Here are a few insect pictures before I get to the trip to Colorado last year. I’ll break it up by subjects (ie. landscapes, plants, animals, etc.). Enjoy!
Several different insects found in my office’s native plant garden and while visiting our station in Brandywine Creek State Park. My favorite catch was a mantis (I believe Chinese) in the act of feeding on a butterfly, gross, but fascinating. Enjoy!
More pictures from Brandywine Creek State Park. Chicory blossoms were in bloom along the roadsides. Apparently chicory was a substitute for coffee and as a salad green, brought over from Europe. Several different species of insects for which I’ve identified to family at least. As always, plenty more to come!
Went home for a weekend and switched cameras in preparation for a trip to the Southwest (pictures to come). The skipper butterflies can be difficult to identify, especially without the top wing marks. However the red-spotted purples are somewhat easy to distinguish based on the under wings and lack of the ‘swallowtail’ (here’s a handy ppt from Florida Museum of Natural History). Saw what I think was a potter wasp visiting a flower. Unfortunately it’s been a few days since I took the picture of the white florets so I don’t remember what they were attached to which would help ID them.
I get asked “what flower/plant is this” when people find out I have a biology degree and I have to remind people that I am not a botanist, horticulturalist or a naturalist, but an ecologist 🙂 All are excellent fields and I know enough about plant biology to help me figure things out with a picture, identification key, and the internet, but I did not specialize in plant identification beyond families. That special knowledge is one of the things I’m working on with this blog.
I’ve talked about this before, but horticultural varieties of plants are bred for showy flowers, leaves, etc. and so identifying them can be a challenge if you don’t regularly browse garden catalogs, due to characteristics not found in the wild. Characteristics include varigated colors, doubling of petals, varying petal morphology, etc. It should also be noted that my blanket labeling of the eastern purple coneflower may be erroneous as there are a number of species in the coneflower Echinacea genus that are similar or horticultural varieties, and so what I’m seeing may not be the purpurea species. I have spent the morning browsing catalogs and have figured out a few of the plants, thanks to my limited botanical background. Still there were a couple I’ll have to look at the whole plant to help guide my search. You can really narrow your search if you know that a plant is a shrub vs. a flower, if it’s a succulent, whether it’s an annual or perennial, etc.
In the altered words of Doctor Leonard McCoy “I’m an ecologist, not a [horticulturalist, naturalist, botanist]” so just for kicks, some dictionary definitions.
Horticulture: the science and art of growing fruits, vegetables, flowers, or ornamental plants
Botany: a branch of biology dealing with plant life
Naturalist: a student of natural history; especially : a field biologist
Ecology: a branch of science concerned with the interrelationship of organisms and their environments
Went on a 9.5 mile hike with Friends of the Smokies yesterday. Turned out to be great day this is the 4th time I’ve climbed the Hyatt Ridge trail in Great Smoky Mountains National Park, which has a total elevation gain of 2,000 ft. Small peas compared to out West sure, but still a challenge 🙂 The “Post Year in Nature Photography” post shows flowers that were in bloom two weeks ago including snow. This time we didn’t see those flowers until we were higher up and there were carpets of trillium and a variety of other wildflowers now in bloom at the lower elevations. One of the fun things about mountains is that if you miss a particular plant’s bloom just go up in elevation and you go back in time. It’s also fun to watch the trees leaf out and the green creep up the mountains.
Two species of dragonflies. The blue dashers are still flitting around our pond. I managed to get a shot of what might be a female common whitetail, though hard to tell without a better view from the top of the dragonfly.
Today’s big find is a snowberry clearwing moth. This is probably the same as the one I wasn’t able to clearly identify in a previous post, a hummingbird mimic member of the Sphingidae family of moths. There is a similar species that occurs in the same range but I’m pretty confident about my identification of this one. Besides being able to hover in flight, they lose many of the scales in the middle of their wings making them clear, and the are day fliers unlike most moths.
A day for some insects in three different orders, odonata (dragonfly), diptera (robber fly), and orthoptera (grasshopper). Interesting to compare the robber fly here to the one in Arizona, but realize there are over 7100 different species of robber fly and I would need to catch it to figure out which species it is. On the other hand, dragonflies (and butterflies as well) are a little bit easier to narrow down due to pretty distinct external markings and a good resource for dragonflies on the Delaware, Maryland, Virginia (DelMarVa) peninsula. Grasshoppers also need closer examination to figure out what species, but maybe I’ll get lucky and get enough of a close up to narrow it down further.
Day 3 of Arizona backyard photography.
It occurs to me that when I write longer posts I might want to have the pictures first. First off we have a picture of a mourning dove on top of a saguaro. Mourning doves are one of the most abundant native birds in North America, as partly evidenced by finding them all over Tucson as well as back home in Delaware. They are native and popular prey for hunting but they continue to thrive despite hunting pressures and habitat change.
There were a couple of colonies of larger red ants than I’m used to back east. I thought they might be fire ants, due to their red color, but it turns out that Arizona is one of the states with greatest ant diversity with around 318 native species. There are native fire ants which sting but not as bad as the red imported fire ant. Either way I felt caution was in order and with the colony so active I was hesitant to get closer. To truly figure out what species I have here I’d need a microscope or true macro lens to see details. If you look at the link I have given and go to the species field guide you’ll see how remarkably different looking different species of ants look.
From animals to plants, we have a native red yucca which isn’t actually a yucca. Additionally there is a yellow variety of the same species, so we have another example of a misleading common name. The red flowers are popular with humming birds. I also captured an image of the fruit of the creosote bush also called chaparral. Like the saguaro the creosote bush can live for up to 200 years. The plant produces a pungent but pleasant fragrance and has been used medicinally by Native Americans as well as being investigated by modern science for anti-cancer properties. It should be noted however that consumption is not recommended, due to the fact that when taken as an herbal supplement, it has been linked to liver and kidney problems.
Creosote bushes often form circular clonal colonies (all genetically the same) and even though they produce abundant seed, only a very few seeds are able to actually germinate. One of these clonal colonies is found in Joshua Tree National Park in California and is known as the “King clone” and using radiocarbon dating and known growth rates scientists have determined that this colony has been in continual existence for an estimated 11,700 years! Because the colonies are slow growing and have low seed viability, wiping out a colony can mean that it will take many years to become what it was. My own Master’s research on native bamboos indicated that bamboos are much like creosote bushes in that they form clonal stands and have low seed viability. When a stand of bamboo is wiped out, unless there’s a surviving few plants they often can’t recover.
Still more to come!
phototerrascientia 