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 are
compliments of Don, unless otherwise credited.)
Today's post was written by Dale Hoyt.
Today’s Focus:
Seeking what we find in the powerline RoW.
30 Ramblers met today.
Today's reading:
Dale read an anecdote about Alexander Wilson, America’s first ornithologist. (From the
July 6 entry of An Almanac for Moderns by Donald Culross Peattie.):
IT WAS to an America still partly wilderness, fresh with
adventure, that the weary and driven little Scotsman [Alexander Wilson] came.
You could expect in our woods then an ivory-billed woodpecker, the largest of
all its tribe, a creature known to me only as a perfectly incredible specimen
in museums. It has a glossy black body almost two feet long, a head crested
with scarlet, and a great bill, ivory white. Once widespread in America, it is
now all but extinct.
Not so in Wilson's time. He easily captured a specimen in the cypress
swamps near Wilmington, North Carolina, and was conveying it, imprisoned under
a blanket, in a large basket, to an inn, when it suddenly burst into the most
ear-splitting and dismal sounds, like the voice of a baby in agony. Several
women on the porch of the inn cast dark looks on the poor little man, as though
he had been a kidnaper or an ogre. Marching proudly by them, Wilson conveyed
the bird to his room to paint it. But it
abruptly left off sitting for its portrait, and violently attacked Wilson about
the face with the bill that is made to split oak. Fleeing the room, Wilson
after an hour returned to hear the sound as of twenty wood choppers at work. He
threw open the door, and discovered that his tropical carpenter had battered
his way through the inner wall, and at that moment was engaged in enlarging an
opening in the clapboards outside wide enough to admit his scarlet crested
head. Restrained in this, the proud spirited fowl moped and died, leaving
Wilson his ivory bill and the innkeeper's bill for repairs.
Wikipedia entry: “Alexander Wilson (July 6, 1766 –
August 23, 1813) was a Scottish-American poet, ornithologist, naturalist, and
illustrator. Identified by George Ord as the "Father of American
Ornithology", Wilson is regarded as the greatest American ornithologist
prior to Audubon.”
Today's route:
From the Visitor Center Plaza we walked directly to the passionflower vines at
the bottom of the Dunson Garden, via the access road to the Lanier Center. From
there we walked to the river via the powerline RoW, the left on the Orange
Trail to the Orange Trail Spur, which we took back to the Visitor Center.
LIST OF
OBSERVATIONS:
Visitor Center Plaza:
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| A male Velvet Ant; it's a wasp, not an ant. Only the males have wings; females are wingless and have a powerful sting. (click to enlarge) |
Velvet
Ants: Several red and black male velvet ants with dark wings were flying
about the flower bed next to the handicap ramp.
The
first thing to know about velvet ants is that they are not ants! They get the
inappropriate name because the females have no wings and are seen scrambling
about on the ground, looking and behaving very much like a big, colorful ant,
decked out in a colorful, velvet dress. The most commonly encountered species
here is the Eastern Velvet Ant.
So, if
velvet ants are not ants, what are they? They are wasps! The females are
equipped with a long stinger and can inflict a very powerful sting if you
attempt to pick one up. In fact, a common name for the velvet ant is “cow
killer,” which is a gross exaggeration. But the sting is very painful. As in
all wasps, only the females have a stinger. The males, which have wings, lack a
stinger and can be safely handled without harm. (As I demonstrated.)
The
sting found in ants, bees and wasps is a modified ovipositor (an egg layer),
which is why only the female ants, bees or wasps can sting.
The
velvet ants are parasites. The wingless female searches for the nests of other
kinds of bees or wasps. When she finds one, she enters the nest and lays eggs
on the developing larvae inside the nest. Of course, entering a bumblebee nest
could be quite dangerous, which is probably why the velvet ant is equipped with
a large, potent sting. In addition, her exoskeleton is very thick and tough,
resisting the attempts of her victims to sting her. Bumblebees are not her only
prey, either. One of the other species she parasitizes is the Cicada Killer
wasp, described below.
