Some more from my picture collection
Nov 15, 2016 00:28:57 #
I am really enjoying seeing the great pictures from everyone here, and always look forward to seeing new posts. Here are some more of my pictures that were taken two summers ago. During that time I became very keen about macrophotography. I am slowly posting the various pictures from that summer, and at this rate I think I will get to recent ones sometime this Spring. 
1. As you all know, goldenrod is a huge attractor for flower loving insects. I kept seeing assorted little wasps on goldenrod, and this one turned out to be especially interesting. This small lady is a bee wolf (Philanthus gibbosus), since it attacks bees, paralyzes them with a sting, and uses them to provision its nest as food for its young. They seem to be heavily armored for protection. You can also see a little spider 'photobomb' in this picture.
2. I see this wasp in Michigan, but I took this picture in New Jersey. This is the European paper wasp (Polistes dominula), which is an invasive species that is spreading across the US. Paper wasps are good hunters of insects, which they take to feed their young, but the European paper wasp is more flexible in its range of prey and it is better at taking good nesting sites. For these reasons it appears to be displacing our native Polistes, P. fuscatus.
3. Aphids are very weird. Where to begin? Well, their bright colors (red, yellow, orange, etc.) are because they have acquired pigment genes from the plants that they feed on (!) Many aphids have a rather weird life cycle where all aphids in a colony are female during much of the season. They give birth by parthenogenesis, which is a fancy way to say that they clone themselves into their eggs, and on top of that they give live birth to their young. In this colony of female red aphids (I think Uroleucon sp.), the large one on the left has a number of pale babies that can be seen in her abdomen. She also has wings. As the colony gets crowded, more winged aphids are produced to spread to other plants.
4. Aphids are well known to earn their protection from ants by providing them with excess plant sap that they produce from those little tubes on their abdomen. Here are more of the red aphids, which are being protected and milked for their sap by a winter ant (Prenolepis imparis).
5. Of course aphids are pretty defenseless, and it is fun to look among them for their various parasites and predators. If one watches for a time it is pretty easy to see some drama. In a colony of aphids on milkweed (I think the aphids might be Aphis neri), I found a brown lacewing larva (Micromus sp.). As I watched, it just walked up to an aphid and grabbed it. It does not exactly 'eat' its prey, but rather sucks it dry through its long, piercing mandibles.
1. As you all know, goldenrod is a huge attractor for flower loving insects. I kept seeing assorted little wasps on goldenrod, and this one turned out to be especially interesting. This small lady is a bee wolf (Philanthus gibbosus), since it attacks bees, paralyzes them with a sting, and uses them to provision its nest as food for its young. They seem to be heavily armored for protection. You can also see a little spider 'photobomb' in this picture.
2. I see this wasp in Michigan, but I took this picture in New Jersey. This is the European paper wasp (Polistes dominula), which is an invasive species that is spreading across the US. Paper wasps are good hunters of insects, which they take to feed their young, but the European paper wasp is more flexible in its range of prey and it is better at taking good nesting sites. For these reasons it appears to be displacing our native Polistes, P. fuscatus.
3. Aphids are very weird. Where to begin? Well, their bright colors (red, yellow, orange, etc.) are because they have acquired pigment genes from the plants that they feed on (!) Many aphids have a rather weird life cycle where all aphids in a colony are female during much of the season. They give birth by parthenogenesis, which is a fancy way to say that they clone themselves into their eggs, and on top of that they give live birth to their young. In this colony of female red aphids (I think Uroleucon sp.), the large one on the left has a number of pale babies that can be seen in her abdomen. She also has wings. As the colony gets crowded, more winged aphids are produced to spread to other plants.
4. Aphids are well known to earn their protection from ants by providing them with excess plant sap that they produce from those little tubes on their abdomen. Here are more of the red aphids, which are being protected and milked for their sap by a winter ant (Prenolepis imparis).
5. Of course aphids are pretty defenseless, and it is fun to look among them for their various parasites and predators. If one watches for a time it is pretty easy to see some drama. In a colony of aphids on milkweed (I think the aphids might be Aphis neri), I found a brown lacewing larva (Micromus sp.). As I watched, it just walked up to an aphid and grabbed it. It does not exactly 'eat' its prey, but rather sucks it dry through its long, piercing mandibles.
Bee Wolf wasp
(Download)
European Paper wasp
(Download)
female red aphids
(Download)
red aphids and a winter ant
(Download)
Brown Lacewing larva preying on Oleander aphid
(Download)
Nov 15, 2016 03:50:53 #
Nov 15, 2016 09:39:03 #
Nov 15, 2016 10:01:28 #
Nov 15, 2016 10:59:41 #
Nov 15, 2016 18:23:56 #
Nov 16, 2016 04:13:09 #
Nov 16, 2016 07:56:17 #
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