The Backyard Arthropod Project

Thin Moth – Bedellia?

Tim Eisele — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 20:59:29 +0000

Sam spotted this insect on the side of the house on March 14, while we were out getting pictures with the new camera[1]. ——— [1] I’ve been saving up for a new bug-photographing camera for a while, because a good digital SLR has a lot of features that make it more useful for macrophotography than a standard [...]

Orange Skipper

Tim Eisele — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 10:00:43 +0000

In early July, Sam and I were out fooling around with the insect nets. When we got back to the house, I was cleaning out the debris, and picked up a green oblong that was about the size and shape of an immature quackgrass seed. But then, it wiggled, and I realized it [...]

Meadowhawk dragonfly

Tim Eisele — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 10:00:11 +0000

We caught this medium-sized orange dragonfly with an insect net in the unmowed part of the yard last summer. I put it into one of our collapsable insect cages for photographing, and it was mostly fairly willing to stay still and be photographed once it figured out that it couldn’t just fly off. It [...]

Thin green plant bug – Megaloceroea?

Tim Eisele — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 10:00:35 +0000

On July 20, Sam and I took a butterfly net off to try and catch a particularly large black butterfly that we’d been seeing alongside the road[1]. We didn’t find it, but when we got home, we found that we’d accidentally caught this bug in the net without realizing it: It seemed so content to [...]

Crab Spider from Cricket Shipment

Tim Eisele — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 11:22:48 +0000

We’ve had a tarantula for some time[1], and her primary food is crickets. In the summer, we mostly just catch crickets outside for her to eat, but in the winter that doesn’t work so well and we have to buy them. The only local place to buy crickets is quite a long drive [...]

Beetle Development – Rearing a Scarlet Malachite Beetle Larva

Tim Eisele — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 10:00:55 +0000

Previously on “What’s That Grub?” Back in October, we found this larva in Sam’s dresser drawer: At the time, I didn’t know what it was, although we guessed it was something predatory based on the way that it moved. It was pretty clear that identifying it would require raising it to adulthood, so I put [...]

New House Borer

Tim Eisele — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 10:00:10 +0000

S_ caught this huge beetle for me near the end of July, I don’t remember if she caught it in the house, or outdoors[1]. I’m pretty sure it’s a New House Borer, Arhopalus productus. Once you get beetles this large, there generally aren’t a lot of possiblities, and the two dimples on the pronotum behind [...]

Fungus Gnats

Tim Eisele — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 18:11:00 +0000

On January 10, I caught this tiny gnat when it landed on my computer screen while I was reading my email. I had to freeze it to get it to hold still while I took pictures This isn’t the first time little gnats landed on my computer screen, they are constantly around the house at a [...]

Clear-Winged Grasshopper

Tim Eisele — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 10:00:26 +0000

Sam caught this one in the yard on July 30. She kept it in a box with some grass to eat for about a day, but ultimately decided that it would be better off if she let it go. The distinguishing features on it are the black patch on the shoulders just above the front [...]

Elderberry Borer

Tim Eisele — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 10:00:04 +0000

S_ found this rather attractively-colored beetle on our window on July 20, and it was large enough that I just took the pictures without a macro lens in the sunlight, with the beetle on my finger [1] The combination of black and orange is warning coloration that we have seen before, indicating that this beetle probably [...]

Fringed Orchid Aphids

Tim Eisele — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 10:00:53 +0000

This is why it is a good idea to quarantine new plants that you bring home. This little bugger is one of dozens that we found on a potted orchid that we were given by a friend (who incidentally raises a lot of orchids). We’d been keeping this new plant separate from our other house [...]

Small bugs from Chrismas tree

Tim Eisele — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 10:00:54 +0000

On December 5, we got a Christmas tree. Sam picked out a Balsam Fir, which we brought home and set up, with no particular problems[1]. But then, on December 22, S_ found a few dozen of these little guys suddenly appearing in the house. Coincidence? I think not. I thought maybe it [...]

