#48 - Flora and Fauna of Drums #1 – Bugs!
Grass Sparks, Enchanting Webs, the Music of Summer and
Beauty Takes Wing!
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| “…the words ‘Natural History’ really mean the history of all Nature’s works, both those which have not animal life and those which have.” Mary E. C. Boutell, author of Picture Natural History with about Four Hundred Illustrations,[1] probably published in the 1890’s and one of the many books found in the Drum Family Library. |
And that’s just the animal kingdom. Then there are the plants, the trees and shrubs and grass and vines and flowers and mushrooms! There were apples to be eaten, poison ivy to make you itch, lilacs to fragrance the air, raspberries to enjoy if you can escape the thorns, daisies to brighten one’s day (especially if you got “bitten” by a raspberry thorn), cherries to make you sick (wait till you hear THIS story), Skunk Cabbage to crinkle your nose, and grapes for jelly, juice, jam and even pie!
Here we see the masthead of a newspaper that was published in the early 1900’s in St. Johns which covered the Drums Valley. It is a depiction of daily life at the time the paper was being published and clearly depicts the importance that natural history (mostly agriculture depicted here) played in the lives of their readers. The edition that this masthead is from is dated May 13, 1913.
The importance of plants and animals to Drums residents is confirmed by their inclusion in this masthead. “Devoted to the welfare of the farmer and his family”, we see cows, chickens, corn, a horse, a tomato, a pumpkin, a potato, a peach, an apple, a pear, and what probably are oats (by the horse), but also included are some ornamental plants, some shade trees, a few evergreen trees, and forest trees in the background. A farmer is depicted harvesting what is probably wheat with what appears to be a McCormick Reaper (located under the “A” in “Vigilant”).
That the natural history of Drums played a role in the life of Drums and the Drum’s that lived here, goes without saying; creating more stories than can be told, than can even be remembered. In our next series of posts, beginning with this one, Drums of Drums, PA will introduce you to some of the life forms other than people, and tell some of these stories, to allow you to “experience” the natural history of Drums and Drumyngham, then and now.
Let’s start with one of my greatest joys, the world of insects and spiders.
One of my earliest memories involves an insect. One day, when I was but four or five or maybe younger, I found a very unlucky ground beetle. Grasping it in my little fist, I ran to my mom and, as I proudly shoved my hand close up to her face and opened my fist, said, “Look, Mommy! Look what I found!”
By the way, did I mention that my mom, back then, really disliked insects of any kind? You might say that she was scared of them. However, with a kid like me, she grew to like them over time. Well, “like” may be a tad strong.
From one of my earliest memories, let’s jump to one that is very recent, September of 2017. That was the month I returned to Drumyngham after “wandering about” for some 40 years (kind of sounds Biblical! It wasn’t.). Each morning I’d head outside about 4:30 or so, as I still do, to collect my newspaper. Right away I began to see what looked like sparks in my lawn. At first, I thought they were Firefly/Lightening Bugs, albeit lazy ones because none of these were flying. Usually, SOME fireflies are in the air (it’s a mating thing) but none of these were flying. Lightening Bugs also usually flash in some rhythmic code, flying or not, but these just either flashed one short flash, glowed for a slightly longer moment or, sometimes, they stayed on for a longer period (maybe as long as 30 seconds or more).
I tried to find the culprits a number of times but, being unsuccessful, got my paper and went back in. Eventually Fall gave way to Winter and they stopped shining. Out of sight, out of mind, and so, I thought nothing more about them until it happened again the following September. Now my curiosity was really peaked. Soon I was down on all fours, crawling around my front yard, at 4:00 in the morning, in my bathrobe and pajamas, with a flashlight, poking at the ground. Well, I think, if I were someone else; a neighbor, for example; I might have called the cops! So, I stopped doing that. I didn't find anything anyway other than muddy knees.
Here we had a true mystery, the “Mystery of the Sparking
Lawn”. So, who best to help me solve such a mystery? Why, Penn
State Extension, of course! They were the “Siri”
before Siri was invented! They could answer questions like “what’s that black
stuff on my peach tree?” and “why are my White Pine Tree needles turning
brown?” and “what’s the best way to get rid of Colorado Potato Beetles?” Heck,
they even knew how to get coffee stains out of white shirts! Surely, they’d
know what is “sparking” in my lawn! After all, they’d already helped me once
before!
