on its back.

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Itsy bitsy spider

Heads or Tails

I went bug hunting in the morning today, but since it was overcast, there wasn't much different about the hunt. Funny thing about overcast days, it could be any time at all, there are no changes.

Backyard Bug of the Day:

 Larva of a syrphid fly, most often referred to on this blog as a hover fly. I find these to be exceptionally creepy, even for larvae. I have never figured out which is the mouth end.

 They eat aphids, but the aphids don't seem to respect that. It's kind of fascinating how many insects, larvae in particular, eat aphids. Probably because they just sit there and let themselves be eaten. They do get protection from ants, and in fact there were several ants on patrol here, but there were also two hover fly larvae whom the ants were ignoring, so that protection doesn't seem to be very affective.

I think that might be the mouth end. But it doesn't have anything resembling a head.

And here is a lovely adult hover fly. I don't know if this is the same species as those larvae, so I can't say that this is what they will grow into, but it will be something like this.

And since we're talking about larvae, and update on the dining room caterpillars:

Caterpillar #1 has been on an eating spree, and has eaten almost an entire leaf in a day. One of the big leaves, which are about 8 inches long and 4 inches wide.

Just before I went to bed last night I checked up on the caterpillars, and saw that the little one was in the process of molting. Here you can see its shed skin behind it, and the dark spot above its head is its face, which has just come off.

Just after molting the face is very pale instead of black.

Here's a picture of the two of them together. The one on the left is about the size that the first one was when I adopted it.

Flexibility

Here's the two molted faces together. The bigger one was from.. I forget if it was yesterday or the day before. The smaller one was last night.

Then today I found two more monarch caterpillars on my bug walk! I know it's hard to tell scale from pictures, but they are both smaller than the other two were when I found them.

In fact, this one is much smaller.

And as for the molting of caterpillars...

I think this is the white hickory tussock moth caterpillar that I found the other day that was not very fuzzy. I think it has molted and grown since then. It was on the same plant...

... and this was on the leaf where I saw it the other day.

Other bugs:

Fly

I did see a dragonfly yesterday, but I broke my streak of getting pictures of them. However, I got this one today, so I think that is 4 of the last 5 days I have been able to get at least one picture of a dragonfly.

Tree cricket

Still don't know what kind of nymph this is.

Stink bug nymph

My favorite thing in the backyard is finding something I have never seen before. After that, finding something rare that I don't see very often is exciting. But also each year finding something that may be common in general for the first time that year makes me happy. This is my first spotting of this plant hopper this year. Unfortunately I am not writing my blog at home tonight, so I don't have my bug books with me to remind myself of the name.

Bumblebee

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I guess this spider must have found something to dine on deep within this flower, because otherwise I can't imagine why it would be like this. It is certainly not the best way to wait in ambush.