Yellowish-White Orb Weaver Spider

Tim Eisele — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 10:00:45 +0000

Michelle[1] sent me this set of pictures of a spider on the cut end of a log some time ago, but I have just now settled down to try and figure out what kind of spider it actually is. I can’t see all the eyes, but the ones I can see have a pattern consistent [...]

Small yellow and black syrphid fly

Tim Eisele — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 10:00:47 +0000

While we did find this one inside the house, it was our own fault: he was carried in on some lettuce that we harvested from the garden in August. For scale, that’s my knuckle he was crawling on, so he was not very big – about 6 or 7 mm long, and pretty skinny. I was pretty [...]

Barklouse nymph

Tim Eisele — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 10:00:22 +0000

So, this past summer while we were at a friend’s Canada Day[1] party, Sam and I spotted a number of these little guys crawling around on the wooden frame of their swingset. Since the graph paper squares are only 1 mm, that makes this particular one only about 2 mm long. I wasn’t sure what [...]

Waved Sphinx

Tim Eisele — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 10:00:07 +0000

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 [...]

Blinded Sphinx

Tim Eisele — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 10:00:54 +0000

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 [...]

Modest Sphinx

Tim Eisele — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 10:00:47 +0000

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 [...]

Northern Crescent (or maybe Pearl Crescent)

Tim Eisele — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 01:09:47 +0000

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 [...]

Green Immigrant Leaf Weevil

Tim Eisele — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 18:15:30 +0000

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 [...]

Beetle larva, probably predatory

Tim Eisele — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 10:00:28 +0000

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. Of course, once [...]

Oil Beetle

Tim Eisele — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 10:00:29 +0000

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, [...]

Tiger moth – Grammia

Tim Eisele — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 16:19:35 +0000

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 [...]

Banded Woolly Bear

Tim Eisele — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 10:03:55 +0000

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 [...]

Wooly Aphids

Tim Eisele — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 20:13:33 +0000

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 [...]

Green Aphids

Tim Eisele — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 13:01:10 +0000

S_ was given a vanilla bean orchid plant[1] a while ago, and it has been growing like crazy in a pot on the kitchen windowsill. Until, that is, she noticed that the growing tips were starting to die back. On closer investigation, she found that the tips of the plant were infested with [...]

Angulose Prominent Caterpillar

Tim Eisele — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 10:00:05 +0000

So, I’m on my way home, pushing my bike up the last steep hill, when I look down and see this very, very pink caterpillar just starting to cross the road. Now, a shocking pink caterpillar is not something you see every day, so naturally I picked it up to bring it home. I didn’t [...]

Carolina Grasshopper

Tim Eisele — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 01:10:14 +0000

Sam caught this grasshopper in the yard, close to the house. She then brought it inside where she kept picking it up, letting it jump out of her hands, and then laughing uproariously as it flew partway across the room. Then, after it was tired enough that it didn’t bother jumping anymore, she [...]

Long-Jawed Orb Weaver

Tim Eisele — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 16:30:40 +0000

On July 19, I was up on the stamp sands from the old Copper Falls Mine with some friends[1], and decided to poke around a bit in the shrubbery growing along a stream bed. When I came out, I noticed this spider rapelling down from the edge of my hat: Unfortunately, I didn’t have any [...]

Scaly Bee Fly

Tim Eisele — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 10:00:19 +0000

S_ caught this one in the yard on August 10, and put it into one of the little bug-capture cages that Sam got from her grandparents (they bought them at the local dollar store for practically nothing)> It looks like a bee at first, but on closer examination we can see that it only has two [...]

Bee Fly

Tim Eisele — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 10:00:07 +0000

I’ve seen these from time to time for years, but never really got a good look at one before. But, on August 15, this one obligingly landed on the concrete in front of our garage and quietly expired before my very eyes. This was a golden opportunity to get it onto my photographing stage, [...]

