northeast-flora-and-fauna

Yesterday I originally thought I was seeing 4 Cloudless Sulphurs mudpuddling, but then I noticed that I also photographed a Sleepy Orange almost immediately after that picture. Looking back at the picture with the 4 butterflies, the edge-on one on the left looks quite a bit smaller than the 3 Cloudless Sulphurs for which we have a good view. I'm now thinking that the small one was one of our smaller sulphurs, and likely to be this guy below. Similar to birds, a lot of times you'll see different species feeding together mostly peacefully (though I think birds do have a "pecking order" that probably doesn't occur in butterflies). August 18, 2020 at Duke Farms

Here are 4 3  Cloudless Sulphurs mudpuddling  and one smaller sulphur butterfly. Yes there are 4 butterflies in the picture; over on the left is one positioned almost head-on, and their thin wings almost disappear. (One difficulty with photographing butterflies is getting a reasonably good angle without scaring the butterfly away.) All too often I'll see mudpuddling happening on scat, though in this case actual mud was involved. It's believed that mudpuddling is mostly a male butterfly activity, that the nutrients they acquire gets passed to the female during sex, and ultimately benefits their offspring. August 18, 2020 at Duke Farms

Meet a Halloween Pennant . This is an adult male; you can see traces of red going down the top of the abdomen. You can compare it with this one that looks to be a female. The Calico Pennant (a related dragonfly) looks similar, but do you see the bands near the end of the wings? On the Calico Pennant this would look more like a spot at the very end of the wings. Though both these dragonflies are considered common according to my field guide, I've spotted the Halloween more often: 12 Halloweens to 4 Calicos.  August 18, 2020 at Duke Farms

Here's an American Robin . Though the picture is from last August, it looks like the sort of thing you could see this time of year: a robin (or other bird) hanging around at a large puddle. I don't remember the back story on this picture but wouldn't be surprised if the robin had taken a bird bath here. (Looking for an insect meal or even just quenching its thirst are also viable things for birds to do around puddles.) August 18, 2020 at Duke Farms

Meet Bicyrtes quadrifasciatus , a sand wasp without a commonly unused common name, though is sometimes called the Stink Bug Hunter because they'll hunt stink bugs. Their strategy is to find stink bug nymphs, paralyzes them, flies the stink bugs to a nest in the sand, and lays eggs on them; the stink bugs are food for the wasp's larvae. The adult wasps sustain themselves drinking nectar, so they not only help remove stink bugs but also help with pollination. The invasive Brown Marmorated Stink Bug is on their menu - at least in their nymph stage - though it's not clear how effective they are at controlling stink bug populations. August 18, 2020 at Duke Farms

Here's a baby (caterpillar would be more conventional terms) Cloudless Sulphur . I took this picture over 4 years ago and didn't know what it was. This morning when I logged into iNaturalist, it had an ID of Cloudless Sulphur. I then looked that up in my Caterpillars of Eastern North America , and agreed that this was indeed a Cloudless Sulphur caterpillar. You might ask why I didn't just use my caterpillar field guide in the first place: I'm not sure I owned the field guide back in 2016. I wasn't sure this was a caterpillar. Some of the larvae of flies and wasps look pretty similar to moth/butterfly caterpillars. My field guide has over 400 pages of caterpillar species in it, and flipping through them all is either a very slow process or a fairly error-prone process. Despite all those caterpillars in the field guide, it's not complete.  My field guide did show me a picture of the Clouded Sulphur caterpillar, so I was able to rule that out as a candidate. It did

Just to show you that Monarch Butterflies also like Joe Pye Weed , here's the evidence. The taxonomy of the Joe Pye Weeds has changed a bit in recent decades. My Newcomb's Wildflower Guide (generally considered a good book for keying out species of wildflowers) puts the Joe Pye Weeds in the same genus ( Eupatorium ) as the bonesets/thoroughworts. But it looks like these days the Joe Pye Weeds have been spun off into their own genus: Eutrochium . It's still recognized that these two genii of wildflowers are related though; they're still considered to be together in a monophyletic group . My book was copyrighted in 1977, so this classification change occurred sometime over the last 4 decades. August 18, 2020 at Duke Farms

