Twenty-Spotted Lady Beetle: BBP Species #5

I photographed this beetle larva on August 9 on the undersides of the leaves of my double flowered green-headed coneflower.  I thought it was a long shot to identify, but thank you to bugguide.net and James Bailey who confirmed that this is the larva of the twenty-spotted lady beetle, Psyllobora vigintimaculata.  The adults are brownish and white, quite different when compared to the typical red and black of the more familiar species. This photo is a particularly nice image of an adult.  Now I need to find one and photograph one- I would imagine this larva, if it survived, would be an adult now.

-Tom

Polished Lady Beetle: BBP Species #4

The polished lady beetle (Cycloneda munda) is quite the stunning little beetle, despite its lack of spots.  The milkweed that I've planted attracts many aphids, and the aphids in turn attract lady beetles.  For us native plant gardeners, we get excited when we find bugs sipping the juices of our plants.  That's the whole reason we planted them on!  Bugs feed bugs, and those bugs feed birds and many other backyard wildlife species.  The genus Cycloneda contains three species in North America, all without spots. Munda is the one species likely to be encountered in Ohio; the other two either live south or west of the buckeye state.

-Tom

Spotted Cucumber Beetle: BBP Species #3

Let me start off by saying I love insects, but I don't really know much about them.  Part of the reason I'm doing this backyard biodiversity project is to learn more.  The interest in insects started because I kept seeing all kinds of creatures living on the plants that I studied, both in the field and at home.

This is a species that it quite common, and it is quite a hated pest.  Known to harm members of the squash family, I actually found several climbing on the petals of my double-flowered green-headed coneflower (Rudbeckia laciniata). They can also exhibit a green color, particularly on the thorax, but this one was primarily yellow.  Its scientific name is Diabrotica undecimpunctata,  the epithet roughly translating to "eleven spots".  The "V" shaped spot counts as one spot, apparently, but doesn't it look like it's split down the middle?  Who am I to argue!

I've been seeing this one for years nearly everywhere I go in Ohio, and now I finally know a little bit more about this relatively common inhabitant of our backyard.  To learn all about them, spending some time reading this page by the University of Florida.  They can damage crop plants in many different ways.  As far as I could tell, this is a native species.

As always, please feel free to add your experiences and knowledge about each creature I feature in the BPP series.  Thanks!

-Tom

Swamp Milkweed Leaf Beetle: BBP Species #1

Ah, were you expecting a orange and black beetle?  While I have seen the adult of this species a few times in our backyard, last night was the first time I saw its larva.  As you can see, this slimy looking creature was actively eating the margin of a common milkweed leaf.  I knew it must be one of the few insects that specializes on milkweed.  My first guess that it might be the larva of a milkweed beetle, but after doing a little research, I believe this is the larvae of the swamp milkweed leaf beetle, Labidoderma clivicollis.  It looks quite different from the adult!  Looking at it in this photo, I really should have touched the beetle- it appears to be wet- is the shiny body sticky?  Slippery?  Hard?  Gooey? I try not to disturb the animals I photograph, but in this case, I wish I would have explored more.

While I've photographed countless numbers of species in our backyard, now that I have started the backyard biodiversity project (let's use BBP for short), I'm going to reset and start from zero.  This is backyard biodiversity project species #1.

-Tom

Brody is my Bug Kid

Look what we found yesterday- all by rock flipping and looking closely at our natural garden areas, right here in Worthington Ohio, within the Metro-Columbus area outerbelt.

He has no problem holding things.  Not at all.

-Tom

The Bugs of Crawford County

A wonderful time photographing The Bridges of Madison County yesterday. Oh wait, I mean the Bugs of Crawford County. Woops.


First, the beetles:



This yellow and black one may be a bug, on second look? What do you think?

Sorry for scaring the crap out of you, little lady beetle.

The Bugs:

The Damsels:
I'll give you ten points if you can name any one of these species.




And finally, this gigantic fishing spider. It wasn't eating the slug, but we did watch it eat several smaller spiders that dared to walk near it. Lightning fast, what an amazing creature.


Again, we had a great time yesterday doing a bioblitz for Crawford County along the upper portions of the Sandusky River. This river is a hidden gem of northern central Ohio.

Tom