The Bugs in the Backyard: Supply and Demand

I've mentioned my view of the laws of nature: If there's something to eat, there will be something to eat it. There are some corollaries to that, and one of them is that (and this is hard to word) the things that eat won't show up until there's something to eat. It's kind of a supply and demand situation. And it's a delicate bit of timing, I think, that is built into the natural world. For instance, caterpillars eat leaves, for the most part. And there are some species of Lepidoptera (butterflies and moths) that overwinter as adults, and some as caterpillars, and some as eggs. In the case of adults, who will mate and lay eggs in the spring, or those eggs that have overwintered, the right time to hatch is when there is something for the caterpillars to eat. If they hatch too soon, they won't have food. So, now that there is plenty of caterpillar food, there are plenty of caterpillars.

Observe:

I haven't looked any of these up. I don't have the time today. Maybe later...

I think I found a couple of the white marked tussock moth caterpillars:

I found two of these, in different parts of the yard. They look a bit like the ones I have been observing on the egg mass, and are at least twice the size that they were when they hatched. There are a couple of ways that caterpillars disperse after hatching: they can walk away, or they can send out a silk thread to be picked up by the wind, and drift somewhere. I understand they can go quite long distances this way, miles, even, so making their way across my backyard would be nothing. Which doesn't mean that these are from that one egg mass. Just that they could be.

Each of them has eaten a small hole in a leaf. Actually, it looks like this one has made two.

I think more caterpillars are still hatching from that egg mass.

Then there's this awful thing, the gypsy moth caterpillar. You can see it is not alone on this vine (also invasive–the vine, not the aphid), but what you don't see is...

... this caterpillar, that was dangling from the gypsy moth's vine when I found it.

This looper caterpillar also had a neighbor...

Which brings me to the Backyard Bug of the Day:

This is the Backyard Bug of the Day. I forget what kind of beetle this is.

And then there are things that look like caterpillars, but aren't, and also eat leaves–sawfly larvae, of which there are many species:

You can just barely see that this larva and it's siblings have skeletonized this leaf, and the others have gone...

... and this leaf is currently being skeletonized by a slew of sawfly larvae.

There was quite an impressive variety today of Other Bugs:

Our garden was planted over the weekend, and I spotted this tiny insect inside a zucchini blossom. Unfortunately all we have right now are male flowers, so this bug was not able to transfer any pollen for practical use.

I have been seeing a lot of these grape leaf roller moths. But not on grape leaves.

I think these gorgeous eggs are stinkbug eggs.

This assassin bug was in the exact same spot where I saw it yesterday.

This one was not.

I found a sapling that had several little clusters of aphids on it:

Some of the clusters were being attended to by ants.

Different life stages

This aphid, which is by itself, for some reason, is exuding a drop of honeydew. The other things you can see on the stem of the plant are discarded exoskeletons from aphids that have molted.

There were hoverflies everywhere today: