Appearances

 It's always fun to find a bug that is working very hard to look like something else. Well, not, that's not the right way to put it–mostly they probably have no idea what they look like. In fact, I often wonder if they even know that they are functionally invisible. Camouflage can be so interesting, though, because sometimes it is incredibly specific. Take today's Backyard Bug of the Day:

You know there's an insect there, so maybe it's easy for you to see, but I only found this caterpillar because I saw the pile of frass on the leaf underneath. And even then it took me a couple of seconds of looking to find it. It's not just a green caterpillar that blends into a leaf, it is green and brown, with a jagged silhouette, and it holds onto the edge of the leaf so that it becomes a part of the line of the leaf edge, looking like a torn edge that has turned brown in parts. It's so effective. I would not have noticed it if the frass had not been evidence of a caterpillar nearby.

I think this is a unicorn prominent. It becomes a mottled, brown moth.

See how much that looks like a browning edge of a torn leaf? It even has that yellow line to look like a vein in the leaf.

Other Bugs:

The new hatchling from yesterday hasn't gone far from its egg; it is on the next leaf over on the bleeding heart plant where it hatched.

Photobombed by a springtail

Plant bug on hydrangea blossom

Weevil on hydrangea bud

Weevil playing dead on hydrangea buds because I got too close with my camera.

So, I am getting bugs on my hydrangea, just not the bees, butterflies, and other pollinators I was hoping for. But I don't care, I like them anyway. The bugs, not the hydrangeas. Well, obviously, I like the hydrangeas too. And I don't plant flowers just to attract bugs, I plant them because I like them, and see attracting bugs as an extra benefit.

Some day I am going to get a good picture of a tumbling flower beetle. Today is not that day.

Caterpillar in a silk tent

Some kind of insect eggs. I have never seen any like this before. On a stalk of dried grass.

This fly (or others just like it) has been taunting me for days, pretending it is going to let me take a picture and then flying away. Today it finally agreed to sit for me. Interesting thing about this species (and I think it's a species of tachinid fly) is that I almost always see it on the side of my house, within an area of about ten feet. 

Damselfly:

With dramatic lighting...

... and without. It was way too high above my head for a better shot.

Ailanthus webworm moth on milkweed leaf. I think this must be one from last year; it looks very faded. There should be dark blue around those "flowers" on its wings.

Thick-headed fly on milkweed leaf. I don't have pictures to back it up, but there have been a lot of bumblebees on the milkweed flowers the last few days, and that would be why this fly is there, looking for a bumblebee to parasitize by laying an egg inside it.

The bugs were really uncooperative today...

Cockroach. I have seen a lot more of these this year than I have ever seen, but that is partly because I see a lot of them on my nighttime woods walks. But even in my regular backyard they seem numerous this year. I don't know what, if anything, that means.

I checked out the milkweed patch at the end of my nighttime woods walk again. Last night there were no moths, but tonight there were  a good number. Of course a lot of them disappeared when I got my camera, but I got a couple:

Arachnid Appreciation:

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I'm not sure what kind of spider this is; it looks like a nursery web spider, but I have never seen one this big. She was a little bit aggressive before she scurried off to hide.

I think these are her eggs.