lightsinthedistance-modernlife

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 ...

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...

The Japanese knotweed ( Fallopia japonica ) in my backyard has been a constant bane of my existence ever since it started to creep in a few years ago, but today it yielded some nice results. When it flowers during the summer, it brings in a lot of pretty bees and wasps, and today I found a wasp-mimic beetle. The venerable locust borer, Megacyllene robiniae , was busily sticking its head into the knotweed flowers until I disturbed it. I took a few photos, then lifted my camera and realized the beetle was gone. Luckily, I was able to snap this photo of it folding out its wings to escape the paparazzi. The locust borer is a longhorned beetle in the family Cerambycidae and develops as a larva inside of black locust ( Robinia pseudoacacia ), from which it emerges as an adult in the fall. It then nectars on flowers such as goldenrod and searches for a mate. This species takes its Batesian mimicry to the max--even the top of its abdomen, normally covered by its elytra--has the yellow markings...

When I first started to become interested in insects two summers ago, I had a lot of inspiration thanks to the Catalpa trees in my backyard. I've always loved Catalpas: their flowers bloom starting in June and are spectacularly beautiful. They also smell really great. One of the insects that can be found on Catalpa is the Catalpa Hornworm ( Ceratomia catalpae ). This caterpillar in the family Sphingidae can grow quite large (~3 inches) and goes through boom and bust cycles. During the summer of 2010, it was definitely a boom year for this caterpillar, which provided me with ample specimens. There are also ample caterpillars for parasitoids to have a field day. Braconid wasps are especially prevalent, resulting in many of the caterpillars dying as they become vessels for broods of wasps. Here you can see a Braconid wasp crawling on the cocoons. This was a common sight, so I got used to seeing it after a few days. But once I found one that looked dramatically different (even from the...

I was going through some of my photos from this past summer (preparing to organize and identify them), when I came across a picture of a tree with some very interesting bark. I had a vague feeling of recognition when I took this picture, but I couldn't quite pin it down. After being a teaching assistant for a botany class this semester, however, I remembered what it was the second time around: American hackberry ( Celtis occidentalis ) . What's the easiest way to remember this tree? Definitely the bark: it's gnarled and warty, with furrows. As the tree gets older, it gets more warty and just a tad bit smoother. It hasn't reached this stage yet, so I would call this tree a teenager.  The leaves are serrate (they have little teeth on the edges), and are alternatively arranged on the stem. American hackberry is found in the West and Midwest, and is relatively common in Ohio. When its leaves fall off in the autumn, you can sometimes find galls on the leaves caused by a Psy...

I've now been back in the United States for three days now, and each day I have made time to go out looking for insects. I've missed the familiar plants and temperate weather, and on top of that, I've had a lot of success, especially today. So far I've confined myself to my backyard, but that hasn't limited what I've found. I pulled off some dead bark from some staghorn sumac, and found some ants which had set up residence inside the plant. They quickly grabbed the ant larvae and ferried them away from view, and ran around feverishly trying to figure out what had happened. I was hoping for some beetle grubs, but this was fine too. I also found a firefly crawling around in the grass. It's still a bit chilly for most of the fireflies to be out, but I've seen a few. Hopefully it will only be a few weeks until they're out in abundance and flashing. Speaking of fireflies, if you haven't yet, check out Firefly Watch , a project to look at firefly abund...

While using StumbleUpon yesterday, I came across a gardening website that was discussing Red clover ( Trifolium pratense ), a plant native to Europe that has become naturalized in the United States. While reading a little bit about it, I realized that I had never actually associated the small pink flowers with the actual clover itself.  Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Red_clover_closeup.jpg Now, this realization was embarrassing, because I should have made the obvious connection and paid attention to my surroundings. But it was also eye opening that I have been surrounded by clover and these pink flowers all my life, but had never before thought about any connection between the two. Clover has been ubiquitous in my yard, and essentially any other place I've gone in my life, so it's not like this was just a small anomaly.  Red clover itself is pretty interesting. It's part of the legume family, Fabaceae , which includes soybeans, peas, and peanuts. One of the mos...