Butterfly Tail

 Today the bugs in the backyard were a little more cooperative, even if the wind wasn't. I did my bug walk earlier than usual because the forecast was dire for the latter half of the afternoon. While it did turn out to be a horrible storm in some places, it really wasn't much here. However, I found a lot more bugs than I have been finding recently, so maybe that difference of a few hours is important.

Butterflies have been pretty scarce in my backyard this summer, but today there was a really cooperative one on the autumn joy sedum, and it is Backyard Bug of the Day:

I think that this is a red-banded hairstreak butterfly. There are several hairstreaks that look very similar. They are identified by the specific markings on their wings and, if you can get a glimpse of it, the color of the dorsal side, I think, but I hardly ever get to see that. It's funny that even when I did a search for pictures of the dorsal side of the wings, out of all of the photos that appeared of red-banded hairstreaks, only one showed the dorsal side of the wings. Interesting to note that it still has one of its tails. It is unusual to see one with both tails intact, and I would say most of the times I have seen them, both tails are gone.

Hairstreaks hardly ever open their wings at rest, but they do rub them back and forth against each other, and when they do, you can sometimes get a peek at the dorsal color, as seen here. It's very dark.

 

Here's a little better look at the dorsal side of the hindwing.

Insects have no concept of personal space:

Another peek at the dorsal colors

 Another interesting thing: I found this butterfly right at the beginning of my bug walk, because it was in a garden bed right next to the house, only steps from the back door. It was cooperative enough to let me get close to it and take rather a lot of pictures. I took al the shots I wanted and then went on with my bug walk, leaving while the butterfly was still there. Usually with butterflies I get a shot or two if I am lucky, and away they fly; often I don't get a picture at all. At the end of my bug walk, which was at least half an hour later, but I think more like an hour, I checked, and the butterfly was still there, feeding on the autumn joy sedum. I wonder how long it stayed, and if it was chased away by the rain when it began.

Other Bugs:

Moth

Large milkweed bug nymphs

The milkweed patch in what used to be the vegetable garden is where the large milkweed bug nymphs are, but that patch has also lately been host to a great many flies. There is kind of a dark, dirty film on the plants that I think is attracting the flies. It may have something to do with aphids, or fungus, or I don't know. The plants don't look good, but the flies enjoy them. I haven't been able to get pictures of the flies, because they are very active, and are often in spots on the plants where I can't get close without scaring them away, but today they were a little more cooperative:

Tachinid fly

Bottle flies. There have been a LOT of bottle flies on the milkweed patch.

Flies and other insects, including wasps (or in this picture at least, A wasp) and large milkweed bug nymphs

Leaf hopper

Arachnid Appreciation:

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

I found two spiders today, both on chairs in the backyard:

Bowl and doily spider

 

 

Weirdness

 There are certain bugs that I have never seen in person, but I know about them because of the kinds of things I read, or things I follow on the internet, or just from perusing insect field guides. There are some that I would really LIKE to see, having a Bug-cket List, bugs I wish would show up in my backyard. And it is fun when I find a new bug and don't have to look it up because I already know what it is, even though I've never actually seen one before. It's more fun when it's something I really have been hoping to see, like the first time I found a stick bug or a hummingbird moth in my backyard.

And then, there's today's Backyard Bug of the Day:

Monkey slug caterpillar. It's not a particularly good specimen–it seems to be missing some "arms," and most of its hair. It should be covered with hair. I wonder if this one has just molted into a new skin, and needs some time for the hair to grow in? Apparently the missing arms will grow back, too. This one was kind of small (although they don't get really big anyway), so definitely possible that it's still developing.  I have read that the hairs can sting, but my caterpillar book says that's not true. The adult of this caterpillar is called hag moth, and apparently the female looks like a bee, and the male looks like a wasp, including having clear wings. Altogether a weird insect.

This is in the family of "slug-like" caterpillars, so named because their prolegs are sort of... not really separate entities, and they looks a bit like slugs when they move. Except that underneath it's really a sort of undulating thing going on when they move.

At the lower end here you can see its head. At this point maybe I should confess that this is NOT a bug I have always hoped to see. Well, maybe a little, just because it's so weird. It is definitely strange seeing it moving around on a plant, but when I saw it I immediately knew exactly what it was.

Let's see if I can upload my video of it... It's a terrible video, because my camera with the macro lens on it is not really a great way for filming, particularly a fast-moving subject, and I was standing in a thorn bush at the time, but there are a couple of seconds that show how it moves:

 

Anyway, it's weird, and that's cool.

 

I walked past the spot where I found it a few hours later and didn't see it again, which is too bad. Sometimes caterpillars will hang around in the same general spot for a while, and it is possible to observe them as they grown and change. It would have been nice to be able to do that with this one. But it was moving around a lot when I saw it, so it was obviously on its way somewhere.

I really don't have much else to share today. It was, other than the monkey slug caterpillar, a spectacular failure of a bug walk. It was a beautiful day, a lovely day to be out in the backyard, but the few bugs I was able to find were just not interested in sitting still to be photographed. So I don't have much to show you as far as Other Bugs:

Blue dasher dragonfly, female

Large milkweed bug nymphs.

