It’s that time of year again. It’s been so hot and so dry for so long, and we’re tired of it – especially when the dryness hasn’t seemed to keep the gnats and flies and mosquitos away. Soon, cool temps and a lack of vegetation for food will put most of our insects to rest for the winter. But before it does, let’s take a minute to celebrate the diversity, creativity, and tenacity of our little bug friends!
One of our personal favorites – the Appalachian Azure, with its complicated, possibly symbiotic relationship with ants. Go read our previous blog post to learn all about this interesting partnership!
Next, our heavily-armed wavy-lined prominent. This cool cat has imposing but non-stinging antler-like projections behind its head for its first few instars.
Not one of our personal favorites: brown-marmorated stink bugs.
We’ve recorded zebra, giant, tiger, spicebush, black, and pipevine swallowtails on the preserve, often nectaring on pollinator favorite buttonbush, like this tiger.
This southern oak dagger moth was pale yellow and green for most of its caterpillar stage, but just before pupating turned this orangey-rust color.
We don’t ONLY care about caterpillars; this buffalo treehopper nymph was pretty darn cool to see on black cohosh too.
This gold moth caterpillar is a little different than most caterpillars – it eats SEEDS, not leaves!
We don’t find too many blue (okay, blue-ish) caterpillars around here, but this white-dotted prominent had a noticeable aqua hue, and we’re not complaining about it.
Speaking of blue, check out that tail! Not actually a tail but referred to as a middorsal horn, this cute feature distinguishes sphinx moths like this fawn sphinx from all other caterpillars. While their vision as caterpillars isn’t particularly great (actually quite rudimentary), as adult moths, the sphinx family boasts the best color vision of any animal!
Not a moth, but something known as a fishfly – specifically, a banded dark fishfly.
Turbulent phosphilas are gregarious feeders, meaning they stick together in groups such as this.
This year, we were able to witness all three stages of life for the harvester butterfly: carnivorous caterpillar, chrysalis, and adult. Go read our blog post spotlighting them to learn more about the caterpillar’s meat-loving nature…
Dogwood calligrapha beetle on – you guessed it, (silky) dogwood.
Our catalpa sphinx worms were a little late this year; the irruption didn’t happen till late September/early October! The last few are currently racing to finish eating before their host plant’s leaves drop.
Also toward the end of the season, we found this spicebush swallowtail just before it began pupating. Notice the single-ply hammock it made to adjust itself to the desired angle! Fully formed chrysalis below.
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Some of our favorite critters to witness and care for this summer were our cecropia moth caterpillars. They started completely black and impossibly small (the first instar depicted in the upper right corner still has its egg stuck to it!), but after a few months of nothing but eating, they grew to about the size of your thumb. Now, they’re cozied up in their silk cocoons, where they’ll stay till next spring when they emerge as adults like their parents, seen below.
Adult male cecropia moth.
Another giant silk moth we encountered this year – the polyphemus moth.
One of our more uniquely designed cats, the red-washed prominent, is sometimes dubbed the rhinoceros caterpillar.
This critter suffered a fatal cordyceps fungal infection. This fungus often causes the afflicted insect to climb somewhere high, so that when the fungus is ready to release its spores, they have a launch point where they can drift far and wide, carried by the wind.
While you can’t see the insects in this image as is, there is insect activity happening here. This fuzzy structure is a wool sower gall, made by the wool sower wasp. The gall itself is plant growth stemming from the original plant – in this case, a white oak – that is spurred when in contact with the secretions of wasp larvae. The tiny 1/8in adult female wasp laid multiple eggs in the tissue of the stem, and the larvae develop inside the gall, which serves as both shelter and food.
Again, no insects can be seen here, but there is certainly evidence that they were here. Leaf-cutter bees are our mystery culprits because only they are capable of causing leaf damage with this appearance, where it seems as if someone took a circular cookie cutter to the edges on these leaves. Why do they do it? The leaf cuttings are taken back to the individual bee’s nests where they will use them to build a nursey chamber for their eggs.
Looking very much like caterpillars, sawfly larvae (in this instance, dogwood sawfly) are wasp larvae, and bear 8 pairs of prolegs, double that of most caterpillars.