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| Cicada Killer wasp (click to enlarge) |
Cicada
Killer: This wasp is the largest wasp native to the United States, but its
sting is nothing to be afraid of. The female cicada
killer will only sting if she is grabbed or restrained. Unlike yellowjackets, she will not chase and sting you for no apparent reason. For the last two years
we have seen cicada killers active in this same flower bed.
Females
dig a tunnel in soft, sandy soil and excavate a number of side chambers. Then they go cicada hunting. She grabs and stings a cicada, which
paralyses, but does not kill it. She then brings the cicada back to
her tunnel, puts it in a chamber and lays an egg on it. When the egg hatches
the larva begins to feed on the still living, but paralyzed cicada. The wasp may provision her tunnel with a dozen or more cicadas, each with a single larva eating away.
Why were velvet ant males flying around the same flower bed this morning?
Why were velvet ant males flying around the same flower bed this morning?
Last year there were a number of cicada killer
nests in the flower bed. They must have been discovered and parasitized by velvet ants.
Now the velvet ant males are emerging and flying about the flower bed in the
hope of finding a newly emerged female velvet ant to mate with.
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| A Yellow-necked Caterpillar Moth (Datana ministra) sitting on one of the curb light fixtures. (click to enlarge) |
Shade
Garden, at edge of road:
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| Nine-banded Armadillo (click to enlarge) |
Armadillo:
As the back of the pack made the turn to head down to the Dunson Garden deer
fence, we heard rustling in the leaves off to our left and saw a Nine-banded
Armadillo heading for the culvert. It
posed briefly for a nice photo.
Dunson
Native Flora Garden deer fence:
 | |
| Silver-spotted Skipper (click to enlarge) |
A Silver-spotted
Skipper was nectaring on the flowers of Coastal Sweet Pepperbush. If you look
closely at Don’s photo you can see its “tongue” sticking straight up from the butterfly’s
head and the curving to the left to land in a flower.
A
butterfly “tongue” is not like ours. It is more like a flexible straw that can
be used to suck nectar out of a flower. Really two straws. When a butterfly
emerges from its pupal stage the tongue is in two parts, a left and a right,
that get zipped together. The resulting structure resembles two straws attached
side-by-side, but is much more flexible.
A
rambler asked what Skippers were. Some authorities consider them to be a
subgroup of butterflies, while others think they are a distinct group on the
same level as butterflies and moths. Skippers have chunkier bodies than
butterflies and their antennae end in a club with a terminal hook. Butterflies
have antennae that end in clubs with no hooks and moths have thread like or feathery
antennae.
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| A small bumblebee gathering pollen at the base of a Hibiscus flower. (click to enlarge) |
We peered into one of the white Hibiscus flowers and discovered a small bumblebee covered with pollen and staggering around inside the flower. While trying to photograph it Don noticed its wobbly walk before it flew away.
Flowers produce nectar and floral nectar often has yeast in it. Yeast, as humans long ago discovered, ferments sugar solutions into alcohol. The uncoordinated behavior of this bumblebee suggests that it may have been intoxicated. (Tedious anecdote follows.) When I was growing up in eastern Kansas we had an Elm tree in our front yard. One very hot and humid summer this tree was infested with aphids and their "honeydew" accumulated all over the lower leaves beneath the aphids, just a it does on your windshield if you park your car under a tree in summer time. If airborn yeast cells land on this honeydew they will do what yeast does: ferment the sugar and produce alcohol. One day I was surprised to see dozens of bees and wasps on the leaves of this tree, all busily lapping up the sugary and alcoholic secretions. They had trouble walking and flying and many fell off the leaves and laid, incapacitated, on the ground beneath the tree. I was able to pick up a drunken wasp and hold it in my hand without being stung.
The Purple Passionflower is the food plant for the caterpillars of the Gulf Fritillary butterfly. One long section of the deer fence at the bottom of the Dunson Garden is serving as the support for these vines and each year we stop to search for eggs and/or caterpillars.
