The Bugs in the Backyard: Nymphs

Tuesday, June 19, 2018

Nymphs

There was a bit of a theme to what I found in the backyard today, but since the Backyard Bug of the Day was not a part of that theme, let's just have a look at that before we get on with it.

Backyard Bug of the Day:

Bee of some kind

Lately the backyard has been full of larvae of various kinds, mostly caterpillars, but also sawfly larvae and those of various species of beetles. Larvae are the immature phase of insects that undergo complete metamorphosis; that is, they start out looking nothing like their adult selves, and go through a pupal stage during which they undergo a huge transformation and emerge as imagos, or adults. But not all insects undergo complete metamorphosis; Hemipteran insects go through a series of instars as they develop into imagos, but they somewhat resemble their adult forms from the beginning (some species more than others), and they get bigger and more developed in each instar (at the end of each of which they shed their exoskeleton). I think usually it is in the last phase that they emerge with wings. The immature versions of insects that develop this way are called nymphs. Today, the backyard was full of nymphs:

Starting with the newly hatched stinkbug nymphs whose eggs I have been observing.

Tree hopper nymph

Plant hopper nymph. I should perhaps mention that with these hopper nymphs I have no idea what species they are.

Leaf hopper nymph. Those spikes coming out its back end are waxy secretions that I think I read have to do with defense, but I don't know in what way.

Leaf hopper nymph. Not related in any way to the silk structure there, which has either eggs or a pupa in it, I don't know which.

Katydid nymph. Not a Hemiptera, but that is not the only order that develops this way (I don't know the name of this process. There other one is complete metamorphosis, but I don't know if this one is called incomplete metamorphosis, or something else).