For the Adults

On June 5, I was on my deck, grilling on my Weber gas grill, and heard some buzzing.  I looked down, and this is what I saw.  Yes, I'm a little tardy with this post.  Does anyone recognize what species these creatures might be (i'm not even sure if they are bees or bee mimics), and what exactly we're seeing here?  I mean, I know what's happening, but I'd like to know the names of the parts and how everything works.... Help!

...edited:  Maybe this photo will help with an ID?  They sure look like flies that look like bees...

-Tom

Assassin Bug with Red Eyes and Sticky Leg Hairs

 Possible Zelus species.

One of my major projects over the past two years has been to document in photos the insects that frequent our suburban yard here in Worthington.  I've let weeds grow up in a few places until my native plantings get established, and these small but wild grassy areas harbor a surprising amount of biodiversity.  Here is another member of the assassin bug family (Reduviidae), which also includes the infamous wheel bug.  I'm not exactly sure which species this red-eyed bug belongs to, but I think it could be a member of the genus Zelus.

What makes this genus interesting is that its members use a technique to catch prey which is downright plant-like. Do you see those tiny hairs on its long legs?  Supposedly, they are able to smear those hairs across a gland on their leg that produces a sticky resin.  If you've got long sticky legs, then all you need to do is hold them out in front of you and just wait to the prey comes to you. It's not dissimilar to how carnivorous sundew plants capture their prey. I didn't know this little tidbit of natural history information when I took this shot in the field-  I simply thought its outstretched arms made for an interesting photograph, but know I know the rest of the story.

Many of the members of the assassin bug family can inflict a painful bite with their long, piercing mouth-part. If one ever lands on you, the writers at Bug Guide recommend flicking away the creature, as squashing it will most likely cause it to bite you.  And I might be especially weary of members of the genus Zelus-  They are named after the minor Greek deity Zelos, who stood for the personification of zeal, rivalry and anger!  

Tom

Really Tiny Creatures that Live in our Basement

Let me make this clear-  they live in a blue tub, complete with tight fitting lid, in our basement.  My friend Butch gave me one of his surplus composting worm farms a while back- with one condition.  That I photograph the tiny little bugs that help out the red wiggler worms do their job.  Here you go Butch.  But what are they?  My guess is that there are springtails, an ancient group of hexapod organisms whose classification is murky at best.  If you consider them insects, which most experts don't, they'd be in the order Collembola.  It just gets more confusing from there.  There is a very different looking group of springtails called the globular springtails, which I photographed in our vegetable garden last year-  they're much chubbier and round.

It pays to look at the details in nature- nothing is too small or insignificant to closely examine.  You'll be amazed at what you find.

Does the substrate that their living on look familiar?  It's cardboard!

Tom

Crab Spider, Fleabane

Continuing with the best of the backyard bugs from 2009, here is a shot captured on August 24. Any thoughts re: the name of this creature are greatly appreciated.

Tom

Tom's Bugs

This image first appeared in a post entitled "We can Never Escape Nature"

Central Ohio finally got hit with a snow event last Friday and Saturday, and it looks like we'll be in for another tonight, tomorrow and Wednesday. I'm in my mid-winter doldrums, and I need something to drive my writings here. What better way to do that than to write about a project that I began last "bug season". And if the name wasn't already taken, I might call it the backyard arthropod project. How about Tom's Bugs? I photographed as many arthropods in our yard as possible- and slowly I've been uploading them to bugguide.net for help with identification. What I learned from this ongoing project is that there are tons of really cool things right in my own yard, things that not even experts can identify with decent photographs.

So let's start with the creature pictured at top. You may remember these images from last summer. What an interesting little creature? I really had no idea what it was. I thought this would be a tough one for the folks at Bug Guide. And although there was a little discussion about which species this creature was, the identity was flushed out quickly and resolutely.

What the heck is this thing? It's one of the globular springtails, species Bourletiella hortensis, and it even has a common name, the garden springtail. What a great common name, as I photographed these tiny tiny creatures on the wooden edges of my raised vegetable garden. Isn't this a fascinating creature? Apparently, springtails are no longer considered insects, but I'm not exactly sure where they fall in line with other arthropods, and it seems as if there are quite a few theories out there, but no real consensus. Look for more new creatures to come soon, I found a myriad of creatures in our yard this summer.

Bourletiella hortensis, the garden springtail. The board is around 3/4" wide for scale, the thing much larger then them is a chunk of soil.

Tom

Megan's Tick

If you blog, I'm sure there are times when you just can't come up with a decent title for your post. Often I write the whole post and then give it a title, and often, those titles are my best. But for this post, I new exactly what our title would be: Megan's Tick.

No, Megan hasn't developed some neurological disorder that makes her jittery and jump. But she did most definitely have a tick. Yes, Megan had a "tag-a-long" in the form of an ectoparasite commonly know as "a tick".

How exactly she got this tick is the question. We were at my parents' place last Sunday, and Megan and my Mom just back from shopping at the famous Aurora Farms complex. Their goal: find fall and winter clothes for Weston. But when they got back, Megan all of the sudden comes to me, dead serious, and says, "is this a tick on my neck"?

I look, just underneath her hair, and sure enough, is a tick, buried straight down into her flesh. Ouch. Well, it didn't hurt, and the tick didn't look engorged with blood, but it was still pretty gross. On my adventures throughout Ohio, I often get ticks on me, but very rarely do I find them embedded in my skin.

