US Mid-Atlantic Terrestrial Arthropods
Periodical Cicada (Seventeen-year Cicada), Magicicada septendecim (Linnaeus 1758). 17-year cicada (Brood II). Near Brentsville, Prince William County, Virginia, USA. Photo by David L. Govoni ©2013.
EOL: eol.org/pages/2868636/entries/24943727/overview
Wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magicicada
Magicicada.org: www.magicicada.org/
Periodical Cicada (Seventeen-year Cicada), Magicicada cf. M. septendecim (Linnaeus 1758). 17-year cicada (Brood II). Near Brentsville, Prince William County, Virginia, USA. Photo by David L. Govoni ©2013.
EOL: eol.org/pages/2868636/entries/24943727/overview
Wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magicicada
Magicicada.org: www.magicicada.org/
Six-spotted Tiger Beetle, Cicindela sexguttata Fabricius, 1775. U.S. Geological Survey, Reston, Virginia, USA. Photo by David L. Govoni ©2013
Bugguide.net: bugguide.net/node/view/605
EOL: eol.org/pages/1036414/overview
Just another friendly bug. I think I'm getting the hang of this!
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.
Chris's daughter Linnet checking out a katydid.
The 5-legged variety. Body length 10 mm.
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.
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.
"Polymorphism," huh? We always just called it plain old ... oh, never mind.
Sandy got a good shot of these guys too: www.flickr.com/photos/sandybird/17142281/
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?
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. :-)
View large here. Butterfly came out great. Background, on the other hand, leaves something to be desired. This is probably a candidate for a cutout and background blur at some point, but right now I'm just trying to get through the backlog -- I'm taking pictures a lot faster than I'm getting them processed & 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.