In no time flat she responded. She told me that firefly bioluminescence (the ability of life forms to emit light) exists throughout the firefly life cycle: larva, pupa, and adult. That was something I didn’t know. Then she educated me even more! She said that the larva typically live underground but the studies she was reading indicated that they come out at night to hunt other insects/larva for food. The larva, she said, depending on the species, can grow for up to a year. Eventually they pupate and then become adults. The adults are the “sparks” we see flying around on warm summer evenings. Her final thought on the subject was that if these were firefly larva coming out to hunt prey, “This would explain why nothing is flying away and how you could be seeing them early in the morning.” That all makes sense and jives with what I knew about the subject as well, plus, if the larva were reaching the time they would begin to pupate in September, they would be larger than when first out of the egg, thus, more noticeable.
I love fireflies. I am very glad so many are living
beneath my lawn! I find them magical! By the way, fireflies are not “flies” or
even, although also known as “lightening bugs”, not “bugs”, in the
Entomological sense. They are beetles. [4]
I guess it is obvious, but I love all kinds of insects. Fireflies are the ones that make me feel like a child again.
I may like insects better, but it was a spider that gave me one of my proudest moments! I was in Maryland explaining the life-cycles of insects during a 4-H Entomology project meeting, keeping the six or seven 10-12-year-olds in my audience enthralled (ok, they were listening, at least), when one of the fathers, the owner of the home we were meeting in, came up to us with a can in his hand. “This cricket, or whatever it is, was jumping and running around in the basement just now so I caught it and wondered if you could identify it for me.” He tipped the can over to “pour” the creature into my cupped hands so I could examine, and hopefully identify, it. The next piece of the story happened rather quickly. I looked down at my hand, opening it only slightly so the creature did not escape, and saw emerging from between my thumb and forefinger, two long, hairy legs. I immediately realized that the creature in my hand was not a cricket or even an insect, but a spider – probably a wolf spider. I am not sure what my “host” expected me to do next, but I am fairly certain he was looking forward to a good laugh when I screamed and jumped away from the spider.
But I didn’t.
I simply turned back to him, calmly dropped the spider back into his can and said, “First of all, this is not a cricket, it is a spider.” All of the 4-H’ers oooed and aaahhhhed, first at my composure and then at the creature safely back in the can. “Let me see! Let me see!” came their next comments. “I’d probably toss that guy outdoors someplace, if I were you,” I suggested to my host. “Don’t kill it, they are great friends to have around! They eat insects, you know.” I then tried to continue with my “lesson” where I had left off, getting the kids back under control first. I did use the experience as a good way to explain the differences between insects and spiders.[6]
As an aside, one probably should not handle spiders, especially with one’s bare hands, if one can at all escape it. Not only is it disruptive to the spider, some spiders can inflict a very painful bite and a few spiders inject venom that is harmful, even fatal, to humans. Wolf spiders, although quite scary in appearance, need to be pushed quite far before they attack a human. Even if they do bite you, the bite is usually not harmful, but obviously does hurt (like a bee sting, I’m told) when inflicted. I learned that later, when I did some research to see how close I actually had come to a serious incident.
But since I mentioned arachnids, let’s take a moment to have a look at some of the spiders that grace the Drumyngham acres. I bet a book could be written just on the various spiders that crawl across the six acres of Drumyngham’s land. So, we ain’t gonna discuss them all – not even close. Just a few to whet your appetite. Well, that’s probably the wrong word for this but I’ll let it stand.
My Drums friend, Linda Yanac, often reminds me of “those huge spiders in your orchard!” It must have been 45 years ago that she saw them but she still talks about them! The one’s she saw were probably Argiope aurantia (Yellow Striped Garden Spiders). At one time there were quite a few of these large (1½” - 2” head to end of abdomen!), beautiful, yellow and black striped spiders hanging out on the “Drumyngham plantation”. I don’t see them much anymore.
Here is the portrait I made of her on a fine Fall morning (September 17, 2018). You tell me, A. bruennichi or what?
Most of the Drumyngham spiders are smaller and live
closer to the ground. Tunnel Spiders, sometimes called Funnel Spiders, cover
large areas, sometimes entire bushes, with their webs. Then they sit at the end
of a tunnel in the web and dart out to catch its prey when something lands on
their web. Kind of gruesome but it’s a living.
