insects
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Burying Beetles
Burying beetles, also called sexton beetles, after the church employee traditionally in charge of the congregation’s corpses, need carrion. They eat dead mammals and birds, as well as the fly larvae that feed off carrion, but most importantly they bury it with their own eggs, giving their young something to eat. Pictured above are two…
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Empire of the Beetle
“I’m here to protect the trees from the beetle,” said the academic. The logger laughed and said that was bullshit. “The trees and the beetles have been in cahoots for millions of years.”In Empire of the Beetle, Andrew Nikiforuk tells the tale of the destruction caused by the disruption of that cahoot-ness, as tiny beetles,…
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Corner Pocket
A fairly representative New York City tree pit. “Pit” is definitely the word here. The hard-pan — calling this sterile-looking misery “soil” would be an insult — looks like something you’d find in a draught-ravaged desert. And you can imagine the gallons of poisonous dog piss that have been poured in over the years. It’s…
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Blue Wings To Die For
The Great Black Wasp (Sphex pensylvanicus) is a katydid and grasshopper hunter. As with the spider hunters and others I’ve been detailing this summer, the prey provisions the nests of their young. In between wrestling paralyzed katydids to the nest, these wasps sup on nectar. Like most solitary wasps, this generation never see their progeny…
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Twelve Spotted
The Twelve-spotted skimmer (Libellula pulchella) is one of the easiest dragonflies to identify. You can even tell from the shadow. This is the female — the males have white patches between the dark spots.
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Wasps
It is the season of wasps. Seen on a walk through Prospect Park this week:The very elegant Isodontia elegans, one of the grass-carrying wasps, and evidently a species without a common name. The grass they clip and carry is used to line their nests, which are made in pre-existing cavities. They eat pollen themselves and…
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Hymenoptera
Last weekend, I visited the Flatbush Gardener’s garden. The highlight was the mountain mint, alive with pollinators. I mean, jumping with pollinators: several species of bees, wasps, flies, and butterflies going at it. Here are a couple of the highlights: Great Golden Digger Wasp, Sphex ichneumoneus.One of the grass-carrying wasps of genus Isodontia. Cuckoo bee,…
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Tachinid
Most flies get very little respect. Perhaps it’s their hairy rumps? Or maybe it’s that their larvae are parasitic on caterpillars? But Tachinidae flies are also pollinators, and so the plants approve.
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Blue Dasher
The Blue Dasher dragonfly (Pachydiplax longipennis) is common around our ponds and lakes, especially if there’s lots of vegetation in the water. The males have a chalky blue abdomen, with black tip. The females have no blue at all. But they do have tell-tale paired yellow streaks along their abdomen.Dragonflies of this species will often…
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Mud Cells
Two summers ago, a Black and Yellow Mud Dauber wasp built her nest in the Back 40 (inches). A new generation of these large, black-bodied wasps with yellow legs emerged in June of last year. This year I had one inside the house. Not here in Brooklyn, but at the family house in Massachusetts. This…
Backyard and Beyond 