The Glorious Scarab Beetle (Chrysina gloriosa) pictured at top was hiding underground when gardening unearthed it in its native US range of Arizona, New Mexico, Texas.
Hidden gems include Beyer’s scarab which I saw in southeastern Arizona in 2015, described in this vintage article: Like a Jewel.
Beyer’s Scarab Beetle (Chrysina beyeri) at Carr Canyon, Arizona, 30 July 2015 (photo by Kate St. John)
In the eastern US we have beautiful scarab beetles in our own backyards.
7-point buck in Schenley Park, 28 Aug 2022 (photo by Connie Gallagher)
29 August 2022
A year ago in Schenley Park we had such a slow birding day that I wrote, “We worked for every bird.” A year later, nine of us were there yesterday and the birding was even slower! (14 species instead of 19.) However we found lots of insects and two white-tailed bucks in velvet. Here’s the story in pictures, thanks to Connie Gallagher.
Connie saw the very Best Bird, a blue-gray gnatcatcher.
Blue-gray gnatcatcher, Schenley Park, 28 August 2022 (photo by Connie Gallagher)
We pondered the identity of these wasps and then remembered, all at once, that they are bald-faced hornets (Dolichovespula maculata), a type of yellowjacket wasp.
Bald-faced hornets at their paper nest in a pignut hickory, Schenley Park, 28 Aug 2022 (photo by Connie Gallagher)
There was still dew on the wild senna as this bumblebee gathered nectar.
Bumblebee on wild senna, Schenley Park, 28 Aug 2022 (photo by Connie Gallagher)
The browseline is so severe in Schenley Park that there’s no cover for the deer who sleep there during the day. Looking down from the Falloon Trail we saw two bucks, a 7-point buck (at top) and a 10-point below.
10-point buck in Schenley Park, 28 Aug 2022 (photo by Connie Gallagher)
Fortunately some of us heard these birds flying overhead. I can tell their identity by shape and the yellow tips of their tails. Cedar waxwings.
Cedar waxwings fly over, Schenley Park, 28 Aug 2022 (photo by Connie Gallagher)
Here’s the group that worked for every bird on Sunday. Thank you all for coming!
Schenley Park outing, 28 August 2022 (photo by Kate St. John)
Since moving to the 6th floor of a high-rise two years ago we have had no indoor bugs at all. Then, about a week ago, two extremely small bugs with waists and knobbed antennae showed up on the kitchen floor, standing there just outside the bottom of the stove.
They are not interested in water or sweets but only rarely attracted to a very tiny bit of grain or seed. They never fly. They just walk slowly — so slowly that it’s easy to catch one and put it in a ziploc bag (shown below).
Mystery insects (in ziploc bag) compared to a penny for size (photo by Kate St. John)
Finding two bugs was a curiosity but a week later finding 20 bugs every morning felt like a problem. I checked inside my food cupboards — no bugs at all — and gave my bug-ziploc to building maintenance who is checking for bugs in adjacent units. I’m not to spray in case there will be a multi-floor solution in the days ahead.
Meanwhile Nature’s solution to tiny bugs ran right up to me.
This morning a house centipede (Scutigera coleoptrata), a top predator of insects, ran toward me across the carpet. I screamed! Then I remembered he would eat those little bugs if I could just catch him alive and carry him to the kitchen.
Catching a centipede on the spur of the moment is very tricky. (They run fast!) I fashioned a piece of paper to enclose him and got him to run onto the paper but time after time he ran out the corners of the trap. Finally I enclosed him, carried him to the kitchen, and let him loose below the stove.
Centipede trap and carry (re-enactment photo by Kate St. John)
A top predator has been moved into position under the stove. I can hardly wait for the house centipede to eat those mystery bugs!
Learn more about house centipedes in this vintage article.
Two of thousands of insect larvae in trees over Nine Mile Run, 13 August 2022 (photos by Kate St. John)
20 August 2022
Last weekend in Lower Frick Park Charity Kheshgi and I saw thousands of caterpillars and a lot of frass dropping from the trees above the pedestrian bridge over Nine Mile Run (pictured above).
