lightsinthedistance-modernlife

Millipede - Abacion sp. I've been doing some research lately on a few millipede genera and have found myself lamenting the lack of well-written and accessible resources for millipedes. I have a good enough knowledge base to navigate through the published literature, but it's too inaccessible for general audiences. BugGuide's millipede page is probably the best online resource, but it still lacks good introductory resources for people wanting to learn more about the many-legged critters. You're able to submit a picture, and if you're lucky, someone will help you get it down to genus and maybe tell you how they identified it. Concise keys for the millipedes don't really exist like they do for other arthropods, due to the characteristics used to identify millipedes. It's not like identifying a moth or a beetle, where coloration, pattern, and overall look can go a long way. You can get to Order from a photograph relatively easily with millipedes, ...

I set out on a hike today in search of anything neat I missed during yesterday's hike, which I started too late to take full advantage of the daylight. I made it through the entire trail today, and had quite the detour along the way. I stopped by a dead Sycamore tree to look for beetles, since I found a neat species of Osmoderma beetle in it last year, but no dice this time. I trudged on, arriving at a small area with some fallen trees, and decided to stay a while. I quickly noticed that there were wasps flying around EVERYWHERE. Thankfully, these were Ichneumonid wasps in the genus Megarhyssa , which are harmless to humans. A male Megarhyssa sp. wasp. There were dozens of males like the one above flying around and landing on the fallen tree I was examining. Some were larger with vaguely different markings, indicating that I had at least two different species around, which seems to be normal for the genus, I usually see groups of more than species. The males were gathered to find...

Assuming Spring was about to start when it was warm a few weeks ago was a miscalculation on my part. Between then and now, it got cold again, dumped a bunch of snow on Ohio, and now the weather is tantalizingly warm again. The question being, will it continue that trend? Hopefully it will. It hit the mid-60s today, and the temperature tonight has hovered around 50 degrees. Would any moths be out? I turned on the light to see. Bingo. A few moths were out, and my hopes for the bug season rose again. It's difficult to describe just how antsy I get after the absence of insects all throughout winter, so finding anything after months and months is exciting. This similar moth was also attracted to the light. I like how well its antennae show up in this photo, they're distinctly pectinate and large, meaning it's probably a male. Their larger antennae help them sense the female's pheromones so they can find each other for some hanky panky. And of course, an early-season mothing ...

Globalization strikes again! The main invasive pests I've been hearing about in Ohio over the past few years have been the Emerald Ash Borer ( Agrilus planipennis ) and Asian Longhorn Beetle ( Anoplophora glabripennis ), but I now have a new one to add to my list: the Hemlock Wooly Adelgid ( Adelges tsugae ). The Hemlock Wooly Adelgid (HWA) is a true bug in the order Hemiptera and is sort of like an aphid. Adelgids suck plant juices out of conifers, and HWA prefers hemlock trees, specially the eastern and Carolina hemlocks ( Tsuga canadensis and Tsuga caroliniana , respectively). This is a problem. HWA was introduced into the US from Asia in the 1920s, first in the Pacific Northwest, and then in Virginia in the 1950s. That was the start of its foothold in the east, and it spread to other states from there, including Pennsylvania and West Virginia. It didn't reach Ohio until 2001, and has spread into about 27 counties since then. Unfortunately, in 2012 it was detected in my home...

Both Saturday and Sunday were warm, reaching into the low 60s (degrees Fahrenheit), which caused some insects to burst forth from their winter hiding places, much to my delight.  The Crocus flowers burst forth too! I found a few beetles and bees during the day, but the night revealed a few more insects that were attracted to my porchlight. The above moth is probably a grass miner moth in the family Elachistidae. It's furry and kind of cute, though the white spots on its forewings sort of look angry if you look at the dark spots above them. No oatmeal here--this Gray Quaker, Orthosia alurina , is a moth I usually see in early Spring. This one arrived three days earlier than the individual I saw last year.   This wasp is only a day earlier than last year. It's in the family Ichneumonidae and is probably in the genus Ophion . The Ichneumons can be tricky and I need to double-check this identification. It's a very pretty wasp and is harmless to humans, instead being a parasit...