Abbott’s Sphinx Caterpillar

Tim Eisele — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 02:10:04 +0000

At the end of July, after Sam and I came back from a walk, S_ said, “I have a surprise for you!” and showed us this: That’s my wrist it is crawling on, by the way. It was just a bit over three inches long. S_ said, “I found it crawling on the porch in [...]

Green Damselfly

Tim Eisele — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 11:33:12 +0000

In case you were wondering what last weeks damselfly nymph would have grown up to be, it would have been something like this: This is another one that we caught with an insect net down at Chassell Beach on June 20, the same day that we caught the Clubtail Dragonfly. I mainly caught it by [...]

Damselfly Nymph

Tim Eisele — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 10:00:14 +0000

At the same time as we caught the dragonfly nymph, S_ also caught a number of these fragile-looking fellows. I thought at first they were something like, oh, maybe some sort of mayfly. So we put about a half-dozen of them in a jar, took them home, and . . . by [...]

Horse fly

Tim Eisele — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 10:00:46 +0000

So, I came home on July 15, and Sam proudly showed me this fly sitting on a magazine. She had chased it around the house so much that it was too exhausted to move, and so it just sat there while I took pictures: It’s one of the horse flies, which are some of the [...]

Dragonfly Nymph

Tim Eisele — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 10:00:16 +0000

South of our house, there is a little dead-end road called Springbrook Lane, and near the end of the road is a little pool, about ten feet across and maybe thirty feet long, and only a couple of feet deep. S_ thought it would be interesting to go down there with an insect net, [...]

Clubtail Dragonfly

Tim Eisele — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 10:00:17 +0000

So, somehow we’ve gone for two years without a single representative of the Odonata order (dragonflies and damselflies)[1]. Well, that’s not too surprising, they are pretty darned hard to catch with bare hands. But that’s all over now, having the nets has changed everything. We caught this one down at Chassell Beach[2] [...]

Library Bug Hunt Part 2: Yellow-spotted woodlouse and other crawling things

Tim Eisele — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 10:00:18 +0000

Last week, we looked at some of the bugs that the kids caught at our annual Bug Hunt at the public library, focusing on the ones that had wings [1]. This week, we’ll look at the wingless ones (wingless either because they are larvae or nymphs that haven’t developed wings yet, or because they [...]

Library Bug Hunt, Part 1: Mayflies and other flying insects

Tim Eisele — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 10:00:14 +0000

On Monday evening, we put on another local bugs presentation at the Portage Lake Public Library[1]. After a short slide show, we showed off a bunch of bugs that we had caught in our yard, and then, we all went outside to the library’s back yard to see what we could turn up[2]. [...]

Tent Caterpillars – Eastern and Forest

Tim Eisele — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 10:00:36 +0000

We have two species of tent caterpillars around here, the Eastern Tent Caterpillar, Malacosoma americanum, which makes “tents” on tree branches and prefers to eat leaves from apple and cherry trees, and the Forest Tent Caterpillar, Malacosoma disstria, which doesn’t make tents and prefers forest trees like aspen. You can tell them apart pretty easily: the [...]

Small Rove Beetle, Large (Fishing?) Spider

Tim Eisele — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 10:00:44 +0000

We’re having a twofer this week, because I have two subjects with only one good photo each, and not enough to say about either one to warrant a full entry The first is a little guy, about 4 millimeters long, that S_ found scooting across the floor in the living room. It was very like [...]

Plume Moth

Tim Eisele — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 10:00:47 +0000

This week, I got a couple of actual, no-fooling insect nets[1], and Sam and I went out to see what we could catch. There wasn’t much (it has been kind of cold and a bit breezy of late, so flying insects big enough to see easily were pretty scarce). Then, I saw something [...]

Giant Water Bug – Toe Biter

Tim Eisele — Sat, 30 May 2009 10:00:05 +0000

[Scene: my office, afternoon of May 21. The phone rings] Me: Hello? Sam: Dad! Mom caught a GIANT WATER BUG! She tried to pick it up, and it GRABBED her! She shook it off, and caught it in a DIAPER! We put it in a jar! It’s GIANT! Me: Wow! Sam: Well, OK. Bye! [click, hummmmmm][1] A [...]