If you want to find spider webs in your backyard, the best time to look is early on a nice fall day, when the dew is still on the grass. Choose Fall because that’s when spiders are reaching adulthood and, therefore, their largest size, so easiest to see. Early in the morning is when dew usually forms and it is hard to miss a spider web covered in dew! That’s what the whiteish stuff is in these photos – dew. The spiders must hate it, or perhaps, they figure they can catch a drink from it if they are thirsty.
When I was younger and not as cautious of the spiders I
played with, I used to like to chase Jumping Spiders
around our porch. I’m not so much inclined to do that anymore which I’m sure
makes the spiders very happy.
Another of my favorites are the crab spiders, so called because they resemble crabs. These guys sit on flowers and capture anything that ventures near them. They have a great trick of camouflage. They match themselves to the color of the blossom they are sitting on. Seems like a mean trick but, as I said above, you gotta eat! This fellow is sitting on some Goldenrod. Um, surprise(?)!
I imagine crab spiders, like my friend shown above, have
a lot of flower flies over for lunch, so to speak. I really like those little
flower flies. Not to eat. Just to have come visit! They are called Flower Flies
because they often visit flowers. Sometimes they are called Hover Flies (because
they have a habit of hovering in front of your nose while they check you out.
They are very curious.) and sometimes they are called Bee or Wasp Flies (Um,
for obvious reasons). On a hot summer day, you can almost always expect to be
visited by one or more of these small, quick, colorful, curious, friends! They
seem to enjoy nothing more than to alight on your arm and sip up any salty
perspiration they may find there.
There are a number of species of these guys. The one pictured here is not the “hover” kind. This one looks all too much like a wasp. I imagine not too many predators choose this one first. Of course, the crab spider doesn’t care as long as you fly close enough to him.
Most people prefer he not fly close to them, however. He
looks too much like a wasp for most people’s comfort. You can tell this one isn’t
a wasp because he has “fly eyes” and “fly antenna” but mostly because he only
has two wings. Wasps have four. Of course, by the time you are done counting
wings, it usually is too late. Also, I’m
being much too free with my use of gender-specific pronouns here. This specimen
is probably a female.
There is a specific species of fly that holds,
officially, the name Bee Fly, by the way. To bee honest – I mean, to BE honest,
calling these flies “Bee Flies” does not make sense to me because I do not
think these guys look like bees. However, I suppose SOMEONE thinks so, because
that’s how they are called. These flies MIGHT be confused easier with
Bald-Faced Hornets but B-FH’s are not bees, they are hornets. However, I
digress.
Speaking of bees, however, brings me to yet another of my favorite insects, the Honey Bee! I guess the Honey Bee is so near and dear to my heart because my dad was a beekeeper. As long as I knew my dad (from my birth to age 28; Dad died in 1986, age 62) he kept bees. Now, whenever I see a honeybee, I think of my dad. And that makes me smile.
Now, Bees are not Flies. Scientists group Flies into an “Order” that they call Diptera. “ptera” means wings and “di” means two. Therefore, any insect with only two wings is classified as Diptera. Bees have four wings, same as wasps, same as hornets, same as ants[7]. Most also sting - the females do, that is. The males don’t sting. Too long an explanation to give here, but it has to do with their ovipositor. See? I told you it was too long an explanation. Bees, wasps, hornets, and ants are classified together as Hymenoptera (membrane winged).
I have MANY stories about Honey Bees, of course, like the time one sat on my cheek when I was 5 or 6, but I didn’t move or anything because Dad always said they “won’t sting you unless you aggravate them. Just sit still and they will leave you alone”. Of course, it stung me.
One of my favorite honeybee stories is about the woman
who stopped to buy some honey one day. Dad sold it from a self-serve stand by
the road. She saw 11-year-old me so asked me how we make it. I told her that we
didn’t make it, that the honey bees make it and that we only collect it from
them. She laughed and said, “No, really, what’s the recipe, or aren’t you
allowed to give it out?” After a few more rounds of this, with her becoming
more insistent each time, I finally leaned over to her, confidential-like, and
told her my dad would beat me if he knew I told her “so don’t tell him I told
you this, ok?” She promised me she wouldn’t tell on me so I proceeded to tell
her how we make honey.