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| A drunken bumblebee in a Hibiscus blossom? (click to enlarge) |
The Purple Passionflower is the food plant for the caterpillars of the Gulf Fritillary butterfly. One long section of the deer fence at the bottom of the Dunson Garden is serving as the support for these vines and each year we stop to search for eggs and/or caterpillars.
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| A small Gulf Fritillary caterpillar on a Purple Passionflower tendril. (click to enlarge) |
Several
ramblers wanted to know why a caterpillar was on the tendril and not a leaf.
The adult Gulf Fritillary often lays her eggs on the tendrils instead of the leaves. One reason for this behavior is to avoid ants. The
passionflower leaf has a pair of extrafloral nectaries at the base of each leaf
blade. These nectaries produce a sugary secretion that attracts ants. In the course of
searching for active nectaries, ants wander all over the plant. If they come
upon an egg or a small caterpillar they will eat or carry it back to their
nest. By laying eggs at the end of a tendril the butterfly minimizes the chance
that the egg will be discovered by an ant. When a tendril-laid egg hatches the tiny
caterpillar is already on the tendril and may feed there for a period of time,
getting larger day by day. Eventually it will have to feed on leaves, but the tendril could serve as a refuge from ant predators.
Gulf
Fritillaries can’t survive our winters in any stage of their life cycle (egg,
caterpillar, pupa or adult), so when fall arrives the adults migrate to more
southern locations, especially peninsular Florida, where the winter weather is
usually very mild. Any caterpillars or pupae that are left behind perish. In the spring adult Gulf Fritillary butterflies migrate back to more northern locations,
following the new growth of passionflower vines. That is why there are so few
caterpillars on our vines right now. It takes a lot of time to fly from Florida to Athens,
especially if you stop to lay eggs on the way. In a “normal” year the
Gulf Fritillary becomes one of the commonest butterflies in our area in August
and September. As the climate warms we may reach a point where the Gulf Fritillary is a year-round resident.
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| Passionflower fruits (click to enlarge) |
The egg-shaped green fruits will enlarge a little more and
in late summer will turn yellow as they ripen.
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| This Assassin bug nymph was hanging out on the passion vines, searching for other insects to eat. (click to enlarge) |
The difference between a nymph and a larva. Most people are familiar with the life cycle of a
butterfly or moth. It begins with an egg. The egg hatches, producing a
caterpillar (a larva), the caterpillar feeds and, as it grows, sheds its skin (really its exoskeleton)
several times. Finally it molts into a pupa and then, from the pupa, an
adult butterfly emerges. This life cycle is called complete metamorphosis. The
larval stage doesn’t have the remotest resemblance to the adult stage. This is
typical of many insects: butterflies, moths, bees, ants, wasps, true flies,
beetles – all have an egg – larva – pupa – adult life cycle.
Many
other insects have what is called direct development. When their egg hatches it
produces a tiny creature that resembles its parent, except for size and the
lack of wings. It sheds its exoskeleton (molts) several times, growing larger
after each molt, until the final molt when a winged adult is produced. There is
no dramatic metamorphosis. Those different stages between egg and adult are called nymphs. Examples of insects with direct development
are: crickets, grasshoppers, cicadas, aphids, true bugs, roaches, and praying
mantids.
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| Nathan found this tiny Assassin Bug nymph; it reminds me of the Mind Flayer monster in Stranger Things 3. (click to enlarge) |
RoW:
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| The seldom seen and very elusive Spring Peeper. (click to enlarge) |
Spring
Peeper: Someone spotted a small, tan-colored frog sitting in a stand of
Wingsem plants. I couldn’t catch it, but it was definitely a Spring Peeper. You
can see in the photo the crudely shaped “X” on its back. Large choruses of
Spring Peepers could be heard in this area earlier in the spring.
