invertebrates
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Crawly
One must really keep the eyes peeled and rolling in a fine frenzy. Look out! Down on the sidewalk, a little under 1.5″ long, easily mistaken for a turd or cigarillo butt. But, actually, it’s the larva of the Eastern Tiger Swallowtail (Papilio glaucus), that gloriously large yellow and black butterfly. Early instars, or stages,…
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Damsels & Dragons
The Blue-fronted Dancer (Argia apicalis). One and half inches long, found along the Bronx River and further away on woodland paths. I’m getting better at distinguished these wee things, which means getting closer with lens of varying sorts. This is a male. Species IDs include the black hair-line markings on the thorax and the blue…
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And during the day?
What do fireflies do during the day? While looking at the various bees working these milkweeds, I noticed three of these lightning-bug beetles in the shade of the leaves.
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Brooklyn’s Two-Spotted Continue
Two years ago, I stumbled upon some unfamiliar ladybugs. There were Two-spotted (Adalia bipunctata), which turned out to be rather rare. It was the first Brooklyn report for the species. Last summer, the site was inaccessible to civilians because of construction. This weekend I took a look at the trees, as I usually do. They…
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TX Insects
Walking Stick on Peter’s bins. Texas has at least 16 species. Leaf-cutter ant (Atta texana) highway. The ants are returning to their sprawling underground colonies with leaf fragments, which, farmer-like, they feed to the fungus they actually eat.Thornbush Dasher (Micrathyria hagenii).Band-winged Dragonlet (Erythrodiplax umbrata).Antlion. This is the adult stage.We saw many antlion traps, where buried…
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National Butterfly Center
Southern Texas is home to the greatest diversity of butterflies in the U.S., and the National Butterfly Center, in Mission, is in the thick of the action down there. November is the time to visit, but we didn’t do too badly. As a bonus, we flushed a pair of Bobwhite. It was evidently emperor butterfly…
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As spring follows winter
From this past September, a flashback to Adalia bipunctata.As I was trying to photograph another, this one found its way onto my arm. It readily adopted to my fingers for some photos.
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Silent Nests
Revealed by the thinning of the leaves, two more Bald-faced Hornet (Dolichovespula maculata) nests:Note the differences in the color pattern of the wood-pulp paper between the above nest and the one below. I have some paper that is predominately reddish, but the one above is the usual pattern I see here in Brooklyn. The all-gray…
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Shadow Darner
As November nears, the dragonflies are starting to be very scant above the ground. On Saturday, I saw a single Common Green Darner in Green-Wood. Yesterday, I saw this Shadow Darner (Aeshna umbrosa) at Little Stony Point up in Cold Spring. A new species for me, IDed with help from the Northeast Odonata FB crew.…
Backyard and Beyond 