Here's a Silver-spotted Skipper I met, and it looks like it's taking advantage of the nectar from a Joe Pye Weed  wildflower. You could probably make a case for a common name of White-spotted Skipper; the large white spot on the wings inspired their name. (Admittedly "silver-spotted" sounds more prestigious than "white-spotted.) The skippers are frequently small, non-descript butterflies that probably do get mistaken for moths. The Silver-spotted Skipper is less small and less non-descript than most skippers, and are relatively common. When they're caterpillars, they spend a lot of time eating and pooping, the latter called frass . In order to prevent predators from spotting them from their frass, they're able to expel it up to 38 body lengths away. They use a variety of - but not all - legume plants as host plants when they're caterpillars. And although human agriculture grows plenty of legumes, Silver-spotted Skippers aren't considered to have

 Last summer I got pictures of a Cloudless Sulphur (pictured), an Eastern Tiger Swallowtail, a Monarch, and a Silver-spotted Skipper in approximately 15 minutes. And they were all attracted to the location by Joe Pye Weed wildflowers. I've seen them mistaken for a milkweed, though getting up to 7 feet tall they'd tower over our local milkweeds. (And if you break a piece of a leaf, you won't see that milky-looking latex oozing out.) These wildflowers are pretty popular with pollinators, no doubt for similar reasons as milkweed and goldenrod are popular: there are lots of flowers on a single plant. That means a lot of nectar without having to travel much. These wildflowers are sometimes fairly colorful, and probably would make a reasonable garden flower while in bloom. If I had a yard, I'd try and incorporate them into the yard somewhere. August 18, 2020 at Duke Farms

Here's an Eastern Tiger Swallowtail I met. Notice that the right "tail" of the wing has been torn off. I'd like to tell you "you should've seen the other guy" as though this was incurred in a fight with a rival, but I doubt there's a butterfly with the arsenal to do anything like this. For that matter, it's unclear that any of our arthropod predators (e.g. robberflies, dragonflies, mantises, centipedes, spiders) would do this sort of damage; I suspect that this is the sort of damage you would get from a bird beak. (A bat might also do this, though I wouldn't expect this butterfly to be active at night when bats are most active.) August 18, 2020 at Duke Farms

Here's another Monarch Butterfly . While both butterflies and bees are important pollinators, their motivations are different. Bees (at least bumblebees and honeybees) need to gather both nectar and pollen to bring back for their offspring to eat, so they're transporting pollen from flower to flower on purpose. Fortunately for flowers, the bees end up pollinating the flowers when some of the pollen spills out in their travels. Butterflies on the other hand don't have a use for pollen. They're sustaining themselves by drinking nectar but get pollen on themselves that they accidentally transport to the next flower. My impression is that bees are considered better pollinators; their intentional collection of pollen means they usually carry more to the next flower, even if their intention is to bring all that pollen back to their larva. August 18, 2020 at Duke Farms

Here's another Question Mark Butterfly I met. As I've mentioned before, they are fairly easy to mistake for a close relative of theirs that's also in my area, the Eastern Comma . Here's a way to identify the Question Mark. Six prominent spots surrounding one larger spot Notice both wings have in the enclosed areas have: A large spot/blob near the edge of the wing. This is present in both species. The pair of large spots are both surrounded by 6 smaller but fairly observable spots, and the one closest to the point of the wing is longer/thinner than the others. This extra longer/thinner spot is absent in the Eastern Comma (and the less common Gray Comma and Green Comma). Here's the original picture too. August 18, 2020 at Duke Farms

These are almost certainly invasive  Oleander Aphids (aka Milkweed Aphids) meeting their worst nightmare, a ladybug . Our milkweeds are hosts for lots of native insects (Monarch Butterflies being the most famous), but these non-native aphids not only crowd out the natives but also seem to do more damage to the milkweeds. Fortunately for us, ladybugs in particular consider aphids to be delicious. (Although I think ladybugs can eat a lot of aphids, it looks like this milkweed has more aphids than this ladybug will be able to eat.) There are a lot of similar-looking ladybugs; this one might be yet another non-native species, the Seven-spotted Ladybug . It sounds like they were intentionally introduced to the US specifically to control plant-eating insects, though as they out-compete native insects it's unclear whether they're more of a benefit or a problem.

