While weeding the lawn, I ran into some cool insect eggs on the underside of a small Polygonum sp. (maybe P. aviculare; will let some of it grow & see) that flourishes (if I’m not careful) in the bare spots under a shade tree. I’d already pulled the plant & wasn’t about to attempt to replant the thing & nurture weed & eggs, esp with no particular reason to believe it would be particularly interesting, so I just took some shots & left it at that.
Under the same tree, I ran into a cool little beetle with a distended abdomen that protruded from beneath the elytra. So I took some pics of that too, & left it at that. Those were the only 2 things I photographed that day.
The beetle matches Gastrophysa polygoni. This is a state and mid-Atlantic record on BugGuide; nearest BugGuide records are in Mass. But the stated range is S. Canada & N. US, mostly E. of the Rockies.
Lo and behold, G. polygoni’s foodplant is (you probably saw this coming) Polygonum sp. And the eggs I photographed match images online of Gastrophysa ova. So I’m going to go out on a limb and call them G. polygoni. Comments, corrections or $0.02 welcome.
5.8 mm long total; 5.4 mm to tip of elytra.
While weeding the lawn, I ran into some cool insect eggs on the underside of a small Polygonum sp. (maybe P. aviculare; will let some of it grow & see) that flourishes (if I’m not careful) in the bare spots under a shade tree. I’d already pulled the plant & wasn’t about to attempt to replant the thing & nurture weed & eggs, esp with no particular reason to believe it would be particularly interesting, so I just took some shots & left it at that.
Under the same tree, I ran into a cool little beetle with a distended abdomen that protruded from beneath the elytra. So I took some pics of that too, & left it at that. Those were the only 2 things I photographed that day.
The beetle matches Gastrophysa polygoni. This is a state and mid-Atlantic record on BugGuide; nearest BugGuide records are in Mass. But the stated range is S. Canada & N. US, mostly E. of the Rockies.
Lo and behold, G. polygoni’s foodplant is (you probably saw this coming) Polygonum sp. And the eggs I photographed match images online of Gastrophysa ova. So I’m going to go out on a limb and call them G. polygoni. Comments, corrections or $0.02 welcome.
1.0 mm long
Disturbed habitat, alongside road cut thru deciduous woods. Shots below show growth habit & curly leaves, with hiking boot (women's size 7) for scale.
-Brownish/greenish body, slightly small
-Piscataway, NJ, uncle's backyard, 63 degrees, sunny
-Appeared in backyard on ground
-Blended in with grass
-Sat for a few seconds then wasn't visible
-Ad-lib
-Grayish body, black beak, slightly small
-Piscataway, NJ, 10:33 AM, 60 degrees sunny, in uncle's backyard
-Made a chirping call possibly mating call or danger call
-Sat on branch and looked around constantly, before flying away
-1 minute observation
-Piscataway, NJ, 9:06 AM, 57 degrees, Uncle's backyard
-Appeared then ate something or was searching for something
-Then disappeared within the wooded area
-Ad-lib
Cute little fellers, even if one of the little so-and-sos did get my butternut squash last year.
Not listed for Middlesex County on NJOdes, but IDed by Jim Bangma -- Z-shaped thoracic stripe, among other things. Apparently he doesn't update the range maps on the basis of photo submissions, though, because it's still not listed in Middlesex County.
I thought I posted this a long time ago, but apparently it slipped through the cracks.
Scuddieria nymphs, I believe. Bodies ~5 mm long.
The vernal pools were just teeming with life, including these cool little branchiopod crustaceans (~2 cm long). www.flickr.com/photos/anitagould/8690475495/in/photostream shows a shot in the hand.
There are 2 sp of Eubranchipus in NJ: E. vernalis & E. holmanii (nepis.epa.gov/Adobe/PDF/P1002R0O.pdf). The latter seems to be much less common, & has been proposed for listing as a species of special concern in NJ. I'm therefore guessing this is the former, but don't know how to tell them apart, or even whether it's possible to tell the females apart.
The vernal pools were just teeming with life, including these cool little branchiopod crustaceans.
There are 2 sp of Eubranchipus in NJ: E. vernalis & E. holmanii (nepis.epa.gov/Adobe/PDF/P1002R0O.pdf). The latter seems to be much less common, & has been proposed for listing as a species of special concern in NJ. I'm therefore guessing this is the former, but don't know how to tell them apart, or even whether it's possible to tell the females apart.
24 mm. Found crawling around our bathroom, transported outside on this piece of paper. Watch, it'll be called a House Katydid or somesuch. EDIT: Pine Tree Cricket -- Thank you to Martytdx for the ID.
