13 August 2023

The birds are quiet now but the bugs are busy.

After I photographed this butterfly weed (Asclepias tuberosa) I zoomed in to look at the yellow spec on the back edge of the flower cluster and found a tiny yellow crab spider clinging to the flowers. My guess is that he’s a member of the Thomisidae family, lying in wait for something. But what?

On Monday, while walking the Three Rivers Heritage Trail River opposite Herrs Island, I noticed a caterpillar on the wide aluminum railing. It reminded me of the hickory tussock moth except that this one was blonde.

iNaturalist identified it as a sycamore tussock moth (Halysidota harrisii). The railing was directly beneath his host plant, a sycamore tree (Platanus occidentalis).

The caterpillar walked rapidly down the railing in a straight line until Whoa! a spotted lanternfly red nymph walked rapidly toward him. The caterpillar made a detour.

At Frick Park on 6 August we found a lot of millipedes on the paved Nine Mile Run Trail. iNaturalist says they are greenhouse millipedes (Oxidus gracilis), thought to be native to Japan but introduced around the world. They get their name from being a pest in greenhouses.

And finally I was fooled yesterday by these mating orange and black bugs, as fooled as they intended me to be. They looked like milkweed bugs, but why were they on a false sunflower?

I should have known! These are false milkweed bugs (Lygaeus turcicus) who masquerade as a poisonous species and whose host plant is the false sunflower. Read more about them and the bugs they imitate here.

(photos by Kate St. John)