Backyard and Beyond

Brown-belted in Blueberry.

One of the numerous Nomada bees. Dark red with dandelion yellow markings are distinctive looking, but members of this genus are quite hard to identity. There are at least 288 species on the genus in North America north of Mexico.

Speaking of things hard to ID. Less than 20% of sawfly larvae have been identified. (The adults also aren’t easy, either.) Sawflies are classed along with the bees, wasps, and ants; they’re wasps without wasp-waists. This looks like a caterpillar—the larval stage of moths and butterflies—but this actually has seven prolegs (the stubby tubular legs in the back). Caterpillars have five or fewer prolegs. There are other differences—those eye spots, for e.g.—but this is the handiest, if you can see them….

Can’t see ’em here at 4mm long.

That black-headed larva was inside one of these leaf folds.

Trembling Aspen leaves. This is another sawfly, I think. Perhaps Euura popuella. If so, only the second U.S. observation on iNaturalist.

And now, a folded, scrunched, rolled maple leaf, tied down. As with the above case, there were numerous examples, so I thought exploring one of them wouldn’t be dreadful:

This time, a caterpillar.