It went something like this: First, we catch the bees, clip off their abdomens, and crush the abdomens up into a mash. After mixing in some water, we bring the mash mixture to a boil for a set length of time, but I didn’t know how long. Next, we strain off the liquid, which now looks like very watery honey, mix in some corn syrup and some flowers and seeds that only my dad knows, and bring that mixture back to a boil. We allow it to boil until it gets to the consistency of honey, strain it again to remove the flower and seed material, and other impurities; let it cool, bottle it, and sell it. She loved the story and I achieved my goal of getting her to leave.
I often wonder if she ever told anyone that she knew the real secret behind how honey is made.
Just to make sure you know; my dad never beat me, for any reason, ever. Also, nobody kills honey bees to make honey. Honey bees really do make it so they have food to live through the winter. In the Fall, the beekeeper collects some of the honey, leaving enough so the bees can live through the winter. The beekeeper then pasteurizes it, strains out impurities, bottles it, and gives or sells (and/or eats) it.
Honest.
But we were speaking about flies, actually, not bees. So, let’s have a look at my friend the Crane Fly! This fairy-like creature (often called Fairy Flies) is so harmless, I can’t stand it! Yet, should one fly near a person on a hot summer evening, you can almost put money on the person whacking and slapping at it until it is dead or escaped. Usually, the person then sits down and tries to catch their breath, all the while gasping, “DID YOU SEE THE SIZE OF THAT MOSQUITO!?!?!”
Ok, before we move on to a different Order, there is one more fly that hangs out on the Drumyngham estate, and it takes gall to do such a thing as that, you know, that I want to discuss. Gall Flies.
Actually, I’ve rarely seen this fly, but I know it is here in some numbers.
As I said, I have many favorite insects. Walking Sticks are of special interest to me. I used to find them in my apple tree treehouse. They look all the world like a twig with legs. Walking Sticks are GREAT insects!! One year, as a 4-H’er, I tried to raise them, egg to adult. Problem was, I didn’t have screen small enough to keep them caged up when first hatched so all my sticks crawled away!
I enjoy Katydids too. The Katydid is a type of grasshopper (Orthoptera). On warm, autumn evenings those are the scratchy noise-makers one hears usually in the tops of trees. Many people think that the scratchy noise they make resembles the words “Katy did, Katy did” Get enough of them near your house and you’ll wish that she hadn’t and that they wouldn’t! The web page I’ve linked includes a recording of the “Dids” singing that helps one “know” how loud they can be, but I wish they’d have recorded just one. The recording doesn’t do the insect, or its song, justice.
As is true for most of the things that insects do; make
sounds, emit odors, flash lights, expose flashy colors; it’s usually[8]
all about finding a mate! Cecropia Moths, by the way, do it through an odor
that can carry for miles. In the case of the Katydid, therefore, it does make
one wonder just exactly what it was that Katy did!
While True Katydids like the treetops. False, or
Angle-winged Katydids prefer tall grass! This is a picture of one of those
Angle-winged ‘Dids. There are quite a few species of katydid-like grasshoppers
that make the acres around Drumyngham home. We call them “Long-Horned
Grasshoppers” because they all usually have very long antenna (which makes them
very difficult to preserve. Those darn, long, thin, hair-like antenna break off
very quickly with just the slightest bump!).
As a 4-H’er, I spent many afternoons trying to sneak up on one of these Long-Horns chirping away (buzzing[9] is more like it) in the wheat and oat fields Mr. Young planted next to our land. After audibly zeroing in on the specific insect’s call, I’d visually locate the little fellow, then try to get within arm’s length of it. When close enough, I’d reach out as fast as possible, trying to catch the critter in my hand. It took literally hours to catch just one because they sense/see you coming and stop “singing”. If you hold still long enough, the critter “forgets” about you and starts to “sing” again. You move closer which causes the grasshopper to stop singing again. This goes on until you snag the fellow in your hand or it gets too uncomfortable in your presence and hops away. Or you collapse from sunstroke.
There are also short-horned grasshoppers, so called
because, you guessed it, they have short antenna. These guys are generally not
grass green but are just as hard to see, until they spring up and out of your
reach, that is. One species that is very common in Drums is the Carolina
Grasshopper. You’ll be walking along a dirt path, minding your own
business, when all of a sudden, a piece of the ground pops into the air and, in
a flash of black and white or black and yellow, a grasshopper flies off a
short, safe, distance and disappears again into the path. I’ve linked a web
page so you can see pictures of this critter. You’ll note the Praying Mantises
in some of the photos. I’ll get to that critter in a few paragraphs.