Metallic wood-boring beetle – Dicera

Tim Eisele — Sat, 23 May 2009 10:00:41 +0000

I found this on campus, clinging to the side of the Electrical Engineering building, so I put it in a pill bottle and brought it home to photograph: It was just about 2 centimeters long, and had a strong metallic sheen, particularly on the underside. It looks like a Metallic Wood Boring Beetle, in the genus Dicera. [...]

Wolf Spider

Tim Eisele — Sat, 16 May 2009 18:11:42 +0000

Last week, I was laying on the floor[1] when suddenly this fellow scurried right under my nose: and Sam yelled, “A spider! Can we keep it?” So, we got out a little half-gallon plastic aquarium that we’ve had laying around for some years, put in some of Sam’s foam alphabet puzzle pieces to give him [...]

Cellophane Bee

Tim Eisele — Sat, 09 May 2009 10:00:55 +0000

Wednesday afternoon was warm and sunny, for just about the first time since last fall. S_ was working out in the yard, and called me outside, saying “There’s a swarm of bees in the driveway!” And so there was. There were about 100 of these guys, circling around the light-colored, sandy parts [...]

Medium sized light-brown moth

Tim Eisele — Sat, 02 May 2009 10:00:31 +0000

This could possibly be one of the most boring, hard-to-identify moths in the world. [1]. Still, I want to be comprehensive in these pages, which means I can’t just skip the boring ones. We found it on October 21, 2007. The wingspan as it rested was about 3 centimeters, so while it wasn’t a [...]

Tortricid Moth – Oak Leaf Tier?

Tim Eisele — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 18:40:27 +0000

Here’s another little guy. Once again, it was found on the window, in mid-July of 2007. The way the wings are held and the general shape makes me think it is a Tortricid moth. This one is a bit unusual, in that it actually has some lumps and bumps on its wings, giving [...]

Brown, Banded Moth – Meal Moth

Tim Eisele — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 01:22:40 +0000

OK, I’ll be up front with you: I really don’t know what kind of moth this is [edit: now I do, see below]. It’s a bit over a centimeter long, and was fluttering around the light in our entryway on August 2 of 2008. Aside from the light-brown band across the wings, it also has [...]

Brown, Spotted Tiger Moth

Tim Eisele — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 10:00:00 +0000

Here’s a large, furry moth that obligingly posed on the screen of our back door in mid-June of 2007. It has the build of some of the moths in the subfamily Arctiinae, the Tiger Moths. I think it looks most like the moths in the genus Lophocampa, although I’m kind of torn as to whether it looks [...]

Northern Paper Wasp

Tim Eisele — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 10:00:50 +0000

We find these building nests in a bunch of places, generally anywhere that they are protected from the rain and wind. They are usually in my father-in-law’s hunting blind out back, they really like the old carriage-house, they are fond of the little enclosure that I keep beekeeping supplies in, and they really, really [...]

Mealybug

Tim Eisele — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 10:00:42 +0000

This wasn’t actually found on our property, and properly speaking they don’t even live in the wild in Michigan, but if we keep bringing in houseplants we will probably get an infestation of them sooner or later. Our friend Michelle found it, along with a bunch of others, in a greenhouseat the University, and gave [...]

Black and Yellow Mud Dauber

Tim Eisele — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 10:00:34 +0000

I found this wasp crawling on our window at about the same time as we found last weeks Blue Mud Dauber (mid-July of 2007[1]). This is the related Black and Yellow Mud Dauber, Sceliphron caementarium. Like the Blue Mud Dauber, these have a very long, thin waist. I’m not sure why that is, it [...]

