invertebrates
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Wasps II
These are roughly in size order:Great Black Wasp. These pictures do not convey the sheer giganticness of this species. They are big and fast, really moving between flowers. They hunt katydids, crickets, and grasshoppers for their young.The Great Golden Digger Wasp. Crickets, katydids, grasshoppers, beware.European Paper Wasp. Know them by their red/orange antenna. I’ve seen…
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Wasp Ascendency
Cicada-killer, whose name speaks for itself. A husky wasp that provisions its young with paralyzed cicadas, so really it’s the larva who kill the cicadas…Unknown. Possibly one of the Grass-carrying wasps of the genus Isodontia.Another Isodontia, possibly. Members of this genus use grass in the construction of their nests and prey on crickets and other…
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Butterfly Madness Continued
Red-banded Hairstreak. This generally has a more southeastern range from the Carolinas down. They obviously can get further north, and presumably, as our temperature gets more southern, we’ll see them more often. Pearl Crescent. Another specimen with very frazzled wings.Common Sootywing.Eastern Tailed-blue.A rather more worn Eastern Tailed-blue. Female, I think. Small, rapid fliers, flashing blue…
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Butterfly Madness
Eastern Tiger Swallowtail. The hugeness of these is really telling when they’re at eye-level. Wingspan can reach 4.5″.Monarch.Black Swallowtails.Sulphurs courting.American Lady. Oops! This is a Painted Lady. I’m so used to seeing American Ladies, I didn’t even look closely at this photo. Thanks to Ken for pointing out the mis-identification.Common Buckeye pair.Red Admiral, very beat…
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RSP
Red-spotted Purple. Limenitis arthemis “in part” because the White Admiral of further north is considered the same species. They intergrade in-between ranges, and perhaps the ones seen locally are a little mixed? The formal binomial for the RSP is Limenitis arthemis astyanax (Fabricius)*.This beauty is rarely seen here. Its larval stage caterpillar is a bird-poop…
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Fireflies!
Fireflies retreat during the day, tucking themselves out of the way. The common Photinus seems to prefer the underside of leaves. Not sure which species this is, but it’s a tree-hugger. There were fourteen of them on this part of an old oak’s trunk. Fireflies are another family of insects that are in decline. The…
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Cicada Weather
These Neotibicen annual cicadas are more often heard than seen. When I do come across them, they’re usually dead. While their exoskeleton exuviae can be found gripping tree trunks under ten feet from the ground, the adults are usually way up in the tree, hidden by all that foliage. (You’d hide too, if giant wasps…
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The Bee’s Tongue
Never mind the knees, how about those tongues? Check out the tongue between the down-turned antennae. (Those antennae, by the way, are hugely important sensory organs: they can touch, taste, and smell.) There are short-tongued and long-tongued bee species.This leaf-cutter bee seems to be tasting this stem.This one explored numerous leaf edges. The tip of…
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Another Snout
This makes four American Snouts, Libytheana carinenta, I’ve seen so far this year in Brooklyn. That’s four times as many as I’ve ever seen. This one, unfortunately, was dead on the sidewalk.
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The Membrane-Winged
An Eastern Carpenter Bee working the milkweed.This is one of our biggest bees, so note the tiny little critter to its right in both pictures above. Didn’t see this one while photographing. Not sure if its a bee or wasp. One of the leaf-cutter bees stuck to a Drosera filiformis, thread-leaved sundew. This carnivorous plant…
Backyard and Beyond 