Morphology Demonstrations

I like to spend a few moments looking out the window at my backyard as I start my day, just to take in the beauty and see what kind of day it is. I don't specifically look for bugs, but I like it when there are bugs on the window, because I get an interesting view of them, and I do often get a sense of how buggy it is outside from those minutes. Today as I looked out, savoring how green everything is now, a butterfly fluttered by (one of the dark swallowtails, I think), and then something else zoomed by, chased by a dragonfly, so I knew the day had some potential bug-wise. I had been skeptical–it was pretty chilly last night. I was especially excited to see the dragonfly–it was only the second one I had seen this year. During my bug walk I saw my third.

Backyard Bug of the Day:

 I have given up looking up dragonflies to find out their species. The books always just end up confusing me.

There were some interesting displays of insect morphology in the backyard today. I post pictures sometimes of sawfly larvae, and I am sure that it has crossed people's minds to wonder what is the difference between  sawfly larva and a caterpillar, because they look very similar. Practically the same, in fact, until you get used to the differences. The first time I ever saw sawfly larvae I assumed they were caterpillars, and it took quite a while for me to find out what they really were. I had never heard of a sawfly before (which, very unhelpfully named, isn't a fly, but a wasp), and I didn't know that there was anything that looked like a caterpillar other than a caterpillar. I am not even sure that I knew that caterpillars are specifically the larvae of moths and butterflies, but I think I did. Anyway, there are several differences, including the eyes and head, but the easiest one to see is the different number of prolegs. Not that you can always see the prolegs of either, but today I happened to get pictures from the optimal angle of both a sawfly and a caterpillar to show the difference. And it is basically this: sawfly larvae have more prolegs. And what is a proleg? Well, there are true legs, which are like other insect legs, and which, as in all other insects, they have three pairs of, and are generally used for holding onto food, and then there are prolegs, which are kind of stumpy legs with  teeny, tiny hooks all over them that are used for walking and climbing.

Here's a sawfly larva:

 This one has eight pairs of prolegs. I don't know if that varies among species.

 Here's the back end of a caterpillar. Caterpillars have up to five pairs of prolegs. There's the four pairs in the middle, and one pair in the back. Some species have fewer–looper caterpillars have two pairs in the back, and none in the middle. Too bad I didn't get a picture of one of those today...

Here's the rest of the caterpillar.

Now, another interesting display of morphology in the backyard today involves camouflage. There are a few ways to camouflage yourself if you are an insect. You can look like something else so that you can blend in, like a moth that looks like tree bark, or an insect that looks like a leaf. Or you can just look like something nothing wants to eat.

For instance, you may wonder why I took a photo of bird poop...

 ... until you look closely and see that the bird poop has legs...

 ... and is, in fact, a moth.

Looking like bird poop is a strategy used by several species of moth. Coincidentally, I saw two different species today:

Other Bugs:

 The thing in the middle of the picture is not the bug. You'll have to look a bit closer to see the two bugs.

 Katydid nymph

 Long-legged fly

 Fly killed by fungus

 Skipper

 Caterpillar

Arachnid Appreciation:
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 I think this is a male six-spotted orb weaver.

 The jumping spider that currently lives under the rain gauge

 Crab spider

Reptile of the Day:
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 Once again I nearly stepped on a snake, but this one was pretty blase about it, and only moved slowly away. Another garter snake, which is mostly what I see in my backyard.

 I noticed something about its eye when I looked at the pictures.

 I think that cloudiness means it is about to shed its skin soon.

Grumpy Blogger

Usually if I am in a bad mood, spending some time outside makes me feel better. Not today. I don't want to talk about it.

Today's Backyard Bug of the Day was not found on my bug walk, but while I was on my woods walk, so I didn't have my real camera, so I don't have a good picture of it, even though it was by far the best opportunity I have ever had in my entire life to photograph this particular bug. Normally it flies fast, from flower to flower, hovering, darting, feeding on the wing, zooming around, but today, it landed on a tree branch–not even a leaf, that can toss in the wind, but a nice, sturdy, still branch–and just sat there. For at least a minute. And it didn't fly away the moment I got close to it. And all I had with my was my cellphone camera. It's like even when I get lucky I am unlucky about it. Sometimes I find bugs really annoying, but not at all for the same reason most people do.