And that's it. Except for the spectacular spider I found today on my woods walk. There is a small clearing in the woods that is a wildflower meadow, and there I found a spider that was on my Bug-cket List (even though spiders aren't bugs). I have always wanted to see one of these, and having found one was surprised and impressed, because it is a much bigger spider than I thought it was from all of the pictures I have seen. And now... Arachnid Appreciation:

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

Golden garden spider, Argiope aurantia. Described in Kaufman's Field Guide to Insects of North America as "large enough to be startling, but completely harmless."

Except for whatever bug that it that is is feeding on. I don't think that bug found it harmless. You can't see the web well, but this is an orb weaver, and it has built its web on goldenrod flowers. And of course I had my phone with me, but not my real camera.

Popular Hangouts

 I keep trying to take a picture that will illustrate how popular goldenrod is among pollinators, and it's tricky because the insects are constantly moving, and often the plants are moving too, waving in even the slightest breeze. And here's what I managed to capture today:

Four bees and a tiny fly on goldenrod. More on the goldenrod in a bit, but first, some other interesting things.

A little over a week ago I found some feathers and eggs on the ground, from an attack on a birds' nest. One egg was broken, and being devoured by ants, but the other egg was intact. A couple of days ago I noticed that something had broken a hole in the intact egg. The next day that egg was gone, I assumed having been eaten by something. But today I found it:

It had been partially buried, a few feet away from where I originally found it.

There's a slight problem with today's Backyard Bug of the Day:

I chose this insect, which looks somewhat wasp-like, but I believe is actually a fly. But looking at the photos while working on the blog I began to think it looked very familiar, so I looked it up, and it turns out that this was already chosen as Backyard Bug of the Day this year, a couple of months ago. However, I think that the earlier one was a male, and this one is female (I am basing this on the pointy back end, which the other one did not have), so I am going to allow it. The pandemic has turned my brain to mush, and I didn't remember this at first.

Anyway, about the goldenrod... Where there are insects feeding, there will be things to feed on them, like an assassin bug nymph:

... which, to be honest, I may be misidentifying. This could be a plant-feeder.

But this is definitely a scene of a predatory insect (jagged ambush bug) and potential prey:

I watched the bumblebee work its way along one stem of flowers, and down the next, getting closer and closer to the predator...

... and then it walked all over the ambush bug and moved right back up the stem, unharmed.

Also popular today were the autumn joy sedum flowers, which are beginning to bloom:

Bumblebee and sweat bee

There were mostly bumblebees on these.

Stinkbug

Large milkweed bug nymphs in various instars on milkweed seed pod

Arachnid Appreciation:

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

Nursery web spider. This one is definitely not full grown, probably only about half the size it will eventually be. These can pretty reliably be found in this garden bed every summer.

There were two of them.

Flower crab spider

 

Next Year's Moths

 I almost thought I was not going to get to do a bug walk today because we had a thunderstorm that lasted most of the afternoon. It didn't rain much, but I am not going to walk around outside in a thunderstorm carrying a metal stick. It cooled the air quite a bit, so hopefully this is the end of our latest heat wave. Just throwing in some weather facts here, even though I try not to start blog posts with weather reports, because it's part of the environment of my backyard, and could have something to do with the bug populations. Anyway, today we broke a record for the number of days at or above 90ºF in Connecticut in a summer, and unless we get over an inch of rain in the next week we will break the record for the driest meteorological summer (June-August) for Connecticut in recorded history. Officially the state has had 3.03 inches since the start of June. For perspective, Connecticut averages about 4 inches of rain per month. I think we have had more than that locally, but it has definitely been a dry summer.

My bug walk was not successful in numbers of bugs seen, but I was pleased with what I did find, specifically I was quite excited by what I found for Backyard Bug of the Day:

Polyphemus moth caterpillar. Either first or second instar. This was an exciting find for a couple of reasons. I have only ever seen one of these before, about seven or eight years ago. It was in its final instar, only days away from making its cocoon. It was huge; this is going to be about three inches long eventually. Based on timing, this is going to make a cocoon (which it will do probably in a month or so) and then spend the entire winter inside it, emerging next May or June.

Polyphemus moths are one of the giant silk moth species, the family Saturniidae. Big caterpillars become big moths. 

I found five of these on an oak tree.

Other Bugs:

Tachinid fly on virgin's bower

Stilt bug and bumblebee on goldenrod

Nymphs of milkweed bugs, I am pretty sure they are large milkweed bugs, because that is what I have seen in this milkweed patch. Note the very different instars–some of these are tiny, and others look close to becoming adults. Interesting that this is the first I have seen of them, but I think that they mostly feed on the milkweed seeds, and have probably been inside the seed pod up until now. 

Milkweed tussock moth caterpillar and tachinid fly. I think the fly was trying to parasitize the caterpillar. The fly kept circling around the caterpillar and trying to land on it, while the caterpillar kept thrashing around, particularly when the fly made attempts to land on it.

Cricket

Arachnid Appreciation:

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

I think this is a funnel web spider, but instead of living in a funnel among the grass or other foliage...

... it lives in a hole in this metal post. I first saw it the other day, but when you get too close to it, it zooms down into the hole.

Still on the same leaf. I wonder if it is having a lot of success there, or if it's just not hungry enough to go somewhere else? What's interesting is that the tree this vine is dangling from used to be a place I could always find a lot of bugs, and lately there's nothing there. Did the spider eat it all? (Just kidding. I don't actually think it did).