A great outing to a park: I have been visiting a new park. Although it is not near, it has cool things. Here are some pictures from a single visit. First up is a tiny leaf mining leaf...

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A great outing to a park

Jun 22, 2023 02:05:56 #

Mark Sturtevant Loc: Grand Blanc, MI

I have been visiting a new park. Although it is not near, it has cool things. Here are some pictures from a single visit.
First up is a tiny leaf mining leaf beetle (Sumitrosis inaequalis).

Leaf mining leaf beetle by Mark Sturtevant, on Flickr

Turning up leaves along forest trails is a good way to find things. Here is one of our weird Derbid planthoppers (Anotia uhleri).

Derbid planthopper by Mark Sturtevant, on Flickr

There were many of these interesting caterpillars on the ground vegetation. I believe these are the larva of the red admiral butterfly (Vanessa atalanta). On a return visit this summer, I intend to bring some back to raise them.

Red admiral caterpillar by Mark Sturtevant, on Flickr

A nice surprise was this large true katydid (that is its name), Pterophylla camellifolia, which I had thought was a more southern species. Despite their large wings, they are flightless. At dusk, this male will begin its song, and with some imagination it is described as sounding like: “Katy did! Katy did!! She didn’t! She did!!!. Here it is: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/R-hgbgAdOk0

True katydid by Mark Sturtevant, on Flickr

There was a beautiful river in the park, and on the shore were several young toad bugs (Gelastocoris oculatus). These predatory Hemipterans hop around like little toads.

Big-eyed toad bug by Mark Sturtevant, on Flickr

But also near the water were stands of wild flowers, and foraging at them was a very nice find in the form of a melanistic tiger swallowtail butterfly (Papillio glaucus). I swear this is the same species as the familiar black and yellow Eastern tiger swallowtail! This dark form is always female (I suppose the color is linked to their sex chromosomes in some way), and they are more common in the southern U.S.. There, it is thought that the butterflies are mimics of the toxic pipevine swallowtail, which they resemble, and so their common-ness down there is the result of natural selection. You can still make out the tiger swallowtail stripe pattern on the wings in the pictures that show the ventral side.