caterpillars
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Dear Backyard and Beyond
A curious reader writes in with images of a mystery caterpillar she photographed in Central Park in mid-July. Consulting David L. Wagner’s Caterpillars of Eastern North America, a gorgeously illustrated Princeton Field Guide, and bugguide.net, I believe what we have here is a polyphemus moth, Antheraea polyphemus. This is one of the giant silkworm subfamily…
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Monarchy
An unusually dark Monarch caterpillar found at that little wonderland of wildness, Brooklyn Bridge Park. The place was full of standard-colored Monarchs about two weeks earlier. This one was the only one seen on a more recent visit. It’s late, but probably not too late. Nearby, I found the remains of a pupa. Also found…
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Chrysalis
The remains of a pupa, or chrysalis. This was, I think, the temporary home of a specimen of a Monarch, Danaus plexippus, as it underwent metamorphosis from caterpillar to butterfly. The caterpillars themselves were much in evidence here in Brooklyn Bridge Park at the end of August, gobbling up milkweed. Curiously, the milkweeds contains noxious…
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Monarchs
A passel of monarch butterfly caterpillars, Danaus plexippus, were denuding some milkweed around the waterworks at the Brooklyn Bridge Park recently. The monarch is probably our most familiar butterfly. The generation we see here may be the one that, come winged adulthood, makes the epic long march of a flight towards the cool cloud forests…
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Munch, munch, munch
Friends, gardeners, farmers! I come to praise the tobacco hornworm, Manduca sexta, not bury it. You, on the other hand, may be quick to go snicker-snack! That I leave up to you and your conscience. I had been wondering why my sweet frying pepper, a first time plant for me, had not made any fruit…
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Bestiary
Found recently at Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge: Fall webworm, Hyphantria cunea. A potential defoliator, known to munch on 400 species of woody plants. It’s also host to over 50 species of parasitic wasps and flies. Leopard slug, Limax maximus. Invasive, imported from Europe. Approximately 4” long. The main body of this web was over a…
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Silk Moth
About 11:45 this morning, I noticed some activity at the pupa I found in Prospect Park and brought home to see if it would hatch out. It’s a giant silk moth of some kind, not sure which yet. Above you can see one of the feathery antennae, which has unfurled after being forced out of…
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Field Trip: Doodletown
American carrion beetle, Necrophila americana. The name “Doodletown” usually gets a quizzical look, but it’s real, or was once. Nestled between Bear Mountain, West Mountain, and Dunderberg Mountain in Bear Mountain State Park, Doodletown was a village founded in the late 18th century. Iron mining, logging, and tanning (using hemlock bark) were local industries early…
Backyard and Beyond 