Drumyngham short-horns seem mostly made up of Red-legged Grasshoppers
(left) and Spur-throat Grasshoppers (below – yes, this is one is green) in addition to the Carolinas.
Most grasshoppers, when handled, will push, or spit, out a brownish liquid from their mouths we called tobacco juice as kids because that is what it looks like - the spit spat by a tobacco chewer. Nothing to worry about unless you are a bird with one of these guys in your beak. I’m guessing it doesn’t taste very good but I wouldn’t know. I’m not a bird.
Moving away from Orthoptera, how does Isoptera (termites) strike you?
So far Drumyngham has not been visited by termites, thank
goodness. In North America termites
are very small, ant-like critters that wreak havoc in wood structures. Termites
tunnel through dead wood causing most people to believe the insects are eating
the wood. Technically, they are not. It may sound gross but, generally
speaking, what they are eating is the cellulose in poop from the bacteria that
life in the termite’s stomach. It’s the bacteria that are eating the wood bits
the termite swallows. Nature. Who can figure her out?
We can be glad we don’t have termites like they have in Africa. Those fellows are huge – an inch or more long! Our termites will build channels of dirt from the soil to reach our foundations. The African termites build large nests that rise up from the surface in great cone-shapes. The photo is of me sitting on a termite mound in Botswana in 1980. I remember sleeping in a Rondoval and awaking feeling dust falling on my face as the termites ripped the grass thatch roof apart over my bed!
Drumyngham’s battles are with Carpenter Ants. These big, black ants are just looking for a home and what better place to make a home than inside a piece of wood – say, a good old two-by-four joist? They aren’t eating the wood either, just tunneling through it to make a place to raise their young. I’d much prefer they do that in a fallen tree in the forest, however, than in the walls of Drumyngham.
If I could, I’d train a few Praying Mantises to stand guard at the ant nest entrance. The Mantis’s pay would be the ants they catch and consume. I know I’ve said this before, but Praying Mantises are one of my favorite insects.
She was looking at me through the window! She stayed for a short while, but finally flew off to a better hiding place. I suppose she was drawn to the window by the light. Most insects will move toward a light at night, sometimes to their demise (think flames or, worse yet, bug zappers!).
The Praying Mantis is one of the most beneficial insects to have around. In fact, my friend may actually have been there to catch one of the other insects who were drawn to the light. If you see one, say “Thank you” and send it on its way.
I more often see their egg cases in the spring than the insect, itself. I did happen upon this little one, one day, so “made its picture” (as my Grandmother would have said).
The Mantis has an Incomplete Metamorphosis (or hemimetabolous). Other insect examples for this metamorphosis method include Orthoptera, stink bugs, walking sticks, dragonflies, again to name just a few. These guys follow the three-phase method: egg, nymph, adult. In this case we find the babies look similar to the adults, some more than others, but it’s the wings that we focus on here. Those with wings usually are not adults if their wings do not extend past the end of their abdomen (the Spur-Throated Grasshopper pictured above breaks that mold. That photo is of an adult).
Since our little Mantis friend in this photo has wings that are almost too short to see, much shorter than its abdomen, she (I think she is a “she”) is still a nymph - a very young, therefore quite small, nymph.
If you know what a Silverfish is, that’s an example of an insect with the third metamorphosis type which is actually none at all (ametabolous)! These fellows just pop out of the egg looking all the world like a full-fledged adult, albeit much tinier! They just grow and grow (and eat and eat!).
If you are still reading, I guess I haven’t grossed you out completely, so can move on to my favorite Insect Order, Lepidoptera, the Butterflies and Moths! I like Dragonflies and beetles too but I don’t want to press my luck.
Ok, three quick beetle stories but that’s it. I hope I haven’t told these in earlier posts. If so, sorry.
I spent 18 months living in Botswana. Being on the other side of the Earth from the U.S., well almost, one would expect nothing to be like it is here. In many ways I was not wrong, even the STARS were different! The Big Dipper was replaced by the Southern Cross. However, of course, there was much that was the same. For example, we have insects and they have insects. In most cases, theirs are bigger.
