Beetles – Page 2

Greenbrier, and Catbrier

Greenbriers and Catbriers are in the Smilax genus of plants in the family Smilacaceae. About 300 species of these vines live worldwide. Twenty of the species are native to North America north of Mexico. Eleven are native to Virginia.

The small flowers of Greenbriers and Catbriers attract bees, beetles, and flies as pollinators, with their carrion scent.

The flowers produce blue-black berries that attract birds and animals throughout the winter. And I’m surprised how many animals eat the leaves of these plants.

And of course the thorns! I really had to hunt to find an image of the thorns. For me that’s the most memorable part of these plants. BUT I’ve gotta give these plants credit. They’re a valuable part of the environment.

And I love to see the leaves dappled with rain drops as it twines through the beautyberry bush.

Bloodroot

It’s hard for me to believe since I’ve still got snow on the ground, but spring is nearly here. At least meteorological spring. It arrives on March 1. The weather here is assuredly unpredictable. We’ll see what the month of March brings forth. Spring or more winter? But plants will be sprouting no matter. One of the plants I expect will greet me later in March is Bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis). A plant that’s native to eastern North America.

Take care when you’re out hiking, particularly when you aren’t on a well established trail. These little first sprouts of spring are not necessarily obvious.

Bloodroot emerges from the soil, stem carefully wrapped in a deeply veined dark purply leaf.

As the bud grows the leaf unfurls and turns to a rich green with a silvery-green ventral side. With each flower there is a single deeply lobed basal leaf. A leaf with five to seven lobes that grows to be three to five inches across.

The flower is a burst of eight to sixteen snow white petals centered with an oval yellow-green pistil which is topped by a pale yellow stigma. The pistil is surrounded by bunches of stamens with glowing yellow anthers. The blooms don’t provide any nectar but the pollen on the anthers brings bees, flies and beetles that pollinate the flowers.

And that pollination allows the seed pod to expand. Filling with seeds that have appendages called elaiosomes. Ants bring those seeds to their larvae. The larvae is fed the elaiosomes and the still intact seeds are discarded to the nest’s “trash room” which is the perfect place to start these seeds growing. This process which happens in many cases throughout the plant world is called myrmecochory. A weird/fun word which has become one of my favorites.

Yellow-rumped Warblers

An occasional visitor to my bird bath, in Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains. A Yellow-rumped Warbler (Setophaga coronata). Fondly called Butterbutts by birders. If you don’t have a bird bath, I sure recommend one equipped with a water warmer to keep the water from freezing during the coldest that winter can throw at you.

These warblers don’t partake of the beautiful bird buffet that I put out for them but I’ve read that they do enjoy suet, sunflower seeds, peanut butter and raisins at back yard feeders. AND down at my Mom’s feeder in Citrus County, Florida, they enjoy her suet. Maybe I should ask my sister for her recipe. They don’t seem interested in MY recipe.

When they’re not at a feeder during the winter they will feed on the berries of juniper, poison ivy, poison oak, greenbrier, grapes, Virginia creeper, and dogwood. Butterbutts also eat the seeds of grasses and goldenrod.

During the summer while they’re up north they eat spiders, and many insects like beetles, caterpillars, gnats, wasps, aphids, and grasshoppers.

Best of luck at getting to see Yellow-rumped Warblers and don’t forget, if I didn’t have a bird bath equipped with a water warmer I doubt I’d get to see these sweet little birds.

Northern Flicker

A patch of the native plant, Smooth Sumac, Rhus glabra. A wonderful magnet for birds during the late winter and early spring.

Hard to decide which might be my favorite bird, but one that is right up there at the top, Northern Flicker, Colaptes auratus, is one of the birds that is attracted to the rich crimson berries.

The place I would expect to find a Northern Flicker, unlike most other woodpeckers, is on the ground. They hunt for ant larvae and beetle grubs, pecking into the soil the way other woodpeckers would be pecking into a tree trunk.

During this part of the year though, it is in the Smooth Sumac where I often see these handsome birds.

And if my stars are lined up just right, I might be lucky and capture a flash of marvelous yellow.

Or perhaps I can catch one signaling to others, letting them know that it is safe to land.

Lightning Bug?

A little beetle crawling along a branch. He looks like something I would have caught and put into a jar when I was little – a Lightning Bug. But here he is roaming around, not on a hot, humid summer evening, but in WINTER. This doesn’t make sense. So much of Mother Nature’s world is a mystery, but that’s why I’ve got all those books in my library. Books for the baffled master naturalist. Go digging in those books.