Many insects are specialists, consuming a single plant family or genus during in their larval phase. If you can name the plant the caterpillar is eating, you can narrow down the identity of the bug.
Using that method I tried to name the leaves the caterpillars were skeletonizing (eating habits are another clue!) but most were too damaged to identify. Eventually I found a few intact elm-like leaves.
The photo match for “larvae that skeletonize elm leaves” included an adult form matches the golden yellow mystery beetle I saw this summer in Frick Park. These are larger elm leaf beetles (Monocesta coryli).
There is only one generation per year. Eggs are laid in the spring in “hard yellow crusty” masses of 24 to 58 eggs on the undersides of elm leaves. They hatch in about two weeks.
The newly eclosed larvae are about 3 mm long and greenish-yellow. They are gregarious for three to four days and feed on leaf surfaces before dispersing. The mature larvae crawl down the tree and undergo a wandering phase for a few days before entering the ground, where they remain until pupation the following late winter or early spring. Pupation lasts about a month and adults begin emerging in April. Adults are active from April until early August, with most records from June to July. Both adults and larvae exude an orange, presumably defensive, fluid when disturbed.
Long shadows are back again, 12 August 2022 (photo by Kate St. John)
20 August 2022
The days are getting shorter and shadows are getting longer. Pittsburgh had one and a half more hours of daylight on the summer solstice, just two months ago, than we do today.
Late summer flowers are attracting bees.
Allium flower with bee, 16 August 2022 (photo by Kate St. John)
Ornamental grasses are going to seed.
Ornamental grass at Phipps (photo by Kate St. John)
And the clouds have been interesting.
Puffy clouds over Millers Ponds, Crawford County, 15 August 2022 (photo by Kate St. John)
Can you see the face in the cloud below?
Glowing eyes in the face in the cloud, 17 August 2022 (photo by Kate St. John)
We know that air pollution hurts humans. It is also bad for agriculture in an unexpected way. A study published in early 2022 by the University of Reading revealed that air pollution confuses bees and butterflies and reduces their pollination efforts.
Scientists from the University of Reading, the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, and the University of Birmingham found that there were up to 70% fewer pollinators, up to 90% fewer flower visits and an overall pollination reduction of up to 31% in test plants when common ground-level air pollutants, including diesel exhaust pollutants and ozone, were present.
3 Large Milkweed bugs + 1 Small Milkweed bug (photos by Kate St. John and John English)
14 August 2022
At this time of year you’ll often see black and orange bugs crawling on milkweed seed pods. These are milkweed bugs, large and small, that consume the seeds by injecting saliva through the pod shell into the seed beneath and sucking out dissolved seed matter. Though the “large” and “small” bugs look very similar they are not the same species.
Large milkweed bug, Sept 2021 (photo by Kate St. John)
Large milkweed bugs are orange and black with a black horizontal band across the middle of the back. In this species you can tell male from female. On the underside of the bug, the 4th abdominal segment is a black stripe on males and two black spots separated by orange on the females. Click here for a photo of two mating: female at top, male at bottom.
Small milkweed bug, August 2022 (photo by John English)
The orange and black “small” milkweed bug (Lygaeus kalmii) has a different pattern on its back: a black heart in the center and two black patches on either side (see top right photo).
Juveniles are dependent on milkweed but when milkweed is scarce the adults become scavengers and predators that, according to bugguide.net, have been reported feeding on honey bees, monarch caterpillars and pupae, and dogbane beetles.
L. kalmiirange across the US and Canada except for the southeastern US. They overwinter as adults by producing antifreeze in their bodies to survive the cold.
False milkweed bug, March 2022 (photo by Kate St. John)
Like the monarch butterfly, the orange and black color of milkweed bugs warns predators that they are toxic. Viceroy butterflies mimic monarchs so they won’t be eaten. “False” milkweed bugs (Lygaeus turcicus) mimic small milkweed bugs (L. kalmii) for the same reason.