I’d often heard of the Dung Beetles of Africa and they are special.
This is a photo of just a few of the 200 insects, just a few of just the beetles, that I collected while in Botswana. Beetles (Coleoptera) have hard, shell-like forewings that close over soft, membranous hindwings. The fellow with its wings outspread is a Dung Beetle. I spread the wings so they could be seen, and admired if you so choose to do. There is another one, wings closed, on the left lower in the photo.
In Botswana, the sun is very hot mid-afternoon in the summer. I spent a number of hours sitting in the sun on the ground one day (at first much to the amusement of, but later the confusion of, the villagers) watching a pair of Dung beetles bury a ball of cow dung (food for the larva that will hatch from the egg Mom laid on the dung ball). Other Dung Beetles were attracted to the odiferous cow dung as well. I felt like I was sitting on the runway of a very smelly airport. Gosh those beetles are big!
Now check out the black beetle with the yellow spots in the upper right corner of the photo. I was visiting a village as part of my role as Advisor to the Botswana Ministry of Agriculture’s 4-H-like program called 4-B. While talking with some of the 4‑B Volunteers, I noticed a plant near-by covered with these beetles. Wanting to study them more, I reached over and plucked one off the bush and wrapped it in my handkerchief. I planned to keep it in my pocket until I was able to put it into the insect killing jar back in my room at the end of the day so I could study it later. As I began to pick it up, a villager ran up to me, very excited, almost terrified, yelling “No Rra, no Rra!” (No, mister, no, mister). The 4-B professional I was with calmed the man down slightly by telling him it was ok, that I “was a Scientist!” Hours later, when I was able to move my catch from my pocket to my jar, the insect sprayed copious amounts of a yellowish fluid that filled the jar with a cream-colored foam. Turns out these insects are called Blister Beetles because they defend themselves by spraying their attacker with a fluid that is caustic to the skin. I came that close to a trip to a hospital, the closest of which was many miles away!
You can see the channels I exposed on the side and near the top of the pipe in this photo of the pipe. Below is a photo of the beetles I collected. The larger one, probably female, is about 13 millimeters long. The smaller one, probably male, is about 5 millimeters. This story could be considered funny, it’s certainly an odd story, but it’s actually quite frightening! Since these beetles are not native to the United States, they have no natural predators here, and one was a male and one a female, so who knows what horror I saved North America from knowing. I was VERY lucky to find these guys. I am very grateful they did not get into the environment. If they had, I would have taken my place beside the guys who gave us the Japanese Beetle, Gypsy Moth, Emerald Ash Borer, and our newest invasive species, the Spotted Lantern Fly!
Don’t let this happen to you. Freeze everything you bring home for at least 24 to 48 hours.
I believe, however, that I was about to discuss Lepidoptera – Moths and Butterflies. “Lepi” means “scaly”. Yes, these are the scaly-winged insects. If you’ve ever handled a moth or butterfly, you probably have gotten dust off the wings onto your hands. If you were to examine this dust under a microscope, you would see that it is actually made up of scales. Thus, the name given to these critters.
I was a 4-H’er for 10 years (1967 – 1977) and I studied Entomology as my 4-H Project during that time. The photo is of one of the three boxes of insects I collected during that period (As an aside, my dad made the box).
The butterflies are on the right and the moths are in the middle and to the left. Most of the butterflies were caught around Drumyngham. Quite a few of the moths were as well, however, we did a lot of family camping when I was growing up and many of the moths were caught during those camping trips at the latrine lights. You may remember the Cecropia Moths that were discussed and pictured earlier in this post. There in the lower left-hand corner of this photo we see some of the ones we raised. The full life cycle is there, right to left, egg, larva, pupa, and adults male (smaller) and female (larger).
One summer we found these beautiful (Mom called them scary) green caterpillars on a bush near our home. Some of them became the beginning stock of our Cecropia Farm. The “farm” lasted through the following year and into the next year’s Spring. It was a remarkable experience from which we learned a great deal. The greatest joy was letting most of the moths fly away once they were ready to go.