Anyway, I'm breaking a rule to post this, because for Backyard Bug of the Day I am only supposed to use good pictures, but this is as good as it gets today. Backyard Bug of the Day:

 Hummingbird clearwing moth. I am pretty sure this is only the second time ever I have seen one of these land and stay still for more than a fraction of a second.

I have just decided that today there will be a Backyard Co-Bug of the Day #2:

I don't know what kind of moth this is. I think it is the first time I have ever seen one, which is why I am making it BCBotD. Also, it was very cooperative, and that is a trait I value in bugs I try to photograph.

Other Bugs:

 I spotted this gathering during my walk in the woods, too: about a dozen or so carrion beetles. I didn't see any remnants of any dead animal (not that I looked hard, it could be under the leaf litter. I didn't actually want to see anything like that), so I am not sure why there were so many of them here, but given that there seemed to be multiple mating pairs, that may have had something to do with it. Note that in the lower center there is a pair, one on top of the other.

 If you're looking for insects it can be helpful to look for leaf damage. Sawfly larvae

 Beetle

 I am so annoyed at this butterfly that I am not even going to look up to see if it is a wood satyr, or an elfin something or other.

Assassin bug nymph:

 

 I think it has recently molted, and that is its exuvia (discarded exoskeleton that it has shed) at the base of the flower cluster.

I found this very contentious group of flower longhorns:

 Just after this, one flew away and the other two fell off the plant together. I assume this was a fight over mating.

'Tis the season for that... not necessarily the fighting part. This tree is often the site of exchanges of genetic material among what I believe are squash bugs, or a kind of leaf-footed bugs:

 Around this time of year I see them crawling all over the trunk and branches.

 And finding mates.

 Looking up the tree trunk, I saw another mating pair and a couple of individuals.

If you want to know why my bug walk made me so crabby, it's because I saw–and even photographed–more bugs that you got to see here today. Most of the pictures look like this:

Arachnid Appreciation:
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Young Oak

There is a youthful oak tree in front of my house that has a number of branches low enough for me to be able to look for what might be living on them. The tree is about twenty feet tall, which isn't much for an oak tree; I could probably just about span the trunk with my hands. It has a long way to go in life, but for now, its lack of stature means that I get a good view of the bugs on its lower leaves. But there is a lot of the tree that is beyond my visual scope, and I do sometimes wonder how much is going on up there out of view? Because there is a great deal going on at the level where I can see, and that is a small part of the space available in the tree. Sometimes I look at trees and think of them as teeming cities, or individual biomes, or habitats.
Here's what I saw on that tree today:

 Copper underwing caterpillar

 Sawfly larva

 Oak galls (which have insect larvae developing inside them)

This is what it looks like inside, by the way. Fluffier than you might expect.

 Different species of sawfly larva

 This leaf was rolled up into a hideaway by the caterpillar whose head you can just barely see peeking out toward the lower right

 All over the branches were leaves with bits rolled up like this; my brief research tells me that it is probably created by an oak leafrolling weevil. It lays its eggs inside these rolls.

There were ants on the tree, too, and a couple of spiders that you'll see below. Yesterday there were more species of insects on the tree, including the Backyard Bug of the Day.

And speaking of Backyard Bugs of the Day...

Backyard Co-Bug of the Day #1:

 Leaf beetle, species Chalepus walshii

Backyard Co-Bug of the Day #2:

 Katydid nymph

Backyard Co-Bug of the Day #3:

 Scorpion fly, male. It doesn't sting, it just looks like it has a scorpion tail.

Other Bugs:

 Ants on raspberry blossoms

 Crane fly

 These pink speckles appear on the leaves of this tree most years. For a long time I assumed they were insect eggs of some kind, but I think they are actually some kind of fungus.

 Some kind of longhorn flower beetle. It's not alone in that flower cluster...

 There was another beetle in there, too.

 Milkweed leaf beetle:

 Assassin bug with prey, which I think is a sawfly.

This is the first time this shrub has flowered, and I don't know what it is, but it was pretty popular with insects:

 Ants and the aphids they are herding

 Hopper nymph

Looper caterpillar

Arachnid Appreciation:
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These first two spiders were on the oak tree:

Harvestman with a lot of parasitic mites