larvae – Page 2

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.

GOOD Mosquito?

Legs covered in blue and purple sparkles with a gilded body, much larger than mosquitoes that we usually notice, the Elephant Mosquito, Toxorhynchites rutilus, is one mosquito that we should encourage.

The largest mosquito in North America, from tip to tip (of its legs) this mosquito measures one inch, and the adult female has a wing span of half an inch. That large size, and a proboscis that resembles an elephant’s trunk, gives this mosquito its common name. That proboscis is used for the gathering nectar from flowers.

Here is the REALLY good part (1), the Elephant Mosquito does not hunt humans down to get a blood meal. They won’t bite us as they cruise the gardens looking for sources of nectar. They won’t bite as they roam the neighborhood hunting for plant sap, honeydew, or juices from rotting fruit, which they also eat.

And REALLY good part (2), the larvae of Elephant Mosquitoes eat other mosquito larvae!

Wow! Include this insect on my list of best friends!

Silvery Checkerspots

About a week ago I noticed a favorite patch of Woodland Sunflower, Helianthus divaricatus, being quickly gobbled up by gregarious, tiny caterpillars. I took pictures of the less than one half inch critters, and started pouring over my many books on butterflies, moths, and caterpillars.

I always love a mystery – caterpillars eating beloved plants – good or bad? I was relieved to find that the sunflowers were being eaten by the larval stage of a lovely, native butterfly. The culprit? The butterfly, Silvery Checkerspot, Chlosyne nycteis. This is good! My woods, up here on the Blue Ridge are a butterfly garden!

Silvery Checkerspots have a wingspan of between 1.5 and 2 inches. Their host plants, or plants that their caterpillars eat, are Black-eyed Susans and Sunflowers. Adults chow down on the nectar of Red Clover, Common Milkweed, and Dogbane.

Almost grown caterpillars of the Silvery Checkerspot overwinter at the base of their host plants. I’m so pleased that the woods up here provide a good environment for Silvery Checkerspots!

AND I have no problem sharing the gardens around my cabin with native butterflies, even if sometimes things end up looking a bit battered. It is all for good.

Red Admiral

A beauty, though small, stirs my curiosity as he flutters by, giving me very little time to capture his image with my camera. A Red Admiral, Vanessa atalanta. A butterfly that you just might see if you put overripe fruit out on your back porch, since this is a favorite food. Also at the top of the culinary treats they enjoy, are sap flows in trees such as these, pictured below, created by Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers.

The Red Admiral has a wing span of about 2 inches or just a smidgeon more, and appears to have bunches of nervous energy, much like a fidgety little kid.

Here in central Virginia, in the Blue Ridge Mountains, there is an abundance of the native plant, Wood Nettle. As larvae, Red Admirals dine on plants of the nettle family, including Wood Nettle, Laportea canadensis. The image below is Wood Nettle, a perennial herbaceous plant with upper leaves that are alternate. The flowers you see in this photo are male flowers.

Female flowers form on the same plant, and bloom at the top of the plant, as shown in the next image.

This is not a plant that you want to brush against, since it causes an instant, unpleasant, burning and itching feeling. Fortunately this irritating sensation lasts for just a short time, but it’s best just to avoid it.

Given the wealth of Wood Nettle along the trails here in the mountains, I do not wonder at all why these beautiful butterflies accompany me as I hike these mountain trails.

Butterflies mostly black, with brilliant red, bright blue, and striking white dots. I welcome their company.