Today's Ramble was led by Dale Hoyt.
Here's
the link to Don's Facebook album for today's Ramble. (All the
photos in this post, unless otherwise noted, are compliments of Don.)
Today's post was written by Dale Hoyt.
Today’s Focus:
Butterflies in the Flower Garden.
35 Ramblers met today.
Announcements:
1.
Trail Guide training at Sandy Creek Nature
Center (SCNC) on Wednesday, August 29, Thursday, August 30, or Friday, August
31 from 9-12. You only need to attend one session.
2.
Guided Ramble at SCNC on Wednesday, September 5
at 9 am, followed by coffee and treats. Carmen Champagne will lead us on a walk
looking for spiders and insects. She is great at spotting and identifying
plants and animals and quite knowledgeable about the life history of the
animals we find.
Today's reading:
Bob Ambrose treated us to another of his original compositions: Dawn
Dreams in a Glasgow Café.
Today's route:
Through the Visitor Center to the Freedom Plaza, then right to the Lantana bed
next to the Joe Pye Weed planting. From there we walked to the bottom of the
Flower Garden stopping at the Lantana plantings and the Butterfly bush plantings.
Then we returned back to the Joe Pye Weed, Lantana bed.
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| Newly hatched Carolina Anole; (total length, including tail: ~3 in.) |
Carolina Anole
In the Mexican Sunflower planting Tom discovered a really
tiny Carolina Anole, probably recently hatched from an egg. (The pronunciation
of Anole is either “AN-ol” or “ah-NO-lee.” Either is acceptable. You can avoid
the dilemma by calling them “American Chameleon,” but they aren’t true chameleons
which are only found in Africa and Madagascar. Anoles are lizards and are found
in the Caribbean islands, Central and South America. There are hundreds of
species but only one native to the United States. Recently a second species of
anole, the Cuban Anole has been introduced into the Florida peninsula and is
working its way north. I believe that it has reached south Georgia.
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| Adult Carolina Anole |
We later saw an adult Anole creeping among the leaves of
the Eared Coneflowers.
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| Common Whitetail dragonfly |
Common Whitetail
This common dragonfly was spotted warming up on the brick
wall. It was apparently successful because it easily evaded the net. The white
coloration only appears on sexually mature males.
Temperature and
insect activity.
At the beginning of today’s ramble the temperature was in
the upper 60’s, perfect for Homo sapiens
but a little chilly for butterflies. The first location we visited was the
large bed of Lantana next to the Joe Pye Weed and Eared Coneflower beds. Last
week there were many butterflies visiting these flowers, especially the Lantana,
but this morning next to nothing was moving about. This was probably due to the
low temperature and the fact that the flower beds were still in the shade. Butterflies
are “cold-blooded” creatures, which means that they rely on the external
environment to raise their body temperature to a level that permits activity.
Otherwise they remain torpid, barely able to move. The best way to raise the
body temperature is to find a source of heat and sunlight is the only source.
If you look carefully on mornings like today you will find butterflies basking
in sunlight flecks, little areas that are illuminated by the morning sun. They
generally sit in each sunfleck with their wings open and hesitate to leave the
spot, even if disturbed. Because their body is small they can warm rapidly. The
amount of heat gained is proportional to the body surface area and small
creatures, like insects, have a very high surface area to body mass ratio. This
enables them to warm rapidly, but also means that they cool rapidly. (I was
once observing butterflies in a mountain meadow on Pike’s Peak, elevation
~10,000 feet. The meadow was carpeted with wild flowers and many butterflies
were visiting them. The air was alive with insects flying from blossom to
blossom. Then a cloud passed across the sun and, instantaneously, all the butterflies
plummeted to earth, as though they had been shot gunned. A moment later the
cloud passed, the sun reappeared and, again, the air was filled with fluttering
wings, as if nothing had happened.)
Difference between
moths and butterflies:
There are two or three major groups of Lepidoptera:
Moths, Butterflies and Skippers (some people regard Skippers as separate from
butterflies). Here’s how to tell them apart (>95% of the time).
1.
Moths mostly are active at night (but there are
a few day flying species).
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| Feathery antennae of a male Luna moth By The original uploader was Pollinator at English Wikipedia. - Transferred from en.wikipedia to Commons., CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2048922 |
2. Moths have feathery antennae (but some moths,
especially the females, have antennae that are only barely feather-like). Moth antennae do not end in a club.