We were fixing the lawnmower when this cute little cricket happened by. I said, "Ooh, let me get my camera," and my husband said, "Oh no you don't! C'mon, focus! And I don't mean with a camera, either." So I popped the cricket into the ziploc holding some of the sockets from my socket wrench set while we finished with the lawnmower, the cricket picked out a 14mm 6-point socket as a nice hiding place, and here he is. Field Cricket, Gryllus sp. -- nymph, 10 mm long. Adults reach 15 - 25 mm (up to 1"). I love his texture in the sunlight. Better large.
Since when is our upstairs computer room a greenhouse?? That's where we found this one. I was maneuvering to get some pics, but then she started to make a run for it. She's missing a hind leg, but still managed some pretty alarming jumps. At that point my husband said "Oh no you don't!" He didn't want to play around with anything that might get away, hide, and start chirping all night (can't say I blame him). So I grabbed the nearest empty container, which happened to be an opaque white plastic pill bottle, and he managed to trap it on the first swipe. (At first I was afraid we had broken the leg off in the process, but I'm sure I would have found it there on the carpet if we had; it must have been missing already.)
I got this shot by the simple expedient of sticking the lens over the top of the bottle and using the flash, shining through the side of the bottle. Not perfect, but came out surprisingly well. Shot including the antennae below -- I usually can't bear to crop antennae out, but these were just so long you wouldn't have been able to see any of that wonderful spiky detail in the bug! Best viewed large.
The 5-legged variety. Body length 10 mm.
Huge katydid -- body 2.5 cm. Perhaps Amblycorypha? I think this must still be a nymph (there's a scary thought -- it's going to get bigger!); the wings don't seem full-length. I think this is who's been eating my Common Evening Primrose.
I think this is probably a Red-legged Grasshopper (Melanoplus femurrubrum) nymph -- some Melanoplus sp., at any rate. Pretty little guy!
Phyllopalpus pulchellus - Red-headed Bush Cricket. 8 mm long (not counting appendages).
According to BugGuide, this sp is "found in vegetation near streams and marshes, about a meter above the ground". With the Raritan close to 30' above flood stage, this guy was undoubtedly flushed from its former home, ending up in my backyard a few hundred meters away. I noticed several unusual bugs showing up here & suspected it was because of the hurricane, but didn't expect to confirm it so easily!
Also didn't expect to ID this guy so easily: had no clue, beyond long-horned orthoptera, but a BugGuide search on "red black cricket" produced an instant match.
I think this is 1 animal. Venwu225 suggests that it's a larva feeding (or trying to feed) on a pupa, but the other possibility is that it's a pupa with the empty larval skin still attached, which is supposed to be common. This is 2 different angles -- the left panel shows the larva well, & the right shows the base of the pupa, which is attached to the leaf.
This ladybug seemed like it might be doing some sort of display behavior. It kept spreading its wings several times, then refolding them.
For the What Is It group. Yes, it's a ladybug -- but what's it on?
Very docile, once they settled down. Tended to drop to the ground if disturbed (perhaps a defense mechanism against bats?), but happy to perch on a finger. Picked this one up and placed on this leaf for a nice photo op. Wingspan 8 cm.
Best viewed large. Sunday I took part in the East Brunswick Environmental Commision's 2nd annual Big Day bird count. We had 88 species within city limits, some nice odonata (Springtime Darner), and some beautiful Lady's Slipper orchids in both pink & white. But the sighting of the day was undoubtedly this huge male Promethea Moth. It had just emerged from its coccoon and was pumping its wings up. Bottom view here. I had ~5' with it, & then it lifted off & flew immediately up into the top of the canopy. Incidentally, my companions both went back to the cars for their (much more serious) cameras, but by the time they got back it was gone.
That's the cocoon below (a separate shot showing the whole thing: bugguide.net/node/view/51372/bgimage) -- it's made inside a rolled-up leaf. Host plant here is a sassafras sapling. Typical wingspan is 75-95 mm. More info on BugGuide.
I showed this shot to my father, & he said, "Hey, those are teeth." Took me a minute to figure out what he meant, & then I said, "Oh! Of course!" The toothed submarginal markings, especially along the edge of the forewing, look uncannily like -- well, teeth. Eyespots are commonly described as mimicry of eyes designed to scare away predators, and the extended tips of the forewings on some of these giant silk moths as mimicking a snake head in profile, but I've never seen a discussion that mentions mimicry of teeth. However, if you were a bird, wouldn't you think twice about messing with something that looked like a big open maw?
The background is too distracting on these photos, even at f2.6. When I have time I will probably do a cutout & blur it. But they were burning a hole in my hard drive; just had to get them posted. :-)
Best viewed large
This Red Admiral had seen better days & its wings were quite tattered, so I decided to use it for a headshot instead.
