I found this white grub while digging in our garden on June 7, 2014[1]. It is one of those big grubs that stays curled into a “C” shape about the size of a quarter, and is white except for the dark head and the dark material showing through the skin of the abdomen.
On June 5, 2014, Sam found this on our brick pavers while helping clean up after Sandy built her new chicken run. It was only a bit over a millimeter long, and to the naked eye just looked like a tiny red-orange speck, zooming surprisingly rapidly across the ground. I had to use my camera with the high-magnification supplemental lens, and support it on the old microscope frame in order to focus properly. Eventually, I got it to hold still enough for pictures.
Let’s say you’re an insect. You’re small, yet nutritious. Lots of things want to eat you, particularly things that out-mass you dramatically like birds and bats and frogs. Life is hard. You really need to avoid getting eaten by these monsters if you are going to have any offspring, so you’ve got a few options:
1. Avoid being seen, by camouflage, or coloration, or burrowing under cover, or being so small as to escape notice (and maybe not being big enough to be worth the effort even if found). This works really well, except for when it suddenly, and without warning, doesn’t. Your predators get really good at pattern recognition or hearing faint sounds that you make in your hiding place.
Big-headed, Red-legged fly – Male March Fly
This fly also came to the light on June 1, 2014.
It appears to be a March Fly, genus Bibio. The big head and eyes mark it as a male, the females have much smaller heads. Like this one that we caught on our window the previous year. Based on the size, the red legs, and the general appearance, I’d say that Bibio femoratus is a pretty likely candidate.
In addition to the moths, a fair number of other things came to the porch light on June 1, 2014. While this little gnat and much larger crane fly have similar coloration, they aren’t closely related.
The green gnat is probably one of the Chironomid midges, possibly one of the ones in the genus Parachironomus
Brown moth with arched, scalloped wings and two distinct lines – Two-lined Hooktip
Here’s another porch light moth from June 1, 2014 that Sam caught in an insect net for a closer look. The mesh openings are about a millimeter, so the moth is on the order of two centimeters long.
It held its wings as a high arch over its body, which is a bit of an unusual pose. And looking at it from the side, we see that the trailing edge of the wings is dark and scalloped, and there are two prominent dark lines running across the wings.
Here are several Geometrid moths from June 1, 2014. These first few all look like the same species, and I’m estimating their wingspans at about 2 inches.
I believe that these are Curved-Tooth Geometers, Eutrapela clemataria. We’ve seen these before, but not in such profusion.
On June 1, 2014, I also found this moth. It is one that we’ve seen before, a Gray Half-Spot, Nedra ramosula.
Another porch light moth from June 1, 2014. We had decided to turn on the light that particular evening because the previous day had been over 80 degrees F, which was hot enough that I expected that a lot of things had probably emerged from their pupae by then. This particular moth was a bit under an inch long.
Fast-forwarding through a long, cold, and mostly insect-free winter, here is the first of several moths that came to our porch light on June 1, 2014
The hooked wingtips mean that it pretty much has to be the Arched Hooktip, Drepana arcuata. This isn’t the first time we’ve seen this species, here’s the single previous photo I have (from May 2012):