3.
Butterflies are active during daylight.
 | |
| Clubbed antennae of a butterfly |
4.
Butterfly antennae have clubs on the end.
 | |
| Skipper antennae have a point or hook at the end of the club. |
5.
Skippers have antennae with a point or hook at
the end of the antennal club.
 |
| This Fiery Skipper has a chunky or husky body size relative to its wing size. |
6.
Most skippers have a “husky” body in proportion
to their wing size and rapid, “skipping” flight. (It takes some experience to
learn what husky and skipping flight look like.)
Butterflies seen
today:
The first butterfly seen was one of the Anglewings, so-called
because the wings have sharp points and curved projections. There are five
kinds of Anglewings in Georgia, but only two are commonly seen in Athens: the
Comma and the Question Mark.
The two species look very similar and are named
for the shape of small silvery marks on the lower surface of their hind wings.
The comma has a short, curved mark, hence the name “Comma;” and the Question
Mark has a tiny silver dot next to the curved line. You have to use your
imagination to tell that this is a question mark. The Question Mark also has an extra spot on the fore-wing that is lacking in the Comma.
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| Question Mark butterfly. The spot that is missing in the Comma butterfly is indicated. The Comma has only 3 dots in the row; the Question Mark has 4. |
We saw the Question
Mark basking in a fleck of sunlight.
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| Female Eastern Tiger Swallowtail. The blue cresents in the black border of the hind wing are found in females. |
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| Male Eastern Tiger Swallowtail. Note the absence of blue markings in the black border of the hind wing. |
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| A melanistic (dark form) Eastern Tiger Swallowtail. The darker stripes may be slightly visible. The blue markings on the hind wing are found only in females. The dark form is only found in females but not all females are the dark form. |
Eastern Tiger Swallowtails were discussed in last week’s
post. Consult it to find out about why some female tiger swallowtails are dark
colored and what that has to do with mimicry of the Pipevine Swallowtail.
 |
| Horace's Duskywing, a "spread wing" skipper. It holds its wings horisontally when not flying. This is a female; the males are much darker and lack the complex pattern on the wings. |
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| Eared Coneflowers |
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| Blanket Flower, Gaillardia, was not visited by many insects today. |
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| Joe Pye Weed is a butterfly magnet, but not when the air temperature is cool. |
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| An unknown solitary bee collecting pollen from the Eared Coneflower. |
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| Mountain Mints are very attractive to solitary bees and wasps. This is Beadle's Mountainmint |
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| Spotted Beebalm is another bee and wasp attracter. Butterflies visit it too. |
Bees and Wasps:
The truly social bees are the imported European Honeybee
and the (mostly) native Bumblebees. To qualify as fully social the insects must
have a nest that is populated with one reproductive individual that produces
all the offspring. All the other nest members are sterile and work as laborers
in the nest, attending to various duties such as foraging for food that is
shared among the other nest members and the larvae, the offspring of the queen.
Periodically the nest will also produce males whose sole function is to mate
with a female who is a future queen. The reproductive bees and wasps are able
to control the sex of each egg they lay by allowing the egg to be fertilized or
not. Fertilized eggs develop into sterile female workers or future queens,
depending on the quality of the food they receive. When the colony or nest is recently
formed all the eggs will be fertilized and develop into sterile workers. Only
later will males be produced along with virgin future queens.
European Honeybee queens can live for several years; the
workers live at most a few months. Bumble bee colonies are annual. Founded by
single, fertilized queens in the spring, the colony grows in size as sterile
female workers are produced. In the fall males and future queens are produced
and then the entire colony dies, except for the future queens who have mated
before the killing frosts.
In a two year study at the State Botanical Garden 122 bee
species were found. Of these, only seven are fully social: the European
Honeybee and six species of Bumble bee. The remaining 115 species are solitary
bees.
A solitary bee
is one in which the care and provisioning of a single bee’s offspring is done
by its mother. No other bee assists in the rearing of a bee’s offspring. Solitary
bees may build their nests in a common area, but each female is responsible for
the care and feeding of her own offspring. A common pattern for solitary bees
is to construct a nest by digging a tunnel in the ground or in a plant stem or
piece of wood. The tunnel is then provisioned with a wad of pollen moistened
with nectar and an egg is laid on the pollen lump. A partition is then formed,
using mud, grass or other substance to seal off the egg chamber. Successive
chambers are formed until the tunnel is filled. Each egg develops in its own
chamber, isolated from its brothers and sisters and awaits its turn to exit the
tunnel after it becomes an adult.
