Tuesday, July 16, 2019

Quantum Caterpillar

Today I didn't have a lot of time for my bug walk, so I knew I wasn't going to be able to cover the entire backyard. I considered before I started what parts I was going to skip, and then changed my mind, and it's a good thing I did, because I found the Backyard Bug of the Day in a spot that I was originally not planning on covering. And then I would have missed out on an interesting caterpillar. Of course, I wouldn't know I missed it, and maybe I would have found something cool on one of the paths I didn't end up doing. Before I walk a given path, I can't know what is there (usually); there either is or is not an amazing bug there. It's vaguely like there's a Schrodinger's Caterpillar that both exists and does not exist on a path I have not walked down. And now that I have completely mangled quantum physics, let's move on to entomology.

Backyard Bug of the Day:
 I think this is some species of prominent caterpillar, but I was unable to find it in the book. It was on the small side, so it may be an earlyish instar, and the books tend to show only the last instar.




Other Bugs
 Leaf hoppers

 Looper looking like a smile

 Another looper

 The hover fly landed just behind an assassin bug nymph, but the assassin bug nymph didn't seem to notice, which is good for the hover fly.

 Assassin bug nymph

 Ant

 Another mysterious nymph

 No idea... egg mass, maybe?

 Katydid nymph

 Case bearing beetle larva. That case is made from its won droppings.

 Another rabbit with ticks on its neck.

 This looks a lot like one of yesterday's Backyard Co-Bugs of the Day, but it is a different species. I think this is a grapeleaf skeletonizer moth.


 Some kind of hopper nymph that looks like a Muppet

 Arachnid Appreciation:
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
 Lately the mail carrier has been putting packages on the porch instead of in the package bin, which is good news for all the spiders who live in the package bin.


No comments:

Post a Comment