Like the bugs from last posting, this beetle grub was also found under the bark of the decaying log (in fact, you can see the mating bug pair from last time right there next to the grub’s head)
We can tell it’s a beetle larva, and not a caterpillar, because it only has the three pairs of true legs in the front, and not the “prolegs” running down its rear portion that a caterpillar would have.
Out in my parent’s woodpile, there was a log that was just old enough that the bark had gotten a bit loose. So I peeled away a piece of bark, the way that one does, and found a huge number of these bugs:
One of the things that Sam really wanted to do on this trip, was get to an actual ocean beach and collect seashells. While she has been to Lake Superior beaches many times, both the number and the diversity of shells are pretty limited (Lake Superior mainly just has freshwater mussels, snails, and the occasional crayfish). So, on the afternoon of June 18, 2013, my mother took us to Seven Mile Beach, which is a bit over seven miles of straight, sandy beach between Smithton and Stanley[1]. We had a little trouble finding it (the access road that actually leads to the beach isn’t marked), but we got there.
This beach is protected from wave action by Robbins Island to the west, and by the Stanley peninsula on the east, so shells accumulate here with a minimum of damage. See what looks like gravel running down the beach in this next picture?
The third thing that I found under a rock on June 18, 2013 was this fine, large wolf spider. This first photo is in a little 1-1/2 inch diameter dish, and as you can see the legs were about as wide as the dish was.
Continuing with the Tasmanian photographs, this hairy grub was found under the same brick where I found the wood roach (nominally on June 18, 2013[1]). It was about a quarter-inch long, so not too big.
It only had the six true legs, and no prolegs on the abdomen, so I think it was a beetle grub.
Happy New Year! And now, since it is winter in North America and our local bug population is way down, for the next few weeks we’re going to have something a bit different. In June of 2013, Sam and I took a trip half-way around the world to Australia (specifically to Tasmania, the island just south of the main continent), to visit my parents[1]. And while we were there, I figured we should make some attempt to photograph the arthropods that lived in my parents’ house and backyard. So I took along my camera, and away we went.
On the way, we had an unscheduled 2-day layover in Los Angeles[2], which was surprisingly low on insects. We did find a scarab beetle in the hotel, and a grasshopper in the airport near the departure gate, but that was about it. Unfortunately, my macro camera was still packed for travel, so these were photographed with our little point-and-shoot. It doesn’t show in the picture, but the grasshopper’s jumping legs had odd feet that were reversed from what we are used to seeing – they pointed forwards like a human foot, instead of backwards like most grasshoppers.
When people talk about natural selection, it generally gets couched in terms of organism versus organism, “Nature, Red in Tooth and Claw”, with direct competition for space, or food, or to avoid being food, or for mates, or for any number of other things. This is all well and good in places with an equitable, or at least relatively unvarying, climate. In the warmer parts of the world there may be occasional mortality from storms or volcanos or droughts or other natural occurrences, but mostly life really is all about the eternal struggle with other living things[1].
As we head towards the poles, however, things change. In the summertime, the livin’ is easy, with plenty of food, and water, and mates, and a climate that is not actively trying to kill you. But, the winter becomes something else again. Heading north[2], the environment spends longer and longer portions of the year being progressively more hostile to life. Water freezes and the cold of winter kills directly; food vanishes, because photosynthesis becomes impossible and scavengeable material gets buried in snow and ice; and then those that the cold does not kill risk death from lack of food. By the time you get up here to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and parts north, the other organisms become almost incidental to your survival. Winter is the killer, the enemy that you must fight first, because if you can’t survive Winter, then you’re done, no matter how good you are at the conflict of life against life. All the venoms, spines, armor, camouflage, strength, speed, agility, or fighting tricks in the world won’t help you when the ice comes.
This year’s Christmas Nymphalid Butterfly is a Monarch. When Sam found it in the yard on May 19, 2012, she thought it was recently dead. It had no reaction to being held.
It was in fine condition, though. All of its head appendage and legs were intact.
I found this large caterpillar on August 31, 2012, crawling across the sidewalk on campus. How large was it? Well, here it is crawling on my thumb:
It’s certainly one of the Sphinx Moths (family Sphingidae), and one of the larger ones at that. It doesn’t have much in the way of distinguishing marks, aside from some stripes on its head,
On August 12, 2012, the whole family was bicycling along the trail that runs beside Portage Lake. As we were coming up on where the trail crosses the Pilgrim River, we ran into swarms of these little black insects:
