insects
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Two-Spotted in Brooklyn
One more species of lady beetle spotted in Brooklyn Bridge Park, on the catalpa trees, whose big leaves are sticky with aphid honeydew. This is the Two-Spotted lady beetle (Adalia bipunctata). There were several of them, so there must have been a recent pupation. This species is native to North American and Europe, making it…
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Dog Days
Yesterday, I heard two cicadas whining at the northern end of the Promenade. These were my first of the year. Today I heard one in the back of the apartment, way back, beyond the Back 40 Inches. On a walk through the neighborhood, I spotted a couple of the huge cicada killer wasps (Sphecius speciosus)…
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Midge
This landed on my sunglasses recently. I’d never seen anything like it before. A single pair of wings meant it should be in the order Diptera, beyond that I give thanks to Bug Guide for narrowing it down to the non-biting midges of the tribe Chironomini. Note how the forelegs are unsually long, almost like…
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Small Milkweed Bug
Yes, there’s a Large Milkweed Bug, too. This is Lygaeus kalmii. The bright colors are warning you, o bug-eating one, that this critter is a bitter pill to swallow: sucking on milkweed juice — as a true bug of the Hemiptera order, it’s a sucker not a chewer — makes it so.
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Pollinators
I took a walk through Brooklyn Bridge Park yesterday afternoon. It was very windy, which made photographing flying insects quite a challenge. I saw my first Monarch butterflies of the year, as well as an American Lady. Black Saddlebags dragonfly. Great Northern Bumblebee (amongst a host of small, medium, and large bumblebees I am otherwise…
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Ladybugs: Aphid-Eaters
Checker Spot ladybug (Propylea quatuordecimpunctata) munching on an aphid wing. Laval-stage lady beetles are also great aphid-devourers. This is why a number of different species of lady bugs have been introduced into North America over the years: to attack the real destruction aphids can cause. The Checker Spots were one such introduction.The Multi-colored Asian lady…
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Plant Suckers
Being only an irregular gardener, I haven’t had much experience with real aphid infestations. But now I think I understand why the little plant suckers are so loathed. Brooklyn Bridge Park has a couple of infestations right now: red aphids on sunflowers and yellow ones on milkweeds.There are more than 1,300 species of aphids (Aphididae)…
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Honeydew Economy
Aphids produce honeydew, a sugary by-product, or excreta, of all that plant sucking they do. Ants, among other creatures, love the energy-rich stuff, and so harvest it from the aphids. They will also protect the aphids from aphid-predators, as if they were shepherds watching over the herd.
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All praise to the pollinators!
It’s National Pollinator Week. While honeybees get most of the media attention, there are some 250 different species of bees found in New York City. Recently, a new species of sweat bee was named after being discovered in Prospect Park. Here’s yet another type of local bee. This is a genus Megachile leaf-cutter bee, so…
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Willow, willow
Turns out there are several small, shiny blue-black beetles out there that devour leaves. The Blue or Cobalt Milkweed beetle, the Grape Flea beetle, and the imported Willow Leaf Beetle, which is what I think this is. Plagiodera versicolor.These shiny critters were not on willow leaves, as far as I could tell, but along the…
Backyard and Beyond 