White-M Hairstreak at Berg Street steps, 4 October 2015 (photo by Kate St. John)
A “hairstreak” is not a new fad in South Side hair styles. It’s a small butterfly.
A week ago I walked the Black Route on South Side’s Pittsburgh Step Trek. It took me two hours to complete 3.29 miles and climb up and down 1,692 steps but I found a reward.
This White-M Hairstreak butterfly (Parrhasius m album) was perched on the railing at the Berg Street steps.
Local butterfly expert, Monica Miller, tells me this one is a good find. She (who has so much experience!) has seen only three White M Hairstreaks in her life.
I had no idea I could find such good butterflies in the City. Woo hoo!
This caterpillar is almost as cute as a Woolly Bear (Isabella tiger moth) with his fluffy white fur, a black dash down his back, and a little black face, but…
Hickory Tussock Moth (photo by Kate St. John)
Don’t touch him!
This is a hickory tussock moth caterpillar (Lophocampa caryae) and those long white hairs contain allergens that will make you sting and itch as if you’d touched stinging nettle.
The hairs are actually hollow spines, the perfect delivery system for chemicals that prevent him from being eaten. Even a clueless young animal will only mouth this caterpillar once. Inquisitive humans who’ve touched him will tell you the spines can stay in your skin and make you miserable for weeks.
The butterfly in question, topside (photo by Kate St. John)
Let me begin by saying I am not a butterfly expert. I can recognize 10 butterflies, yes only 10, and I regularly misname three of those.
On Thursday at Raccoon Creek State Park I saw lots of Comma(*) butterflies so I took some pictures. Sorting my photos this morning, I looked for this one showing the comma on the underwing.
The Question Mark on the underwing (photo by Kate St. John)
Uh oh! That white mark is not a Comma. That line has a gap! This butterfly is a Question Mark and it’s likely the others were, too.
Commas and Question Marks look similar because they’re closely related, but I could have identified them without a photo if I’d learned these field marks:
Hindwing Underside: Comma is white, large, hooked on one end, continuous, bulging at both ends
Hindwing Underside: Question Mark is white, curved, broken in two pieces, one large & one small piece
Here’s an illustration of the Question Mark’s 4 post-median spots, circled in blue with a yellow arrow pointing to dash/spot #4. Click here to see 3 spots on a Comma.
Question Mark butterfly, highlighting 4 post-median spots (photo by Kate St. John)
Both butterflies are active this month so I’ll get another chance to try my ID skills before they overwinter.
Lyme Disease incidence in U.S. 2014 (map from CDC.gov)
In case you missed it on the radio …
Oh no! That dark blue spot on the map is bad news. Each microscopic dot represents an incident of Lyme disease in 2014. Look at western Pennsylvania!
This year Lyme disease came closer to home than ever before. Several friends of mine caught it this summer in Allegheny County, in suburban Pittsburgh.
Do these anecdotes represent a real increase in local Lyme disease? If yes, what is causing it? And does it have anything to do with our weather or climate change?
I posted my question on the iSeeChange website (here) and The Allegheny Front‘s Kara Holsopple investigated. She found out that Lyme disease is increasing in western Pennsylvania and there’s more than one reason for it. Warmer winters (climate change) do play a part.
Bronze Copper Butterfly (photo by Dianne Machesney)
The season is almost over for butterflies but there are still some great ones out there.
Dianne and Bob Machesney found this Bronze Copper (Lycaena hyllus) a week ago in a damp area of Moraine State Park. She and Bob usually see American Coppers (Lycaena phlaeas) because those butterflies prefer plants that grow in disturbed soil. Bronze Coppers prefer plants in bogs, marshes and wet meadows so they’re much harder to find.
Asian lady beetles mating (photo by Kate St. John)
On my August 23 outing in Schenley Park, we found something near Panther Hollow Lake (pond) that we’d never seen before: a pair of Asian lady beetles mating.
Asian lady beetles (Harmonia axyridis) are the non-native species released in Pennsylvania years ago to control aphids. They’re now so successful that they’re annoying, especially when they invade our houses in the fall.
As the pair embraced on a plant stalk, we noticed the male was smaller than the female and that she stood still while he was rocking. They were mating when we found them and they continued after we walked away. Who knew that bugs had so much stamina.
Asian lady beetles mating, 23 August 2015, Schenley Park (photo by Kate St. John)
The female beetle may have laid a lot of eggs afterward but we won’t be overrun by her offspring. The bugs were on the dirt pile created by Public Works when they fixed the pond overflow last spring. After a long hiatus the pond project resumed on August 24. Now the dirt pile and plants are gone.
These two are “lady beetles” but only one of them is a lady.
(photos by Kate St. John)
p.s. Here we are before we went down to see the lady beetles.
Participants on the Walk in Schenley Park, 23 August 2015 (photo by Kate St. John)
Honey bee at camas flower (photo from Wikimedia Commons)
When I wrote about hummingbirds and orange jewelweed last week, some of you wondered if the birds sipped at pale (yellow) jewelweed, too. While finding the answer I learned a cool fact: Bees can’t see red.
Hummingbirds are attracted to shades of red so they see the spots on orange jewelweed (Impatiens capensis) as a delicious target and rely on this plant during fall migration.
Over time the spur on Impatiens capensis has evolved to maximize pollination by hummingbirds with a tight cone-shaped entrance that guides the birds’ bills.
Orange jewelweed, Impatiens capensis (photo from Flora Pittsburghensis)
Hummingbirds don’t care about yellow so they don’t choose the other jewelweed — the “pale” one — but bees do.
However, pale jewelweed (Impatiens pallida) is designed for bees. Not only is it yellow but its expandable entrance accommodates both large and small bees, brushing their bodies as they walk in.
Pale jewelweed, Impatiens pallida, with a bee inside (photo from Flora Pittsburghensis)
Though the two jewelweeds grow near each other, they send different signals. Red is for birds. Yellow is for bees.
(Honey bee photo from Wikimedia Commons. Orange and pale jewelweed photos by Flora Pittsburghensis. Click on the images to see the originals)
p.s. On the subject of bees (in general) here’s a recent article from The Allegheny Front about breeding stronger honey bees: Building a Better Honeybee
Honeybee at a flower (photo in the public domain via Wikimedia Commons)
26 August 2015
We all know that pollen sticks to bees but did you know that air pollution particles stick, too? A recent study shows that honey bees can be excellent monitors of local air quality.
Bees have so much static electricity on their bodies that airborne particles stick to their heads, wings and legs as they fly. This includes airborne pollen, salt spray from the sea, soil dust, and industrial pollution. If you identify the particles, you can identify the pollution source and that’s important if you need to clean it up.
In this 2015 study, Honey Bees (Apis mellifera, L.) as Active Samplers of Airborne Particulate Matter, scientists placed eleven beehives near Iglesias, Sardinia, a location known for its legacy pollution of exposed tailings piles from lead-zinc mines in the 19th century. There are also industries five miles away at the coast: an aluminum smelter, a lead-zinc smelter, and coal-fired and oil-fired power plants. At a site like this how can you know where the particles comes from?
Scientists captured 10 honey bees at a control site in rural Italy and 20 bees at the Sardinian site, then analyzed the particulate found on their bodies. The control bees carried natural particles including dust from the local soil. The Sardinian bees carried sea salt (good) as well as industrial pollution and dust from the lead-zinc mine tailings (bad).
Thanks to the honey bees, the people of Iglesias know more about their air quality. Honey bees could monitor our quality, too.
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