A Field Guide to the North Side of Old Mill Hill, Atlantic Mine, MI
Archive for the ‘Lepidoptera’ Category.
Back on March 30, there was a rare sunny, not-quite-freezing day, and we took the opportunity to take a walk down the road. On the shoulder of the road, right next to our yard, we spotted this caterpillar:
Continue reading ‘St. Lawrence Tiger Moth Caterpillar (?)’ »
OK, I’ve got to do this one. Any insect-themed blog eventually has to have an entry about Monarch butterflies, Danaus plexippus. It’s required[1]. So, here we go.
Last summer, S_ and Sam caught[2] several Monarch caterpillars and raised them in a terrarium. While this made it easy to watch them, the glass made it hard to get really sharp photographs.
S_ was growing some petunias in pots on the south side of the house last spring, and one day noticed that she had quite an infestation of some pretty eye-catching caterpillars. You can see three of them just in this one picture[1], there were probably a dozen or so in total:
Back in April, while planting some more rhubarb[1], I found this about an inch underground. It had evidently overwintered as a nearly-adult caterpillar
It was still dormant, and wouldn’t unroll for anything. In retrospect, I should have gotten a picture of its back, because it looks like there is a row of black dashes running along the back in this picture, but it is hard to tell for sure with only a side view.
S_ found this one back on June 1. It’s been a while, and she forgets the details of how she found it now[1], but she thinks it was hanging by a thread from one of the apple trees[2]. It was a bit over an inch long.
What’s worse that biting into an apple and finding a worm?
Biting into an apple and finding half a worm![1]
We never spray our apple trees, and so it is pretty common to have little fellas like this in the apples. This is one of the reasons I like to cut an apple into quarters to eat it, instead of just eating it whole. That way, I have a chance to see if there is a worm inside, and to separate it and its “frass”[2] from the part of the apple I want to eat.
Continue reading ‘Codling Moth Caterpillar (Worm from an Apple)’ »
These large moths were pretty plentiful back in June (as in, I saw about a dozen of them this year). This particular one was attracted by the light from our back door at the time. The blue on their body is actually very iridescent (an effect that I have a hard time capturing on camera).
Back in April, this moth was on our front window, and didn’t show any inclination to move. It had a wingspan of a bit under an inch, and as near as I can tell, it is in the genus Eupithecia, based on the way that the wings are held splayed out when at rest, rather than folded over the back. These overwinter as pupae, and so are one of the moth species that appear as adults very early in the season.
They change so much as they grow up!
In the middle of June, S. found this little caterpillar on an aspen tree
A few weeks ago, I posted pictures of a predatory beetle, and mentioned that I’d like to get a picture of the larva of that beetle, because they were pretty wicked-looking[1]. Well, here’s a nice example, which I found crawling across the kitchen floor[2]. Correction: this is evidently some type of carrion beetle (see comment from “Anthony” below). The small squares on the grid are 1 mm, so this larva is close to 2 cm long.
Continue reading ‘Carrion(?) beetle larva, unidentified eggs’ »