Another of my favorite moths, the light green moth just above the male Cecropia Moth, is a Luna Moth. To the left is a photo of a Luna Moth cocoon (the object to the left of the owl drawing) that I found in the Drumyngham Park. Yes, it is also hanging on my bedroom wall. Now before you pity my wife too much, remember, she married me! (And I’m grateful for that, but that would be information for a different Drums of Drums, PA post, completely!) The picture also shows two drawings I made. In case you are interested, the one above the cocoon is a Downey Woodpecker and the other one is a Snowy Owl (in case you couldn’t tell). I drew them on some Birch Tree bark. FYI, the bark was on the ground; I didn’t strip it off the tree.
An interesting method of preserving Lepidoptera, useful if you are trying to create a “data base file” for Lepidoptera identification, is placing wings on index cards. Here are four examples of this method I attempted. I didn’t like this method, however, since it required my cutting the wings off the insect’s body. It was bad enough to have had to kill the insect, but then to mutilate the bodies as well!
On the left, top, is a Youthful Underwing Moth (that’s what it is called, not an adjective). This card shows the wings from above and the wings from below. I think Underwing Moths are very attractive insects. Below the Underwing is a male Common Eastern Swallowtail butterfly. This “exhibit” is showing the wings only from above. The Swallowtail and the Underwing were both collected in Luzerne County; the Underwing was caught July 11, 1969 and the Swallowtail was caught June 20, 1969.
On the top right we see a female Common Eastern Swallowtail butterfly, caught in Luzerne County on June 16, 1972. Below it is an Isabella Tiger Moth caught July 16, 1969. All four of these specimens were probably caught near Drumyngham, the moths were probably caught on Drumyngham’s porch, drawn there by the porch light at night. My labels only note the county, unfortunately. As for the cards, I believe these cards were made around 1975 using insects I had obviously caught earlier.
The Isabella Tiger Moth is of interest because it is the adult of a friend many people enjoy seeing in the fall, the wooly bear caterpillar. My friend seen in this photo hanging out on my finger, was found crawling along Drumyngham’s Library wall (outside, that is) on October 22, 2018. Since I put this fellow back, I like to think it became a moth that following spring and kept the cycle moving along as nature intended.
I can’t recall if it was a hard winter that year or not
but that’s ok, I can’t recall the brown-band-width-code
either, anyway! The story is that you can predict the winter weather by the
width of the brown band, at least that’s the story.
There are enough insects in, and around, Drumyngham to keep this post going for near to ever. So, although this IS one of my favorite topics, it feels like an end is near, or should be.
And what better way to end than with an insect I’d never seen prior to the specimen shown in the photo below! I don’t think that means the critter is rare, just I’d never come across it before. On September 2, 2018, at around 12:30pm, my eye fell upon an old, dry leaf stuck to our garage door. I wondered how it got stuck there so looked closer. Of course, then I realized it was not a leaf at all but this lovely moth (no, I didn’t kill it. I left it there to make its way in the world as best it could!). The question is, what kind of moth is it?
Most moths, butterflies, grasshoppers, bees, frogs, horses, lions, people etc, etc, etc, are given “common” names, usually guided by some characteristic of their coloring or context. Therefore, some insects become known by numerous names (Cicada vs. Fall Locusts; Hover Fly vs. Flower Fly vs. Bee Fly; Walking Stick vs. Stick Bug; Crane Fly vs. Fairy Fly, etc and so forth). All known life forms, however, are given scientific names: their Genus and their species (the Honey Bee is Apis mellifera; the Monarch Butterfly is Danaus plexippus, our Garden Spider noted earlier in this post is Argiope bruennichi, the house cat is Felis catus, the American Bald Eagle is Haliaeetus leucocephalus, humans are Homo sapiens) [note genus is capitalized and species is not]. Only one scientific name is ever assigned to a critter because that is the name scientists use to be sure they are all discussing the same critter.
The photo below, then, is of Sabulodes transversata. At least, I HOPE that is this critter’s name! Sometimes it is hard to tell. To be honest, I think S. transversata is smaller than my guy but now I’m REALLY in the weeds! So, here she is, you tell me her name (I believe this is a female). Of course, I can name her myself since that’s how common names work. Someone gives it a name they like and hopes it sticks! In fact, I think I will!
Here we see a fine specimen of the Drumyngham Geometer Moth! Enjoy!!
That’s it for now. I’m off to see what other critters are out there flying around old Drumyngham. Now that would have been a GREAT segue into a post about birds but I really want to look at the mammals that make the Drumyngham acres and the Drums Valley home, first. Then, MAYBE, we’ll look at birds. But for now, I’m off to make history, or, at least catch some history, natural history, that is, of the insect kind!