Blue Mud Dauber Wasp

Tim Eisele — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 10:00:21 +0000

When I was a kid, I used to find these blobs of mud stuck on our farm buildings, mostly under the eaves or in other spots where they would be protected from the rain. When I broke them open from time to time, they were either filled with paralyzed spiders, or had a wasp [...]

Pine Sawfly

Tim Eisele — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 10:00:03 +0000

These were pretty numerous in early June of 2007, both inside and outside the house. I’m pretty sure that this is a conifer sawfly, in the family Diprionidae. Sawflies are in the same order as bees, wasps, and ants (Hymenoptera), and have a lot of wasp-like characteristics, except that they don’t have the narrow waist [...]

Male midge – “mufflemouth”

Tim Eisele — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 10:00:46 +0000

We found this little guy on the side of the house on May 14, 2008,[1] when it was still getting pretty cold at night. He’s an example of the ones that S_ refers to as “mufflemouths”[2], because of their big, muff-like antennae. This looks to be a midge in the family Chironomidae. He’s certainly a [...]

Winter Crane Fly

Tim Eisele — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 19:31:18 +0000

At least, I think it’s a winter crane fly. Here’s another one from early May of 2007. It was hanging out on our window, and I was able to get a couple of shots in-place before it flew off. It resembles a mosquito, but it is a bit bigger (the body was about a centimeter long). [...]

Window Flies, and Compound Eyes

Tim Eisele — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 19:04:43 +0000

We found the first of these little flies on May 23 of 2007[1], on our window: A second one turned up a few days later, on June 2. At first, I thought these were Syrphid flies, maybe in the genus Pipiza, but as Richard Vernier and Keith Bayless pointed out on Bug Guide, I was Wrong, [...]

White cobweb-weaver spider

Tim Eisele — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 10:00:10 +0000

I was down in the basement last August trying to decide which of the many spiders down there to catch and photograph, when this little lady caught my eye. Where most of them were dark brown to black, she was practically white! She’s clearly a cobweb-weaver, family Theridiidae – she had a cobweb-style web (a [...]

Clover Weevils

Tim Eisele — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 10:00:04 +0000

Sometimes called “Sweet Clover Weevils”, although they don’t seem to be all that picky about which clover they eat. Every spring, and on through the first part of the summer, we get these little brown beetles all over the place. They tend to hang out on the sides of buildings, and of course get into [...]

Canadian Tiger Swallowtail

Tim Eisele — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 10:00:14 +0000

The word for today is “Snarge” As I’ve mentioned before, butterflies give me trouble, because they are large, flighty, and will not sit still. People who get really nice pictures of butterflies generally do it with a combination of persistence, excellent equipment, skill, and a bit of luck[1]. I’m not so good in the [...]

Big black basswood-bark burrowing beetles (False Mealworm)

Tim Eisele — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 10:00:49 +0000

Our friend Seri was chainsawing some logs in our driveway yesterday[1], and she turned up these two beetles under the bark of a basswood log[2]. They were each about an inch long, and were initially stunned by the cold, although they got over it quickly enough. Normally, when you find a beetle under tree bark, [...]

Scarlet Malachite Beetle

Tim Eisele — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 10:00:03 +0000

Here’s another beetle with soft wing covers, that Sam caught in the house back on May 28, 2008. To make up for the nebulous identification of last week’s beetle (“some sort of soldier beetle”), this time I can be much more specific: it’s a Scarlet Malachite[1] Beetle, Malachius aeneus. Bug Guide actually has [...]

Soldier Beetle

Tim Eisele — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 21:17:55 +0000

Back in June of 2007, I found two of these beetles mating on the cedar tree behind the house. As usual, though, they had disengaged before I could get a picture of them both together, and then the one that had been on top flew away and I lost it somewhere in the kitchen. [...]

Moth found under siding – Carpet Moth

Tim Eisele — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 20:45:23 +0000

I had to consult with the experts on this one. It is a good example of why a simple insect guide is not much good for identifying moths So, on the 20th of May, 2007, I was tearing down an old outbuilding[1], and tore off a piece of wood-shake siding to find this underneath: This was [...]

