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

Arachnid Appreciation:
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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.