Not all butterflies nectar on flowers; some, like this red-spotted purple, can often be found feeding on animal droppings, sap, decaying animal flesh, and even in mud puddles! By licking the tip of your finger and slowly positioning it under a butterfly, you can sometimes coax them onto your hand. Similarly, on hot days, you may find they land on you, but try not to be too flattered – they’re after the minerals in your sweat.
This Eastern comma cat was found on the underside of a half-folded leaf shelter it’d made using silk. There, it feeds in relatively safety. The spines covering its body may also serve to deter predators such as birds.
Another cat with stinging spines – the IO (pronounced eye-oh). This species is a member of the giant silk moth group, which lack functioning mouthparts as adults and thus cannot feed. They simply live off of fat stores and try to mate before perishing after roughly one week.
We’d be crazy not to talk about some of the slug moths we found this year. This monkey slug might just be our favorite!
Most slug moths, like this saddleback and the monkey slug above, have stinging spines or urticating hairs that have the potential to cause serious skin irritation, and they’ve got them for a reason.
What makes a slug moth a slug moth is the modification of their prolegs into a slimy belly pad on which they glide. This makes them slower and less able to run from danger, so they developed their spiny defenses to counter their lack of speed. (Above: crowned slug).
However, not all have this defense. The skiff moth above is completely smooth.
This aptly named spiny oak slug might be the perfect representation of its family.
Other caterpillars besides slug moths are capable of irritating skin too, like this white flannel moth with is long, sparse hairs.
Some caterpillars opt to use camouflage as their main defense; this looper sp. was doing its best to resemble a leaf stem.
Button slugs also use camouflage, attempting to resemble a blotch on this beech leaf.
And they’ve got to do everything they can to try to make it to adulthood because the odds are not in their favor. As few as 1% will become adult moths, with most succumbing to parasitic wasps, or flies, disease, fungus, or the beak of a hungry bird. This yellow-shouldered slug was approaching pupation, and we hope it made it.
This checkered-fringe prominent caterpillar has tachnid fly maggots exiting its now essentially hollow carcass, having been eaten from the inside out.
This saddleback’s stinging spines didn’t protect it from the ichneumon wasp that laid her eggs on top of it. The wasp larvae have finished growing here and have spun their cocoons atop the caterpillar to finish developing.
We brought this smaller parasa slug moth inside to finish rearing, and are happy to report it successfully cocooned! See below.
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We also raised a handful of spiny oak moths that have successfully begun pupating as well. We look forward to seeing them eclose next spring.
As they grow, eating with all their might with the goal of pupating and becoming proper adults to mate and lay the next generation, caterpillars’ skin does not grow with them, so they must shed it, just like a snake. After shedding, they eat their old skin, something snakes most definitely do not do.
Most of the caterpillars in their ~growth era~ have been found in woodlands or sunny prairie areas, but this Henry’s marsh moth caterpillar, and several of its siblings, were found feeding on cattails along our wetland boardwalk.
On feeding habits, oaks are a super host for caterpillars – over 500 species of butterfly and moth larvae, including this white-spotted tussock moth, feed on members of the oak family!
One species that doesn’t eat oak – or anything besides milkweed – is the famed monarch. This butterfly’s caterpillars are only capable of eating members of the milkweed family, so the adult female will set them up for success as best she can by laying a single egg on a milkweed leaf after taste-testing the leaf (with chemoreceptors on her feet!).
Above, you can see a monarch egg recently laid, close to hatching, the first instar caterpillar just after hatching, and finally, the first instar caterpillar dining on its very first meal – its own eggshell.
We’ll finish our bug speed run talking about the autumn meadowhawk. After all, our pond, Lake Odonata, is named after the scientific name for the dragonfly and damselfly order. We appreciate our dragonflies at the preserve – they’re a huge predator for irritating insects like mosquitos and gnats!
Well, that about sums up our bug blog report! Our efforts saw 12 new moth species added to our preserve list, and we’ve loved sharing our finds with our visitors. We look forward to next spring, when it will start all over again.