Do you know the insect species that inhabit your backyard? What about a local park or nature preserve? How about your county? These are important questions to think about. If no one knows the animal diversity in their area, then why would they stop to think about protecting that diversity?  Some of the most interesting animals are very specialized and need certain habitats to thrive; without those habitats, they'll disappear. I think we can all agree that nature is important, and having a knowledge of your local species (of insects, mammals, birds, plants, fungi...) is empowering. You can see ecological connections and gain a new-found respect for your fellow organisms, just from being able to identify species and know what's around you.  A Luna Moth ( Actias luna ) soon after emerging from the ground. Its wings aren't yet ready to fly--you can see how small they are. With this topic in mind, I've been working for the past few months on gathering together pictures and i...

Last year I found my first skunk cabbage ( Symplocarpus foetidus ) during an adventure I documented here . It's definitely one of my favorite plants, and its smell is not to be missed. Plus, the fact that it's one of the first flowers to bloom as spring approaches makes it a welcome sight after the dreariness of winter. After seeing it last year, I wondered when it would bloom again. This year's winter hasn't been as wonky as last year's was; we've had a few snowfalls and it has been colder, which is good. Of course, there are always some warm snaps, and two weeks ago one greeted us. I took advantage of it to see if the skunk cabbage was blooming yet, and it was definitely there.   Shy skunk cabbage  My foray was on January 19, a little more than a month before last year's adventure. The skunk cabbage wasn't in full bloom as it was back then, but perhaps in another week or two it will be. You can see in the above picture that the spathe is just starting ...

I've always had an interest in history and still enjoy it, though my main focus has shifted to natural history. Over the past few years I've discovered the richness of southeast Ohio's history. There's a rock etched with George Washington's initials in my hometown, mounds built by Native Americans are scattered throughout the area, and the first towns established in the Northwest Territory are in southeast Ohio--the first was Marietta in 1788. It was during this research that I came across a true Renaissance Man: Samuel Prescott Hildreth. He was a doctor that lived in Marietta during the 1800s, but he also dabbled in history, politics, geology, natural history, and more. I've previously written about Hildreth here after finding a notebook of insect notes he wrote (with illustrations), and it's his writings on natural history that interest me most. Hildreth's natural history research was particularly helpful to researchers of North America's periodic...

Happy New Year everyone! I'm ringing in 2013 by contracting a cold, so I have not been in much of a writing mood. I've tried to be a little productive, so I've been looking through my old photos to find ones I like and want to use at some point in the future. I found a photo I originally featured in this post about clover and took it into Adobe Lightroom to fix the color and a few other things. It's a Great Spangled Fritillary ( Speyeria cybele ), a beautiful butterfly that I see pretty often in Ohio. I saw this one outside of Sugar Grove, Ohio in June of 2010, soon after I became interested in macro photography of insects. The butterfly is centered in the photo, sure, but I'm still happy with it. It looks less "hazy" than the original, which is what I was trying to do with it. I'm a bit annoyed at the piece of plant covering the clover flower on the left, but it gives the photo a "natural" look I suppose. I'm thinking of putting this ph...

Yesterday was a nice day outside, and I figured it would probably be one of the last before the snow started falling. I decided to take advantage of this, and set off to find some mushrooms. (Also, it was snowing when I woke up this morning, so I was correct in my assumption. Maybe I should take up weather forecasting.) I packed some collecting supplies and set off for the nature trail near my old elementary school. It has a nice array of habitat types and gratuitous amounts of decaying logs, so I was optimistic that I would find some nice mushrooms. However, almost immediately after I stepped onto the trail, my trip turned into millipede hunting. It's just too difficult to resist turning over every decaying log I find in hopes of getting some millipedes out of it. My habit ended up paying off: I found many millipedes and collected 7 specimens from 4 separate species. It's astounding how many little critters live in decaying wood and the surrounding leaf litter. It's a mini...