Multicolored asian lady beetles

Tim Eisele — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 19:44:56 +0000

These are probably the single most common species of lady beetle in our area – the Multicolored Asian Lady Beetles, Harmonia axyridis[1]. The reason for the “multicolored” name is that their coloration is all over the place, ranging from lots of spots: to hardly any spots: In fact, they might be Orange with ten spots, or [...]

Cicada nymph skin

Tim Eisele — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 12:51:30 +0000

Back in the beginning of September, S_ and Sam were out for a walk in the woods when they found this clinging to the side of a tree: It’s not the whole bug, it’s just the skin. There was originally a Cicada inside. As far as I’ve been able to find out, we only [...]

European House Spider – Tegenaria domestica

Tim Eisele — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 10:00:37 +0000

Also known as “Barn Funnel Weavers”, “Sink Spiders” and “Those Monster Hairy Spiders That Run Like The Wind”. OK, here’s one I’m sure you’ve all been waiting for[1]: the European House Spider, Tegenaria domestica. Let’s start with the nice semi-action shot that Michelle [2] took in her apartment[3]: This is clearly a female, because she has thin, tapered [...]

Cellar Spider, and Spider Cages

Tim Eisele — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 10:00:29 +0000

These spiders tend to hang out in corners in our basement, just like everybody else’s basement. They are “cellar spiders”[1], in the family Pholcidae. These in particular are probably Pholcus phalangioides, which is another of those cosmopolitan species that humans have carried all over the world. They are perfectly harmless, of course, [...]

Northern Caddisfly Adult

Tim Eisele — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 10:00:22 +0000

Back in April, I had pictures of a caddisfly larva that we found in the little stream out back. Since then, I’d been wanting to get pictures of an adult too, but I wasn’t quite sure what time of year the local species emerged. Well, wonder no more: here are the adults, which [...]

Aquatic Crane Fly Larva

Tim Eisele — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 12:24:09 +0000

Yesterday, K T Cat raised some good questions about the digestive system of insects, gnats in particular, so today I thought it would be good to talk about that. To start with, we need an example[1], so here is one: a larva that we found in Cole’s Creek in April: To be honest, when we [...]

Eastern Boxelder Bug

Tim Eisele — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 11:03:14 +0000

S_ found this one in the yard on November 6, while out playing with Sam. “I think it’s a boxelder bug” she said. And so it is – the Eastern Boxelder Bug, Boisea trivittata. These are very common and very widespread, and a lot of people are familiar with them because they [...]

White-Marked Tussock Moth Caterpillar

Tim Eisele — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 10:00:50 +0000

Here’s another very nice picture that Michelle[1] took up on Whealkate Bluff [2](the same place she found the grasshopper posted last week). It’s a White-Marked Tussock Moth caterpillar, Orgyia leucostigma, perched on a ripe wild raspberry: I personally think this one looks very nice (If you agree, Michelle has prints of this image [...]

Two-Striped Grasshopper

Tim Eisele — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 10:00:49 +0000

Getting by with a little help from my friends. We have something a bit different this week, a most excellent picture of a grasshopper: What is different about this? Well, while it is in fact a local grasshopper specimen that was found near our property, this is the first case where I didn’t take the picture. [...]

Snailcase Bagworm – Apterona helix

Tim Eisele — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 10:00:24 +0000

It helps so much when you finally get a name for it We’ve been seeing these things sticking to walls every fall for some years now. We mostly find them on masonry walls and windows, although that doesn’t necessarily mean they prefer those surfaces – it may just be that they are easier to spot [...]

American Copper Butterfly

Tim Eisele — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 10:00:16 +0000

Butterflies give me a lot of trouble S_ and Sam came back from a walk on October 3 with this little butterfly perched on a small Queen-Anne’s-Lace blossom. The wings are about 2 cm wide, give or take a bit. It was 40 degrees F outside at the time, and the butterfly was cold enough that [...]

