invertebrates
-
Rambur’s Forktail
I’ve spotted another Brooklyn damselfly species, bringing my NYC list up to nine species. This is a male Rambur’s Forktail (Ischnura ramburii). Approximately 1.25″ long. He was flitting about the edge of Green-Wood’s Sylvan Water among a fair number of Familiar Bluets.This is a pair of Familiars (Enallagma civile) in the mating grip: the male…
-
Ocola Skipper
Note the long forewings here, which certainly makes it stick out of the common storm of skippers. This is an Ocola Skipper (Panoquina ocola), a butterfly of the southeast (and down to Paraguay) that occasionally gets as far north as Canada. It’s a “regular stray” up here according to the Kaufman guide. This is a…
-
View From The Moraine
A green lacewing (Chrysopidae) paused briefly on the window recently.
-
Lepidoptera Lowdown
A veritable blizzard of Lepidoptera over a patch of ground-loving Buddleja last week. Lots of skippers skipping. This is a male Sachem (Atalopedes campestris), I think. Several sulphurs ever so briefly alighting. This is purported to be a Clouded Sulphur (Colias philodice)… probably: Orange and Clouded can mix it up genetically, so these are hard to…
-
Gnatty
The other evening I walked from Sunset Park to Grand Army Plaza, the last half mile through Prospect Park’s Long Meadow, which was surprisingly empty of the usual clutter of bipeds and canines. As I entered the park at 9th Street, past Layette and groom, I saw the horse-chestnuts and buckeyes anticipating conker-fall, and a…
-
Beewings
One the Megachile leaf-cutter bees. A nice look at the bee’s fore and hind wings. Hymenoptera, the “membrane-winged” insects (bees, wasps, and ants) and have four wings. Dragonflies and butterflies would surely agree with the Hymenoptera that four wings are the best, but flies probably wouldn’t. Flies (and mosquitoes) are in the order Diptera (“two-winged”):…
-
One Singular Sensation
I have not seen a Monarch caterpillar in New York City since 2010. Now, I haven’t been actively surveying for them, but whenever I see milkweed, I do look closer. Six years is way, way too long a period to go without. As you probably know, Monarch have taken a severe beating from habitat destruction…
-
Zabulon
Poanes zabulon,the Zabulon Skipper. A male. You really have to get up close and personal to the skippers to tell them apart. And that usually takes some optical enhancement, although if you should find yourself sitting quietly next to a lot of pollinator-magnets they may be too busy to pay you any attention.
-
Cocktail Hour
Is this too much John Cheever-John Updike, drunken wasps getting it on? Above are Thread-waisted Wasps (Eremnophila aureonotata) mating on that pollinator-magnet mountain mint (Pycnanthemum). Like many wasps, the adults eat nectar, but feed their larvae flesh. (OK, now we’ve entered Stephen King territory) These provision their young with caterpillars. Blue-winged, a.k.a. Digger Wasp (Scolia…
Backyard and Beyond 