So how did Megan get this tick? Did it travel back with me from Shawnee from the previous Wednesday? Had it been living in my clothes, or worse, our sheets, for several days? Or did it travel back on me from Ottawa County, where I had been the day before? Or, did Megan, unlikely as it may be, pick it up from somewhere around our home in Worthington, or at the Aurora Farms complex?

We'll never know, but it sure was gross. Megan laid down on the white carpet of the well lit living room, I got out the tweezers, and I performed my first tick-ectomy. First we rubbed some Vaseline on the tick, hoping to suffocate it. A few gentle tugs with the tweezers, and it wouldn't budge. I was quite surprised how embedded it really was- it was if the tick and Megan's skin was a continuous entity- pull on the tick and her skin stretched from her neck. A few harder tugs, straight out, and with what seemed like a little pop, the tick relented.



Next question: Did it come out whole? I placed the tick on a paper towel and got out my macro lens: and the answer? I think, yes! A successful tick-ectomy.

Tom

Creatures of the Night

I know that you're probably sick of me writing about it, but since we move to our new house about a year ago, I've had to look harder for interesting photographic subjects close to home. But really, the subjects are endless. One of my favorite places to photograph biological diversity is the lamppost that sits in our front yard, and one of our lights in the backyard. Take a look at what I photographed this past Saturday evening, and this selection doesn't even include the moths. I don't know the names of these creatures, scientific or common, and I'm plenty OK with that. I would like to learn them in time- now I'm just trying to observe them and learn about them, without having the trouble of learning names. Once I really learn each creature, the name should be easy. That being said, I wouldn't mind input if you recognize one of these buggers.










Tom

Gypsy Moths at Highbanks Metro Park

Spring in late June???

A unsolicited, rather interesting comment appeared on my blog several weeks ago, completely unrelated to the post subject on Carex.

"Just thought you might know about Highbanks Metro Park. I was walking there today and noticed that a few acres near the top paths across from the nature center seem to have lost all of their leaves. Have you seen this and do you know what is going on there? All the trees are bald in that section of the trail."

My reply: "Maybe Gypsy Moths?"

Well, surely, an outbreak of the non-native gypsy moths, have defoliated at least ten, if not closer to forty, acres of oak dominated forest southwest of the nature center.
On Saturday, June 27, Megan, Weston and I went to hike at Highbanks, and I wasn't quite ready for what we experienced. Megan perhaps described it best, as "a fairy land". We were walking through dark, shaded forest, slowly coming upon the defoliated tree area. We were greeted with not only bright sun and mostly naked trees, but also thousands of fluttering male gypsy moths. They weren't shy either, and had no problem landing on me as I photographed them.

A male gypsy moth

Female gypsy moths, flightless, with eggs

The ultimately gross pupae cases of the moths. Notice the silk- they were originally imported to Massachusetts for their silk producing abilities, escaped, and the rest is history.

A few ash trees were spared- the maples and oaks were not.

The park now has excellent signage that tells the whole story. Regular runners and hikers at the park seem unfazed by the creepiness that is a gypsy moth infestation. Next year, the park will be using GypCheck to limit damage. GypCheck is actually made from dead gypsy moths, and is currently the most environmentally friendly control method available.

Tom

Adams County Teems with Life

Isn't this butterfly weed, covered with eleven (can you count more?) great spangled fritillaries, spectacular? We had a great time botanzing and naturalizing on last Friday's trip to Adams County, which one of Ohio's southernmost counties on the Ohio River. No names today, please just enjoy the photos of these plants and animals. Thanks to the Ohio Heritage Naturalists for a great trip.









Tom

Janet and the Jumping Spider

Janet is brave. As she says in this video, "I love spiders". Visit Midwestern Native Plants for more of her adventures. This little guy, or big guy, is from Cave Lake YMCA camp, which graciously hosted our Ohio Heritage Naturalist group this past saturday. I've seen and photographed this type of spider before, but I never knew that you could hold them. They have green eyes- you might just be able to get a glimpse of them when I zoom in a bit. As far as the movie goes, I made it on the old Mac G4 that DrJaymez hooked me up with. iMovie is quite fun. Any other nature bloggers using Macs?

Tom

Featured comment from Janet herself:

"Oops, I forgot to tell you. That is the Bold jumping Spider, Phidippus audax. The chelicerae are what is green, instead of the eyes. It can be distinguished from the Regal Jumping Spider, Phidippus regius by the flat black spots on its abdomen around the three white one. It is hard to see unless in the right light, but it showed up in my pics."

Harry, No! Don't look at the Light!

"I can't help, it is so beautiful" (ZAP) -From the movie "A Bug's Life"

After Megan and I moved to the middle of the suburbs, away from our house near the Olentangy River and acres of Olentangy park land, I believe that I went through biotic withdrawal. The challenge at our new house has been to discover new habitats and the animals and dwell in them. I have learned that our lamp post is a magnet for an array of night flying insects.









Aren't these creatures interesting? We all know that nocturnal moths and insects flock to lights at night, but why? After some cursory research, I've concluded that nobody really knows. The most popular theory is that moths navigate using the moon, and therefore are instinctually attracted to light. Others don't buy this theory. I'm just glad that they do, as they provide an interesting naturalizing experience without leaving my sidewalk.

Oh yeah, clicking on each image will reveal a larger, 600 pixel wide image.

For more animal shots, check out the Camera Critters Meme.

Tom