Mystery solved! This beetle is a Winter Dark Firefly, Ellychnia corrusca. A cousin to my childhood memory, Lightning Bug. This Winter Dark Firefly, as larva and pupa, produces his own light. As a young adult he will still glow but as he ages he loses that glow. As an adult he finds a snug winter home under tree bark and emerges in late winter or early spring, where I find him crawling along a branch.

Eyed Click Beetle

A goal of my hike this morning was to find a cover shot for my Facebook timeline. I was collecting images of tree bark, lichen, and beautiful mosses, all possible candidates. At a mature sassafras tree, as I worked around some poison ivy vines, I came upon a surprise: two BIG eyes looking back at me. Turns out, it was an Eyed Click Beetle, Alaus oculatus, one mighty funny looking creature.

This beetle is pretty large, almost 2 inches long. He has enormous fake eyespots on his back, which are a means of protection. The eyespots and the pattern on his back are composed of scales, much like on the wings of butterflies. These eyespots are to startle predators, perhaps making them think that they have run into a critter much larger than the Eyed Click Beetle actually is. The Eyed Click Beetle’s real eyes, one on either side of its small head, are located at the base of its saw-toothed antennae.

The name “click beetle” comes from another means of protection. When a click beetle finds himself on his back, or when being held by a predator, the beetle will create an unnerving snapping or clicking sound by bending his head backwards and suddenly snapping it straight. This action creates the sound, and sends the click beetle several inches into the air. That is something that sure would shock me, if I wasn’t expecting it. The catapulting can put the beetle right side up, but if it doesn’t, he’ll try again until he is successful.

The larvae of most click beetles are called wireworms. Some of them are serious pests that feed on the roots of crops including potatoes, strawberries, corn and wheat, and also the roots of lawns. These destructive wireworms find their food by following the carbon dioxide produced by their foodplants in the soil. They often use preexisting tunnels to travel through the soil to get to their food. However, the larvae of the Eyed Click Beetle are well behaved predators, that prefer to eat caterpillars and the larvae of wood boring beetles and flies. The Eyed Click Beetle lives in the larva form (as a wireworm) for two to five years and spends that time underground or in rotting logs.

I’m hoping I’ll find another Eyed Click Beetle as I hike up my mountain tomorrow. Perhaps I can get him to do a catapult for me.

*Bloggers note:

This blog was originally posted in a slightly different form, in the summer of 2013. At that time, I was participating in a group blog (BeautifulWildlifeGarden.com), with smart, dear, nature loving friends. Unfortunately that website has gone belly up. I am resurrecting this post so that those of you who have not seen it, can read more of my ramblings.

Dung Beetle

This funny critter has an intriguing way of life. He is a Dung Beetle. I believe his species is Canthon imitator. He hunts for piles of manure using his sensitive sense of smell. I doubt if this sign (below) would be of any use to the Dung Beetle. They probably can’t even read. I suppose the sign is for humans, not Dung Beetles, but that’s what he is looking/sniffing for, manure, poop, dung, feces of herbivores or omnivores, though they prefer omnivores as their source.

The Dung Beetle will roll dung balls up to 10 times their weight. They move quickly – a male and a female – so that their treasured manure does not get stolen by other Dung Beetles. Usually it is the male the does the rolling, occasionally with the female riding atop the ball. The Dung Beetle rolls the ball in a straight line despite things that might get in their way, until the male and female find a spot of soft soil for burying the ball of manure. After mating the female will lay eggs with the manure ball providing provisions for the larvae.

The Dung Beetle is a good critter to have around. They improve soil, by burying and consuming manure. By removing the manure there is less habitat for pests such as flies too. As I was doing research for this blog, I actually came upon a site where Australian farmers can actually order Dung Beetles!

This type of Dung Beetle is called a roller because of the manner in which they remove their treasured find to a location away from other hijacking Dung Beetles, rolling the ball along. Several species of the Dung Beetle were highly regarded in ancient Egypt. You’ll recognize these beetles as the Sacred Scarab.

In Isan, Northeastern Thailand, the local people eat many different kinds of insects, including the Dung Beetle. Ugh! I think I will just continue watching, being amused and intrigued by the rolling of the ball of dung, and while they take food home for the babies!