Thursday evening at Fern Hollow Nature Center I found two insects perched on a milkweed pod.

The grasshopper is doing his best to blend in.

The milkweed bug doesn’t need to.  He eats milkweed so he’s poisonous.

He wears ‘danger colors’ like the monarch butterfly:  black and orange.

(photo by Kate St. John)

I am so new to butterfly identification that most of them prompt a question.  I photographed this one near the Kiski River in Armstrong County last Sunday.  What’s the name of this butterfly?

“It’s a question mark.”

No, really, I want to know.  Here’s the ventral side.  What’s the name of this butterfly?

“It’s a question mark.”

Honestly, I’m not kidding.  What’s the name of this butterfly?

“It’s a question mark because it has a small white question mark on the underside of its hind wing.”

Well, this one doesn’t.  At least not that I can see.  Please tell me, What’s the name of this butterfly?

It’s a question mark, Polygonia interrogationis.

I give up.  Who’s on First?

(Watch Abbott and Costello drive each other nuts in this video of their Who’s on First? skit.)

(photos by Kate St. John)

Throw Back Thursday (TBT):

August is a busy time for cicadas.  Though there aren’t a lot of them this year, those that are here are busy mating and laying eggs for the next generation.

Did you know that cicadas lay their eggs under the bark of tree twigs?  Eventually you can tell where they’ve done it because the leaves turn brown on the branch tips.

Back in 2008 I caught one in the act.  Click here to read about cicadas laying eggs.

(photo of cicada on tree branch by John Tsui via Wikimedia Commons.  photo of brown tree tips from Wikimedia Commons.  Click on each image to see its original)

The color of indigo buntings and mountain bluebirds, this butterfly is pretending to be something else.

Its name is “Red Spotted Purple” (Limenitis arthemis) — no mention of blue! — and its color mimics the poisonous Pipevine Swallowtail.   I suppose the orangish red spots on its underside gave it its name.

This one was mud-puddling with other butterflies at Jennings Prairie last weekend, but I ignored them because they weren’t this color.

I have never seen the deep blue Pipevine Swallowtail.

Love this color.

(photo by Kate St. John)

Here’s a moth that’s the same size and color as a hummingbird and it uses the same hovering technique.

The hummingbird clearwing moth (Hemaris thysbe) even migrates — another bird-like trait.

Steve Gosser captured this moth sipping wild bergamot.

When you glance at your garden look carefully.  That hummingbird might be a moth.

(photo by Steve Gosser)

Last July I took this photo of a butterfly at the Montour Trail near Pittsburgh but even after searching BugGuide.net I could not identify it.

I got close.  I guessed it was a crescent, maybe a “northern crescent” but forgot to look up the species’ range.  Uh oh!  Range is important when identifying birds and even more important with butterflies.  Northern crescents are unlikely in southwestern Pennsylvania.

Field marks are important, too, but I didn’t have all of them.  My photo shows the upper side but the underside of a butterfly often holds the deciding field mark.

Puzzled, I emailed my butterfly friends Chuck Tague and Monica Miller.

Chuck told me that pearl and northern crescents look a lot alike but the location indicates this is a pearl crescent (Phyciodes tharos), not a northern.  Monica added that “My understanding is you really can only reliably tell them apart upon dissection and the northerns would only be found in places north of us like Buzzard Swamp.”

Wow.  These butterflies are as hard to tell apart as chickadees!  I’m glad I didn’t find this one in their overlapping range.

I’ve got quite a lot to learn about butterflies.  In the meantime I’m getting by with a little help from my friends.

Thank you, Chuck & Monica!

(photo by Kate St. John)