And here we have yet another huge sphinx moth that was drawn to our porch light on June 22.
This is most likely a Waved Sphinx, Ceratomia undulosa, so named because of the wavy pattern across the back of the wings. This particular one also has a mark on its shoulders that I think looks quite a lot like a face [1].
Here’s another sphinx moth for you. S_ caught this one in the end of June, about a week after last week’s Modest Sphinx. It was also found hanging out near a porch light. It’s not quite as big as the Modest Sphinx, but it’s still quite a bruiser with a body considerably longer than the width of my finger.
On June 22, we turned on the porch light and waited for sundown to see what would be drawn to the light. We didn’t get anything until about 11:00[1], but then I heard something going “Whump! Whump! Whump!” on the window. I thought it was something like a crazed bat at first, it was pretty big. But then, once I netted it, this is what we found:
There are several different kinds of small orange-and-black butterflies around here in the summer. They mostly look about the same from a distance, and telling them apart requires actually catching them for a close look. A lot of them hang around on lawns, so they are easy enough to catch with a standard butterfly net. Here is one of them that Sam caught back in the middle of June:
This beetle was photographed back in August. I’m not sure whether to classify this as a “found in house” or “found in yard”, because this particular one was hanging out on the doorjam and was most likely trying to get in when it died there. Most summers, we get significant eruptions of them, although this year they were not as common as they have been in the past.
Aside from the color, they are generally similar to the Clover weevils that are also pretty common around here, with the blunt, short snouts and the armored wing covers that wrap quite a way around the abdomen.
Last Sunday, we found this larva in a corner of Sam’s dresser drawer. It was pretty hard to catch, it could run quite fast and could easily squeeze down into small crevices in the wood, but eventually I got it into a small plastic container and got it up to the camera.
I was out for a walk with my daughters [1] last Saturday, and we went for quite a long way on the trails through the woods behind our house[2]. And, at the point furthest from the house, I spotted this big, fat insect lying in the grass, stunned by the cold[3]:
As it turns out, I knew what this one was right away, because I had seen something like this before, in 1995[4], and had it identified for me then by Doug Yanega. It is an Oil Beetle in the genus Meloe, most likely either Meloe angusticollis or Meloe impressus
We had a serious snowfall last week which really knocked out the active insects, so I guess it’s time to look at some of the insects from earlier this summer. This moth is one that came to our porch light in June[1]. There were several others just like it, so they are obviously pretty common locally.
They are pretty large moths, and in daylight they are practically comatose, so it was easy to use my thumb to spread the forewing so we could see a hindwing:
On Wednesday, we were all out for a walk and I happened to mention that even though the Woolly Bear caterpillar was very common, and October is prime woolly bear season, I somehow hadn’t gotten a picture of one yet, and I’d really ought to do something about it. So, on Thursday, Sam went out and caught one, and S_ took a series of pictures[1]:
I’d say that this is probably the single most widely known caterpillar in North America, because they are (a) distinctive, (b) common, (c) widespread, (d) pretty big, and (e) often found crawling across roads and sidewalks in fall, just in time to appear in school playgrounds where as many kids as possible are going to see them.
They may be furry, but they’re no tribbles
OK, last week’s naked green aphids may not have been cute. And yet, the tribble[1], a creature that also reproduces so fast that they are born pregnant and would also be serious agricultural pests, are widely considered cute. So, what has a tribble got that an aphid hasn’t got? Well, they are the size of small cats, they are furry, and they purr. So, what if we get an aphid with fur? Would that be cute? As it happens, Michelle sent me some pictures of wooly aphids[2] a while back, so we can at least see what fur does for them:
That’s not a single tribble aphid, it is a mass of them. The masses can cover entire branches pretty well: