northeast-flora-and-fauna

Meet an Eastern Calligrapher , an insect I probably haven't shown you before. (At least I hope it's an Eastern Calligrapher; some of its relatives look similar.) Eastern Calligraphers are part of a very large group of insects sometimes called hover flies (the males will hover around, either defending a territory from other males or just hoping to get the attention of a female), sometimes called flower flies (the adults feed off of the nectar and pollen of flowering plants), and sometimes called  syrphid flies (pronounced SUR-fid, which appears to come from Greek and Latin words loosely meaning "descended from gnats"). These flies have a waspy look, are considered wasp mimics, and since they can't sting, they're a good example of Batesian mimicry . Notice though that as flies, they have only 1 pair of wings whereas wasps, bees, and most flying insects have 2 pairs of wings.  They're considered pollinators , though they're probably not as effective as...

The Plainsboro Preserve had a honeybee hive out adjacent to one of their meadows. Though these are not wild bees (that hive was no doubt made and is being maintained by humans), there are also plenty of Western (aka European) Honeybees that are living wild in New Jersey. I don't know the backstory on this hive. I'm assuming there were plants the preserve wanted pollinated, though it's possible that honeybees are a part of one of their educational programs.  Honeybees are a slightly controversial insect, at least when they're not pollinating agricultural crops. This is because they aren't a native insect but are instead an introduced species, and when they take nectar/pollen from our flowers there is just less out there for our native pollinators (e.g. bumblebees, sweat bees, wasps, flower flies, butterflies, moths, hummingbirds). I suppose they might also help spread invasive plants they recognize as a food source that native pollinators might fail to recognize, th...