Here's a Yellow-legged Mud-dauber Wasp (aka Black and Yellow Mud Dauber Wasp) that I met last summer. The females build nests from mud, laying eggs in them and leaving paralyzed spiders in their for their young to eat. Given this wasp was found in the mud, it's likely this is a female. Though they can sting, they're not considered aggressive. Though they specialize in preying on spiders and spiders are generally considered to be good (helping to eliminate insect pests), these wasps are native species that help keep nature in balance. Spiders do eat pest insects, but they also eat pollinators like bees and hover flies, and having some checks on their numbers is probably a good thing. August 18, 2020 at Duke Farms

Here's an American Goldfinch . This is the state bird of New Jersey (and Iowa and Washington), and although they're here all year round, we have a harder time noticing them when they're not in their breeding plumage. The vibrant yellow indicates this is a male in breeding season; in a few months he'll look much drabber. While flamboyant plumage probably helps get a mate, in non-breeding season it can be beneficial to blend into the background more. Though don't expect this to sound exactly like a human asking you for a snack, people have interpreted their call as sounding like "potato chip". I think that this guy was in this spot to eat seeds from the Purple Coneflower and similar large composite-family flowers here. August 18, 2020 at Duke Farms

Here's another Blue Dasher . It lacks the blue pruinose of a mature male, but is it a female or an immature male? The more I read about this, the harder it is to distinguish between mature females and immature males. I think this is an immature male because the eyes look blue (though most documentation describes their eyes as green), definitely not the reddish eyes of most females. But some older females apparently develop greenish eyes. On the other hand, some older females also develop some of the pruinose that usually distinguishes them from males. Maybe the biggest difference between the sexes is the tail, which looks a little stumpy in females. I'm leaning towards an immature male since: It has the right eyes, the lack of pruinose, and the tail doesn't look especially short. If it's an older adult female, she's got the right eyes but lacks any pruinose. And I think the tale would look shorter. If it's a normal mature female, she's got the wrong eyes and

Here's a Red-tailed Hawk from last summer. The mostly North American buteo is arguably our most widespread and versatile raptors, living in forests, meadows, prairies, mountains, valleys, towns, and cities. They'll eat pretty much any animal small enough for them to kill, which is why they're able to live in areas with vastly different prey animals. Being this widespread means that lots of different populations, and these populations frequently form subspecies with different looks. There are 14-16 subspecies in all; here are the 7 north-of-Mexico ones: Eastern Red-tailed Hawk Western Red-tailed Hawk Alaska Red-tailed Hawk Southwestern Red-tailed Hawk Harlan's Hawk Krider's Hawk Florida Red-tailed Hawk My understanding is that all these subspecies willingly interbreed if they encounter one another, so you probably could see intermediates of many of these subspecies too. August 17, 2020 at Duke Farms

Here's another Cloudless Sulphur . I know I've shown them before, but the picture came out pretty good. One webpage suggested that the name butterfly came from people observing a Cloudless Sulphur in flight and thinking it resembled a slab of flying butter. I was skeptical: I didn't think this species of butterfly was found in Eurasia (it isn't), so for this to be true English settlers would have needed to arrive in the Americas to name it, and this name would have needed to supplant whatever the English used to call butterflies. Although it's possible that a name inspired by a "flying slab of butter" could have occurred from some sulphur butterfly relative of the Cloudless Sulphur, it sounds at least as plausible that it came from a belief that butterflies ate milk/butter . And it seems possible that butterflies would try and drink nutrients from milk/butter. I've talked before about butterflies mud-puddling, a generic term for when they attempt to su

