invertebrates
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Katydids
Now the nights are ticking with katydids. We have several species in the city: check out the results of the 2009 Cricket Crawl, which listened for crickets and katydids (along with grasshoppers, these insects are all in the Orthoptera order). The clicks, tzips, and “ka-ty-did she did she didn’t” of the night will last into…
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Grapevine Beetle
I found this Grapevine Beetle (Pelidnota punctata) dead on a tree stump, being scouted out by a fly. It’s about an inch long; three spots on each elytron, two on the pronotum like false eyes (these are sometimes absent). The species likes parks, gardens, and woodlands, and are so named because they feed on grapevines,…
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Earth Space
I know there’s plenty of gnashing of teeth over the end of the space shuttle program, a sort of a low-earth-orbit FedEx, but I invite the star-crossed to look around them down here with more attention. There’s so much yet to be discovered here on Earth. For instance, I was going through some photos, and…
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Jamaica Bay Update
Great Blue Heron (Ardea herodias) and Mute Swan (Cygnus olor) on the East Pond at Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge.Through the blind at Big John’s Pond: Black-Crowned Night Heron (Nycticorax nycticorax, a juvenile), Glosy Ibis (Plegadis falcinellus), and Green Heron (Butorides virescens). Three Wood Ducks (Aix sponsa) were in there as well, but not visible here.…
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Return of the Prodigal?
A Black-and-Yellow Mud Dauber, Sceliphron caementarium, in the Back 40 today while I was watering parched plants. It was checking out the moist concrete, perhaps looking for a drink or some mud. I’ve noticed these wasps since the local nest started erupting last month, but they are very brief visitors. They probably don’t go far,…
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Island Bugs
Ah, summer, season of buzzing and flying and biting! The insects are out in force. OK, there’s really not that much biting, per se. Seen last week on Nantucket: One of the green metallic bees, genus Agapostemon, also known as sweat bees, on chicory flower. Note the big bundles of pollen around the legs. A…
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City Habitat
Now that the dog-day cicadas have started to emerge from their years underground, their enemy, the cicada wasps, emerge as well. And since our street trees have roots, which is what the cicadas live on while during their nymph stage, so too do our streets have these wasps.Yesterday, walking in Brooklyn Heights, I found a…
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Cicadas Emerging
I was away from the city for a week, so the cicada I heard on Henry Street this morning was my first of the year. It’s the quintessential sound of summer. Previous cicada-themed posts: Part I, Part II, and Part III.
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Back 40 Grasshopper
Less than half an inch long, this little grasshopper leapt out of the Back 40 greenery when I started to water and clung to the plastic (yeech!) fence.
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Ladybugs
NSFW? Variegated ladybugs, Hippodamia variegata, making more beetles. Photo taken on Bond Street by the Gowanus Canal. Quite a bit of action, so to speak, on these leaves. Note the eggs below, the aphid (?) on the left, and the remains of something by the female beetle’s front right.
Backyard and Beyond 