המועדפים של mbelitz

A female Giant Ichneumon wasp (Megarhyssa macrurus) oviposits into the side of a tree.

I was honored to have this observation selected as observation of the day for June 11, 2020, and again as observation of the week (week of June 21, 2020). It is covered in this blog post: A Trip to Texas Provides a Long Sought Photographic Opportunity - Observation of the Week, 6/21/20.

These pics illustrate the reason my wife and I have stopped keeping Tropical Milkeweed in our butterfly garden. Note the date of these images. This is a complex issue surrounding some complex biology, but basically, some portion of the Monarch population that visited us in October tended to lay eggs on the Tropical Milkweed. The resulting larvae and chrysalis develop well, but the adults end up hatching out in late December or early January--an invariably fatal outcome for these particular adult Monarchs. We often have no floral resources at that season (unless it is some indoor, potted milkweeds) and the pathway to viable habitats and nectar resources is impossibly long.

Spent 15 minutes watching this anhinga play with its food, bashing the fish against the rock, tossing it dramatically into the air, and even momentarily letting it slip away into the water before grabbing it again . Eventually, perhaps intimidated by approaching great blue heron, the anhinga itself slipped or fell fell into the water and lost the fish. Drama!

Fish observation: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/38238910

Workers about 3.5 mm long, found in a chamber in outer bark layers of a healthy longleaf pine tree. The chamber probably was originally made by a Givira francesca caterpillar.

See: https://www.antwiki.org/wiki/Crematogaster_pinicola

Cool paper on this species (before it was split from C. ashmeadi) and its association with G. francesca: https://www.bio.fsu.edu/~tschink/publications/2002-2.pdf

About 4.5 mm long, collected from galleries (tunnels) in the phloem of a mature loblolly pine. Pics show the clumps of resin ("pitch tubes") on the outer bark where the beetles tunneled in, and the browning of the needles in the crown. This tree was just starting to visibly wilt, but many of the next generation of Ips beetles had already completed their life cycle and emerged.

The presence of a silk mat within a closed leaf shelter is a definitive identifier for the spicebush swallowtail in the Northeast U.S. Although the inhabitant is no longer inside (either due to predation or larva moving to another site), it confirms that a caterpillar was once there.

Note sheen of the silk mat.

This monarch was parasitized by a tachinid fly during larval stage. Perhaps unusually, the caterpillar had successfully become a chrysalis first before the tachinid maggot emerged out of its host (usually the maggots emerge while the caterpillar is a prepupa, terminating the formation of a chrysalis). Only one maggot emerged which may explain why the metamorphosis continued. However, the resultant damage is still seen in the adult form. The adult was severely crippled with malformed wings.

08 Aug 2014.
Buckingham Springs, Bucks Co, PA.
A female Tawny-edged Skipper in the grips of a Jagged Ambush Bug which had been hiding among the Solidago flowers.
Skipper ID courtesy of Cliff Ivy:
bugguide.net/node/view/1038120