Here's another Red-footed Cannibalfly . The picture might be a littler sharper than my previous cannibalfly post , but this one isn't eating anything. Still, I suspect that perching on a plant like this gives it a pretty good view of the area in the event that a meal flies by. Similar to other aerial insect predators like dragonflies, cannibalflies are skilled at snagging meals out of the air in midflight. Unlike dragonflies/damselflies, cannibalflies are in the fly order . (The flies comprise a slightly higher taxonomical level than the family.) My impression is that they don't get their cannibal name from eating other types of flies; I think they will go after their own. Fortunately for us, we're not on the menu. Unless you're handling them, it's extremely unlikely that you'll get bitten by one. I'm told the bite is painful but usually not harmful. But if you're most New Jersey arthropods, these guys are no doubt among the scariest arthropods you&#

Here's another  Red Admiral Butterfly I met. (These guys are fairly common, so you can expect them in more posts.) What's up with the Red Admiral name? It sounds like an antagonist in a Tom Clancy novel, but apparently their name used to be "Red Admirable", and the "admirable" got corrupted into "admiral". Apparently this is also true of other admiral butterflies . This brings up a potentially confusing thing about their name. There is a genus of admiral butterflies (local members including the Red-spotted Admiral and the Viceroy), but the Red Admiral is not in this genus; Red Admirals are actually ladies (like the Painted Lady and American Lady ). When is an admiral not an admiral? When it's a Red Admiral. (Admirals and ladies are both brush-footed butterflies though, so they are sorta related.) You could also ask why this isn't called an Orange Admiral. Well, the Red Admiral is a species native to Eurasia, and probably got named before

Here's a Common Whitetail Dragonfly neighbor I met walking around my apartment complex. She was out catching some rays while probably keeping an eye out for a snack. The 3 dark spots on each wing guarantee this is a female as opposed to a juvenile male who hasn't gotten his pruinose yet. I am a little surprised to see dragonflies at my apartment complex since there's no year round water here. This species is supposed to be able to go through its nymph stage in puddles, and we probably had some puddles around in the spring. The other possibility is that she grew up a couple miles ago in the Raritan River; this species is considered to be a strong flier that could make that trip. August 19, 2020 at Finderne, NJ

Here's a sulphur who was living in my neighborhood. It's either a Clouded Sulphur or an Orange Sulphur . As I've mentioned before, these are very similar butterflies can be difficult to distinguish . While the top view of the Orange Sulphur's wings usually look orangish-yellow, that effect isn't as prominent on views of the bottom of the wings. I think this one is pale enough to be a Clouded Sulphur, but the identification hasn't been endorsed (or refuted) on iNaturalist ; I suspect the coloring is in that inconclusive area. I've also warned you in the past about relying too heavily on color. All too often lighting can play tricks on what a camera produces. Unfortunately the markings of these two butterflies is close enough that color/shading really is the best way (short of a DNA test) to distinguish them. Technically these two butterflies will hybridize occasionally, it doesn't sound like it happens often. And given how similar these species are, the

Here are some of my friendly neighborhood American Robins foraging through the grass - I wouldn't want to be an earthworm in that area. American Robins are in the thrush family of birds. Other thrushes in my area are Wood Thrushes, Hermit Thrushes, and Veeries, though the 2nd most seen is probably the Eastern Bluebird. Our robins do have closer thrush relatives, but they mostly live in different parts of the world. Somewhat confusingly though they're not closely related to the European Robin for which the American Robin was named. The two robins do share orangish feathering on the breast, and at one time were categorized in the same family, but DNA tests indicated they belong in separate families. You may think these birds are too speckled to be American Robins, and you'd be sorta right. Adult American Robins wouldn't have speckles, but juvenile American Robins do. I'm assuming that this camouflages them a bit when they're young and haven't learned how to

I think this is an Eastern Common Bumble Bee . At least one person on iNaturalist agreed with this identification, it looks plausible, and this is considered to be one of the most common (hence in name) of our bumble bees. Bumble bees are sometimes confused with other insects like honey bees or carpenter bees or bumble bee mimics like the Snowberry Clearwing Moth and some hover flies. While honey bees and carpenter bees are obviously related, flies and butterflies are basically just trying to look like someone who can sting you ( Batesian mimicry ). Though their hive-dwelling honey bee cousins get a lot of the love and attention, technically they're an invasive species (albeit an important one for agriculture/horticulture). If you're trying to support native wildlife, supporting our native bumble bees is an excellent start. I'm thinking that the brown mass on the back leg is a pollen basket , the way that a bumble bee can transport pollen back to its nest. August 16, 2020