Rove Beetle

Tim Eisele — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 11:34:11 +0000

S. found this one climbing the wall of the garage. Despite appearances, it is not related to earwigs. It’s actually a beetle[1]. No, really! It looks like a Rove Beetle, probably in the subfamily Staphylininae. It might be one of the species in the genus Ocypus, but I’m leaning more towards the [...]

Net-Winged Beetle

Tim Eisele — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 10:00:24 +0000

This is a beetle, not a moth. No, really! This poor fellow had an unfortunate encounter with a car on September 23, and I found it dead on the side of the road. Even though it looks like a moth at first glance, it has some very un-moth-like characteristics. The orange-and-black forewings are thick and leathery, [...]

Lygaeid Seed Bug Nymph

Tim Eisele — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 11:49:10 +0000

This one is actually over a year old, it was found on the kitchen floor in early August of 2007. It’s a little guy, only a couple of millimeters long. It was hard to see details with the naked eye, and I thought at the time that it was some kind of beetle. But, [...]

Bumblebee mimic scarab beetle

Tim Eisele — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 13:45:53 +0000

S_ spotted this one buzzing across the kitchen in late July. It was moving pretty fast, and was hard to see clearly, but it sure looked and acted like a small bumblebee. But then, it landed on the window where I was able to catch it, and it turned out to be this: It [...]

Goldenrod crab spider – female and hatchling

Tim Eisele — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 10:00:27 +0000

So, once again, I was pushing my bike up the hill to home, looking at what was beside the road. And in the middle of a “Queen Anne’s Lace”[1] blossom, I saw something that looked odd. There was this black wasp that appeared to be trying to stand on its head. So [...]

Male European Earwig – Dermaptera

Tim Eisele — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 09:53:43 +0000

We had quite a plague of these European Earwigs (Forficula auricularia)[1] back in July, when there was still some moisture about. Now that it has been very dry for a few months their numbers have plummeted, but for a while there we were literally finding heaps of them every time we turned over a [...]

Harvestmen

Tim Eisele — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 11:54:23 +0000

These are actually two different harvestmen[1]. The first one was photographed without the macro lens on a wall last year, and while it shows the spread of the legs nicely, there isn’t much detail on the body. The second one I photographed on July 30 this year, and is probably not the same species (it has [...]

Hermit Beetle (and relative)

Tim Eisele — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 09:28:56 +0000

We’d all just come into the house after going for a walk, and I heard Sam shouting from the kitchen “Mom, Mom, a beetle! A beetle!”, and then I heard S_ reply, “A beetle? Where is . . . Holy Cow!” So I come over to look, and they’ve got this huge scarab beetle, [...]

Ctenucha virginica caterpillar

Tim Eisele — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 10:00:38 +0000

Last year I had a picture of an adult Ctenucha virginica, a striking black-and-orange tiger moth with an unpronounceable name. Well, this spring (on May 10), I found the caterpillar of the same species, climbing up a grass stem. . As seems to be typical for tiger moths, they overwinter as nearly-mature, very hairy caterpillars, eat [...]

Velvet Mite

Tim Eisele — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 10:00:33 +0000

I put out what was supposed to be a cricket trap[1] a few days ago, but didn’t catch any crickets. What I did catch were some woodlice, something that looks like a carrion beetle larva, but I keep finding them scampering around where there is no evidence of any carrion, a stone centipede, and [...]

Wasp mimic beetle

Tim Eisele — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 10:00:33 +0000

This one landed on me while I was out pushing Sam on her swing. At first, I thought it was a wasp, because that’s what it looked and acted like while it was flying, but as soon as it landed and closed its wings, it was clearly a rather attractive beetle. Looking at the underside, [...]

Ant Lion Adult

Tim Eisele — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 10:00:54 +0000

Last year, I had an entry about ant lions, with pictures of the larval form (which digs pits in sandy soil and grabs unwary insects that stumble ino them). Well, here is the adult form, that S_ just caught for me out on the front porch: She caught it pretty easily, because its front left [...]