I’ve stolen this drawing from a book about moths, but that is not a moth our friend here is chasing. It looks more to me like an Ant Lion.[10]
[1] Boutell,
Mary E. C., Picture Natural History with about Four Hundred Illustrations,
(Chicago, ILL: Thompson & Thomas, 1890?), p. vii, Introduction.
[2]
Shoemaker, Henry W., ed., A Pennsylvania Bison Hunt, (Middleburg, PA,
1915; Reprinted Lewisburg, PA: Wennawoods Publishing, 1998).
[3]
How these nests are made is actually intriguing. I’ve watched for hours as wasps
and hornets of various species collect the material that they use to build
their nests. The wasp finds some wood it desires. Using its mandibles, it
bites. or shaves, off some of the wood. While chewing this material, it mixes
in some saliva to create a paper mâché-like substance. It then layers this
“paste” in a thin layer along the edge of the previous deposit slowly building
out a sheet of paper but one that is only a ¼ of an inch wide! Layer after
layer is required to make just a small bit of the nest. Once one realizes the
immensity of the project, one finds oneself shocked it could be true. Yet,
there is the nest in front of you that proves it! What I particularly like is
that they will choose different kinds of wood, some from painted barns or
houses. In the end you find one layer is red, another is white; one is black
and another is yellow and still another is the plain, grey color of unpainted
wood. All of which leaves me astounded at how wonderful and beautiful nature
is!
[4]
Insects are categorized mostly by their wing structure. Flies are insects with
two wings, generally. Bugs are insects with soft membranous hind wings and half
soft, half leathery forewings. When the wings are folded, it usually appears as
if there is a triangle on the creature’s back. Stinkbugs are the best known of
these insects. Beetles, generally, have a soft hind wing and a full leathery or
shell-like front wing that covers the hind wings when folded over the body at
rest. All insects have three body parts (Head, Thorax, and Abdomen) and six
legs. Spiders are not insects. We call them “arachnids”. They do not have
wings, thank goodness. They do have two body parts (cephalothorax and abdomen)
and eight legs. Most people, however, do not take the time to count legs or
body parts of either spiders or insects. They usually just reach for a
newspaper to swat the little fellow or a can of bug spray to smother the thing with
gallons of “bug killer”. Then and only then, if the person is still interested
or even cares, will he or she look for such things as number of legs or types
of wings.
[5] The
way I collected these webs may be of interest. I used a can of black spray
paint and a piece of white cardboard. Once a web is located that you want to
collect, return when the web is dry (no dew) and the spider is not on the web
(they scare easily). Mist the web with the paint. Prior to spraying the paint,
you may want to protect any plants or other objects behind the web from the
paint. Newspaper or more cardboard will do the trick but be careful not to
disturb the web. The webs are extremely fragile. Bring the white cardboard up
to the painted web until the web is touching the cardboard. Cut the silk strands
that anchor the web to the objects around it. The paint on the web strands
should adhere to the cardboard and hold the web in place. Allow the black paint
to dry. For more protection, spray the collected web-on-cardboard with a clear
varnish spray. Always label things you collect. Include location found (town,
county, state), date collected, collector’s name, what the item was found on
(in holly bush, for example), and, if you know, what the item is (ex: Garden
Spider orb web).
[6] If
you read note #4 above already, you already know the difference between insects
and spiders. If you didn’t read it, but are still interested in knowing, I’d
encourage you to read note #4!
[7] I
just know someone is going to call me on this so I better explain right up
front. Ants do, at specific points in their lives, have wings. They use them
when mating (again, almost everything about insects involves either escaping or
mating. What a life!). The queen and the drones fly up into the atmosphere,
mate, and fly back down. I don’t know why, but once the mating period ends, the
wings pop off and the creatures start digging down, or in, or wherever they are
going to go to live.
[8]
Sometimes it is about escaping an enemy. Usually, its one or the other!
[9]
The sound is the result of their rubbing their two fore-wings together.
[10]Holland,
W.J., The Moth Book: A Guide to the Moths of North America, (NY: Dover
Publications, 1968), [Republication of the original work published in 1903 by
Doubleday, Page, and Company], p. 26.
