Happy Solstice!

Ah, the first day of summer! Long and sunny, green and pleasant, and in the evening, crickets and fireflies make this a perfect summer night. There are, for me, four beginnings of summer. There's June 1, the first day of meteorological summer, Memorial Day weekend, which is kind of the start of social summer, today, the summer solstice, the beginning of astronomical summer, and next Friday, which will be the first day of my husband's summer vacation (because he is a teacher). Of course, the one I most look forward to is the one that comes last, but from the standpoint of finding bugs, right now is just about right.

Backyard Co-Bug of the Day #1:

 I am 99% sure that this is a brown lacewing larva, known as an "aphid wolf" because it preys on aphids, as this one is doing.

Backyard Co-Bug of the Day #2:

 Scorpionfly. Named for the shape of the tail end of the males, not because of having venom or a stinger, which they do not.

Other Bugs:

Moth

 It is so hard to believe that these stinkbug nymphs just emerged from those eggs two days ago... or was it yesterday? I don't remember now. This has been a long week.

 I thought that this looked like a firefly, but not like a winter firefly, but it didn't look like it had light organs from the VERY brief glimpse I got of that part of its body. So I looked it up and this is apparently a black firefly. Both of the books I looked it up in say it is diurnal (active during the day), which explains why I saw it flying around in the afternoon, but one says as an adult is has no light organs, and the other says it has them, but they are much smaller than other, night-time fireflies. While I was looking this up I happened to read that firefly larvae eat slugs, which is just another reason to think that fireflies are wonderful.

 Yet another tiny, interesting hopper nymph. They're everywhere lately.

 And an insect egg?

I found several lady beetle larvae:

 This one was eating something... I couldn't tell if it was an aphid, or something else.

That severed leg in front of it was still twitching.

 This is on the underside of a milkweed leaf. It is not a monarch egg, but I can't tell if it is some other kind of egg, or just a drop of milkweed sap.

This might be a species of cuckoo bee.

Arachnid Appreciation:
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