Insects and an Eclipse

Hello again, bug fans! Sorry for disappearing on you again, but of all the wonderful things I can see in my backyard, a total eclipse of the sun is not one of them so I traveled to the Zone of Totality. It was an absolutely sublime experience. Being me, I naturally enjoyed the bugs that were hanging around while I waited for the eclipse, primarily cicadas, which kept landing on our telescope tripod, and a variety of butterflies that flitted around. The tiny ants that kept biting my ankles were not so charming, but overall the bug life around me amused me during the long waiting period.

But this is what brought me to tears:

 Sigh... So magnificent. Even better than the luna moth that I saw at a rest stop on the long drive home. It's sort of fitting that I saw a luna moth, really. And in my life they have been almost as rare as total eclipses of the sun; this was only the third one I have seen, ever (and I thought that they would be all gone by late August, based on what little I know about their life cycle). In fact, if you count partial eclipses (I have seen one) and lunar eclipses (I have seen several), I have seen more eclipses than luna moths. But the total eclipse of the sun was by far the more breathtaking of the two. I think it is worth breaking my rule that only pictures taken in my backyard, and on the day of a blog post can be shared here. I have to share this.

I missed a fair bit of bug beauty while I was away–there were 5 butterfly eclosures in my dining room over the 3 days I was gone. I had a friend come by every day to release whatever butterflies emerged, and there were singles on the first two days, and then THREE on the third day. I am sorry I missed them, though I can't say I would have traded the two experiences. 

I don't have a lot of bugs to show you today, because I didn't find very many, and I just took rotten pictures for some reason.There was sort of a theme to the bugs I saw today: larvae. Including today's Backyard Bug of the Day:

 Lady beetle larva. I am sure no one has ever looked at a lady beetle larva and said, "You look just like your mom!"

The back porch tree is currently host to quite a few of them, of various sizes. The tree also currently has a lot of lady beetle adults. The tree is the home of a lot of aphids, food for larvae and adult lady beetles.

 

 A fairly large clutch of lady beetle eggs.

But there were other larvae, too, in the form of caterpillars:

 I found a few (well, three) more monarch caterpillars, close to maximum size, which again makes me wonder how I never noticed them before. Granted, I was away for a few days, but they must have been a pretty decent size before I left. And it's not like I just missed seeing them because I didn't glance their way as I walked by–I really LOOK at the milkweed, looking for monarch caterpillars! Speaking of which, the milkweed plants are strangely void of other insects lately. No red milkweed beetles, even though those were around a few months ago, no milkweed bugs, large or small. And very few hoppers, or any other kind of insect that I normally see on these plants.

 I also found an eastern tiger swallowtail caterpillar. It is very early in its development, only about 1/4 inch long.

 Some kind of looper caterpillar

The viceroy caterpillar I saw from the other day. It has grown a little bit in the time I was away.

 And speaking of larvae growing, the sawfly larvae have grown quite a bit in the last few days. I learned something new about them today. You can see them in what I call their ninja pose; when they are disturbed they lift their tail ends like this. Well, I found out that if you disturb them even more, they fling themselves off the leaf where they are eating. And if the leaf you are photographing them on is above your head... you know what, let's not think about that. It was a learning experience.

 Bumblebee on goldenrod

 The good news is that I found a honeybee, the first one I have seen in months...

 ... but the bad news is that an jagged ambush bug found it first.

Ailanthus webworm moth

Oh, funny story from my bug walk: I heard a strange insect, and couldn't figure out if it was some kind of cricket, or a katydid... until I walked close to the house and realized it was my husband's alarm clock. He had set it when he took a nap, because he had to be somewhere and didn't want to oversleep. Evidently he got up before the alarm went off, and didn't turn it off. So I heard the alarm clock through the open window, but from a distance from the house, it just sounded like a bug!