Here's a Spicebush Swallowtail that was living near my apartment. This is one of our black swallowtail butterflies that are not the Black Swallowtail . Here's a good article on distinguishing our most common  swallowtails. If you don't remember all of that, don't worry. I suspect that most of these guys would be flattered if you merely recognize them as swallowtail butterflies . The Spicebush Swallowtail is actually easier to identify with the wings up. There you'll see a row of orange spots interrupted by a blue swoosh mark; no other similar-looking butterfly has that blue swoosh. From this angle, I'd look at the row of yellow spots at the edge of the wing. Black Swallowtails would have 2 rows. If this were a dark morph Eastern Tiger Swallowtail , even this row of spots would be virtually missing. And a Pipevine Swallowtail wouldn't have those spots at all. The host plant for their caterpillars is - wait for it - the Spicebush . Sometimes these names actu

Meet another Twelve-spotted Skimmer . I previously showed you a juvenile male with almost no pruinose on its tail; here I'll contrast them. Both pictures were taken at the same place on the same day. First, here's another look at the juvenile. Note the dark tail. Juvenile male, August 15, 2020 at Negri Nepote Native Grassland Preserve And here's the mature male. Note the mostly-white tail. Mature male, August 15, 2020 at Negri Nepote Native Grassland Preserve

Here are a pair of butterflies, a Common Buckeye and a Pearl Crescent , mud-puddling on dung. Though the name mud-puddling conjures up a dirty activity, insects that do this are looking for nutrients that are more abundant on scat or, less easily noticed, areas with urine. Sometimes you'll even see them mud-puddling on rotting fruit or decaying animals. A good mud-puddling location is a good place to find a bunch of butterflies congregating together. Even a small flower patch is more dispersed than fox dung, so the action is sometimes concentrated into a very small area.  I'm not exactly sure how butterflies find a good mud-puddling location in the first place, but there's some evidence that once a butterfly finds a good location the other butterflies (even of different species) take notice and join in. Naturalists have been known to put a fake butterfly in a location in order to convince other butterflies to check the location out. August 15, 2020 at Negri Nepote Native

Here's a cool-looking butterfly around here, the Common Buckeye . This one seems a little browner though sometimes they'll grayer. They don't have a really close relative around here but as brush-footed butterflies , they have lots of distant relatives around. They're probably one of our best-looking butterflies that are mostly earth-toned in coloring. I'll frequently find them on open ground like this one. I suspect it's basically mud-puddling for nutrients even where there's not much moisture. August 15, 2020 at Negri Nepote Native Grassland Preserve

Here's another Monarch Butterfly imbibing in an afternoon drink. It looks like the watering hole is a thistle, quite possibly the invasive Canada Thistle . Though Canada Thistle doesn't belong in New Jersey, crowds out native species, and almost certainly degrades our ecosystems, to Monarchs they're still a fine place to drink a refreshing beverage. August 15, 2020 at Negri Nepote Native Grassland Preserve

Here's another Blue Dasher . As a fairly common dragonfly, I see a fair number of them and thus will be posting a fair number of their pictures.  This guy is really showing off that old pruinosity on his tail, and points said tail upward as Blue Dashers are wont to do. Flashing that tail may be advertising to other males that this is his territory, and if they're thinking of invading there's going to be trouble. August 15, 2020 at Negri Nepote Native Grassland Preserve

Here's another Eastern Tiger Swallowtail . I've talked about them before and will again since they're fairly common butterflies around here. Probably because they use magnolia and cherry trees as host plants, I see these guys more often in "edge" habitats, where woods (with their host plants) meet meadows (where there's more flowers/nectar). It's also possible to catch them mud-puddling from time to time at the edge of water. August 15, 2020 at Negri Nepote Native Grassland Preserve