Soil Centipede

Tim Eisele — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 19:27:41 +0000

Back on May 10, this is one of the things that Sam and I found under a rock. We didn’t spot it at first, because it looked a great deal like a small plant root – at least until it moved. It’s almost two centimeters long, but less than a millimeter wide. It’s a [...]

Field Crickets

Tim Eisele — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 10:00:19 +0000

Here’s one that probably everybody in North America has at least heard, if not seen: field crickets. I recorded this sound clip on June 17, which was when the spring field crickets (Gryllus veletis) started singing[1]. Chirp of Spring Field Cricket (.wav file) There’s actually two very similar species of field crickets around here, they look [...]

Calligrapha Leaf Beetle

Tim Eisele — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 10:00:59 +0000

Sam found this one under her crib on May 27. It’s a rather striking gold-colored beetle with intricate tracery on the wing covers. This is certainly one of the Calligrapha leaf beetles[1]. Based on the dark green pronotum (the plate between the head and the wing covers), it looks like it is related to Calligrapha [...]

Water Striders

Tim Eisele — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 10:00:38 +0000

This is one of two water striders that I caught on the little stream that runs alongside of our road. They are normally almost impossible to catch, but I spotted a pair that was mating. They were moving pretty slowly, and I was able to corner them up against some rocks and nudge them [...]

Red Turpentine Beetle

Tim Eisele — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 10:00:03 +0000

This one smacked me in the back of the neck while I was working in the yard the weekend of May 24, and got tangled up in the hair on my upper back until I grabbed it and pulled it out. I then noticed there were several others flying about, so they are obviously something really [...]

Grammia Tiger Moth Caterpillar

Tim Eisele — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 10:00:02 +0000

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: It had obviously overwintered as a caterpillar, it certainly hadn’t gotten that big in the approximately 3 [...]

Stone Centipede

Tim Eisele — Sat, 31 May 2008 10:00:00 +0000

If you turn over any given rock in Michigan, you are likely to find one of these: This is a “stone centipede”, order Lithobiomorpha, so called because that’s what they live under[1]. They run like water, flowing around obstacles and into holes in a way that’s very much like the way a stream of [...]

Ant-Mimic Jumping Spider

Tim Eisele — Sat, 24 May 2008 10:00:46 +0000

While coming up the hill on my way home from work[1], I spotted what looked, at first, like a medium-sized ant. It didn’t look quite right, though, so I caught it and brought it home. It turned out to be this: It’s a jumping spider that mimics an ant[2]. It’s about the size [...]

Water Boatman

Tim Eisele — Sat, 17 May 2008 10:00:50 +0000

Water boatmen, like this one, are all over the place. They can fly, so they end up in bodies of water ranging from full-blown lakes, to puddles and birdbaths. This particular one was at the mouth of Cole’s Creek, just down the road from our house. They look kind of beetle-like, but they are [...]

Camel Cricket

Tim Eisele — Sat, 10 May 2008 10:00:07 +0000

While cleaning up some stuff in the basement, out of the corner of my eye I spotted something bounding up in the air. And by “bounding”, I mean getting up about two feet off the floor. So I went to investigate, and found this: OK, so this is clearly something in the order Orthoptera [...]

Water Louse – Asellus

Tim Eisele — Sat, 03 May 2008 10:00:19 +0000

The back part of our property drains into Cole’s Creek, which empties into Portage Lake about a mile to the west of us. It’s a pretty substantial stream, and one of the better places for catching smelt[1]. S_ has been going down there from time to time to check if the smelt run [...]

Winter Stoneflies

Tim Eisele — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 10:00:26 +0000

April 4 was pretty warm[1], so we went down to the Pilgrim River just east of Houghton to see if the walking trails beside the river had melted off enough to be passible[2]. While we were there, we noticed that there were small, black insects hanging out on the wooden bridge railings So we captured [...]