The black pattern on the “false” milkweed bug is slightly different. Instead of a black heart it is a V that seems to overlay the black beneath it much like the W overlays the V in West Virginia University’s logo.
Red aphids coat false sunflowers in Schenley Park, 6 August 2022 (photo by Kate St. John)
9 August 2022
Every August the false sunflowers in Schenley Park become covered in red aphids. My first reaction is disgust, then I look for aphid predators and protectors.
Aphid predators include ladybugs, syrphid flies (hover flies), parasitic wasps and lacewing larvae. Their protectors are the ants who harvest their honeydew.
The ants were out in full force and chased off a ladybug that flew to escape them.
Ants harvesting aphid honeydew, Schenley Park, 6 August 2022 (photo by Kate St. John)
The ladybug found a safer place to munch on aphids. No ants in sight.
Ladybug predator of aphids, Schenley Park, 6 August 2022 (photo by Kate St. John)
Syrphid flies hovered and darted among the leaves, choosing to lay eggs where there would be plenty of aphids for their larvae to feed on.
Syrphid fly on a leaf near the aphids, Schenley Park, 6 August 2022 (photo by Kate St. John)
Larger predators lay in wait to eat the aphid eaters. Can you see the spider inside this flower?
False sunflower with aphid on outer petal, spider lurking inside flower, 3 August 2022 (photo by Kate St. John)
Here’s a hint. His feet are dangling are at the bottom of the circle.
Spider lurking inside the flower (photo by Kate St. John, retouched)
I’m sure there were many more predators lying in wait for aphids. This video shows what to look for.
Frank Izaguirre’s experience in Oakland is typical. The first one appeared on 17 July but within ten days the number of bugs had grown so fast that finding and killing them, as recommended by the PA Dept of Agriculture(*), became a daunting daily chore.
Annie Quinn noticed them in a park and enlisting her kids to squash them on the ground. Then she looked up and saw hundreds and hundreds coating the upper branches of the trees. “Kids, this problem is much bigger than we are.”
Spotted lanternflies climbing a red maple (photo from Wikimedia Commons)
Indeed! I saw hundreds (thousands?) on the North Shore near the Carnegie Science Center on Tuesday 26 July.
And it’s going to get worse before it gets better.
Julie Urban, an associate professor of entomology at Penn State, said residents of the area will see a lot more lanternflies in September.
“They’re starting to emerge as adults about now and then when they start to mate more heavily you’re going to see a lot more in the first couple weeks of September,” said Urban. “That’s just when they’re more active. So, be ready for that.”
Since each female lanternfly lays an egg mass containing 30-50 eggs, the population grows exponentially every year: 1 > 50 > 2,500 > 125,000 > 6.2 million!
It took just 2.5 years to go from “What’s the problem?” to “Oh my gosh!”
There is no way we can squash them individually. However there are easy ways to passively kill them in our yards. Three years ago a girl in New Jersey came up with a very inexpensive and effective trap.
Other inexpensive do-it-yourself traps are described at these YouTube links: A simple tulle trap, the simplified hoop trap and an elaborate v2 Trap that requires tools. In any case if you make a trap, use netting not glue. Glue tape indiscriminately kills bees, bats and small birds that try to feast on the trapped bugs.
This is our first Summer of the Spotted Lanternfly in Pittsburgh, but it’s not the last.
Butterflies vote with their feet — literally — for the opposite reason. They decide to stay.
After mating with a male, the female butterfly must go in search of a plant on which to lay her eggs. Because the caterpillars that will hatch from her eggs will be very particular about what they eat, she must be very particular in choosing a plant. She can recognize the right plant species by its leaf color and shape. Just to be sure, however, she may beat on the leaf with her feet. This scratches the leaf surface, causing a characteristic plant odor to be released. Once she is sure she has found the correct plant species, she will go about the business of egg-laying.
Sometimes this activity is called “tasting” the plant. Learn more and see photos of butterflies making the “stay or go” decision in this vintage article.
