The Bugs in the Backyard: Voilà

At some point in the last 12 days, since I got home from my trip, I found a chrysalis in my backyard. If you read this blog every day and have a good memory, you may recall that I posted a picture of it, and pointed out that you could see some of the details of what was inside the chrysalis, like the outline of the wings and antennae. I didn't mention it at the time, but I took the chrysalis and put it in my bug viewer, a little plastic container meant for kids to capture and observe bugs. It's been on my back porch since then, because I wanted to keep it in the same temperature and light environment that it was in in the backyard, in case things like daylight cues were important signals to whatever was inside the chrysalis about when to come out. Not knowing what kind of chrysalis it was, I didn't know if it would even emerge this summer; it seemed likely given how much summer is left, and that it didn't seem logical that something would enter the pupal stage in early summer and then overwinter that way, but again, I didn't know what was in there. So, I've been checking it every day on my back porch. Today I found out what was inside:

Ailanthus webworm moth. This totally made my day. Unfortunately, this is the only picture I got–it flew away immediately when I opened the container to get a better picture.

Backyard Bug of the Day:

Grape leaf skeletonizer moth. I think that name is a reference to the eating habits of the caterpillar of this moth, that they eat grape leaves, but leave the "skeleton" of the leaf's veins behind I think this is a female, based on the antennae. More on that anon.

I found it feeding on the sumac flowers.

Better look at the antennae. One of the ways to tell the difference between moths and butterflies is by looking at the antennae: the moth's antennae are feathery, whereas the butterfly's are thin with a bit of a knob on the end. In general the male's antennae are bigger and featherier than the female's. So, here's the first grape leaf skeletonizer moth I found today...

... and here's the second, on milkweed. Note that these antennae are a bit wider. Also note that the body shape of the two is a little different, with the female (I think) having a wider body.

Also on the sumac:

Sweat bee

Some of the clumps of sumac flowers are past blooming, so the remaining clumps are getting pretty crowded. Under the circumstances, I think the insects feeding on this plant get along pretty well, given that they are competing for a wildly popular and daily diminishing food source. There are occasional skirmishes, and sometimes some insects are chased away, but you get quite a few insects feeding together here. Bonus points if you can spot the plume moth.

Ah, the first ambush bug I have seen this year! And here comes a big beetle!

I was very curious to see if the ambush bug would attack the beetle, but even though the beetle ultimately walked right over the ambush bug, there was no attack.