Social and
solitary wasps:
The same behavior pattern exists in wasps. Yellowjackets,
paper wasps and hornets produce annual colonies just as Bumble bees do. North
America has no wasps as long lived as the European Honey Bee. All our social wasp colonies are annual, with
all individuals except the newly fertilized queens, perishing over winter. And,
just like the solitary bees, there are many more species of solitary wasps than social wasps.
The difference between bees and wasps is that bees are
vegans and wasps are carnivores. Both solitary and social bees feed their young
pollen mixed with nectar or honey. Social wasps like Yellowjackets feed their
young well chewed insects or pieces of meat stolen from dead animals or hamburger
patties.
Solitary wasps provision their nest chambers with the
paralyzed bodies of insects upon which they lay a single egg. The type of
insect used is species-specific; some solitary wasps use crickets, others use
caterpillars. Katydids are favored by other wasps and some specialize in
spiders. In each case the insect is paralyzed by stinging and transported back
to the nest where it is placed in a chamber and a single egg laid on it. The
wasp larva feeds on the still living insect until it reaches the size for
metamorphosis.
Other Assorted Insects
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| A large, black solitary wasp. This wasp may be one that specializes on spiders. |
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| Nymphs of Leaf-footed Bug. The red body and black legs may indicate that these bugs are noxious or distasteful. The adults will emit a foul odor when disturbed. I once offered on to a Jumping Spider. The spider attacked it and immediately dropped it. It completely ignored the nymphs thereafter. |
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| Harlequin bug adult; both nymphs and adults feed on cabbages and related mustard crops. The red and black may indicate that it is chemically defended, or it may be taking advantage of looking like another insect that is chemically defended. |
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| Golden Garden spider with captured prey wrapped in silk. When an insect blunders into the web it adheres to the sticky capture threads. The spider rushes out and begins to wind it up in thicker silk. When it is fully encased the spider bites it through the silk, paralyzing it. It can then be eaten at leisure. |
SUMMARY OF OBSERVED SPECIES
Carolina Anole
|
Anolis carolinensis
|
Spotted Beebalm
|
Monarda punctata
|
Eared Coneflower
Giant Black-eyed Susan |
Rudbeckia auriculata
|
Joe Pye Weed
|
Eutrochium fistulosum
|
Question Mark
|
Polygonia interrogationis
|
Lantana
|
Lantana camara
|
Eastern Tiger Swallowtail
|
Papilio glaucus
|
Beadle's Mountainmint
|
Pycnanthemum beadlei
|
LBJ Skipper (Little Brown Job)
|
Family Hesperiidae
|
Eastern Carpenter Bee
|
Xylocopa virginica
|
Salvia (White, Blue and Red)
|
Salvia sp.
|
Beautyberry
|
Callicarpa americana
|
Common Whitetail Dragonfly
|
Plathemis lydia
|
Cat's Whiskers
|
Cleome houtteana
|
Fiery Skipper
|
Hylephila phyleus
|
Assassin Bug Nymph
|
Family Reduviidae
|
Harlequin Bug, Nymphs and Adults
|
Murgantia histrionica
|
Sphinx Moth Caterpillar
|
Family Sphingidae
|
Horace's Duskywing
|
Erynnis horatius
|
Carolina Desert Chicory
|
Pyrrhopappus carolinianus
|
Silver-spotted Skipper
|
Epargyreus clarus
|
Butterfly Bush
|
Buddleia davidii
|
Bumblebee
|
Bombus sp.
|
Gulf Fritillary
|
Agraulis vanillae
|
Red Admiral
|
Vanessa atalanta
|
Pinwheel Flower/Blanket Flower
|
Gaillardia pulchella
|
Grasshopper
|
Order Orthoptera
|
Leaf-footed Bug
|
Coreidae: Leptoglossus sp.
|
Katydid
|
Family Tettigoniidae
|
Marigold
|
Tagetes sp.
|
Solitary Bee
|
Family Apidae
|
Spider Wasp
|
Family Pompilidae
|
Golden Garden Spider
|
Argiope aurantia
|