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| Yellow Garden spider on its web. The vertical white zig-zag is made by the spider and is called a "stabilimentum." (click to enlarge) |
Yellow
Garden Spider: This common spider
goes by many common names: Golden Garden spider, Black and Yellow spider and
probably many others. Spiders generally only live one year, emerging from the
egg in the spring. They continue to grow during spring and summer, increasing
in size until they reach maturity in early fall. Then they mate, build an egg
sac full of eggs and then die. The egg sac overwinters and the cycle repeats
the following year.
The
vertical white line you see in the center of the web is called a stabilimentum.
Its function is not definitively known, but one suggestion is that it makes the
web conspicuous to birds so they will not fly into it. In support of this idea
an experiment was done in which webs were decorated with artificial
stabilimentums and other, undecorated webs served as controls. The decorated
webs sustained less damage, consistent with the protection hypothesis.
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| This small spider, an Orchard Orbweaver less than a quarter of an inch in length, built a web in front of the Yellow Garden spider. (click to enlarge) |
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| Widow Skimmer dragonfly (click to enlarge) |
Widow
Skimmer dragonfly: This dragonfly is one of the less common ones seen in
the Garden. Like all dragonflies they have enormous eyes that they use to spot
flying insects which they capture and devour in mid-air. Their spiny legs form
a basket that is used to scoop up their prey. Dragonflies often sit on the same
perch, flying off to capture food and returning to the same spot to finish
consuming it.
(Another anecdote.) I once
saw a Widow Skimmer do something unusual. It was flying near a bed of Salvia in
the Garden. Salvia is a popular source of nectar for many insects. The
dragonfly hovered in front of one of the plants and then flew forward, bumping
the plant hard enough for it to move. It then flew backwards a short distance
and hovered, all the time looking toward the plant. It then repeated this same
activity on other Salvia stems about half a dozen times and then flew off. It
looked to me like it was shaking the plant to dislodge any insects that were
inside the flowers or on the leaves. I had never seen this kind of behavior
with any dragonfly and emailed a dragonfly researcher about it. She had also
never seen or heard of any similar behavior. There it sits – an unsupported
observation and conjecture. Keep your eyes open when you see dragonflies.
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| Grapevine Beetle (click to enlarge) |
Grapevine
Beetle: This large, stout beetle resembles a large “June bug,” a beetle
that is attracted to lights in the spring. Like the June bugs this beetle is a
member of the scarab family (Scarabaeidae) and, feeds on gra[e leaves and
fruits as an adult. It is apparently not common enough to be a pest. The larvae
live in and eat rotting wood.
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| Grapevine Beetle about to fly away. (click to enlarge) |
Don’s
next photo was taken just as the beetle started to fly away from my hand. You
can clearly see the first pair of wings being held aloft. The first pair of
wings in beetles usually function as wing covers and also make it harder for
predators to injure or damage the beetle. They are hardened or leathery and do
not provide any flight ability. The second pair of wings lie folded beneath the
first pair and do all the work of flying. You can see them in Don’s photo,
caught in the act of unfolding. Upon landing, the hind wings are folded up
again and covered by the wing covers. These membranous hind wings are supported by
complex thickenings, called veins. Surprisingly, there are no muscles in the
wings themselves. The folding and unfolding is done in a manner similar to the
way the ribs of an automatic umbrella works. The motive power is in the thorax, not in the
wings themselves.
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| I rubbed away the spittle so you could see this spittlebug nymph. (click to enlarge) |
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| The larvae of Lady beetles (AKA Ladybugs) look like tiny orange and black alligators. (click to enlarge) |
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| This Turkey Vulture landed on one of the powerline towers as we walked toward the river. I checked and everyone was alive. (click to enlarge) |
Orange
Trail, along river:
The Cocklebur Weevil feeds on various
species in the aster family (Asteraceae). As you may have heard, there are more
kinds of beetles that any other kind of animal. You may not have heard that
there are more weevils than in any other group of beetles.
The Weevils (family Curculeonidae) usually have
a pronounced snout, in some cases, very long. The antennae are usually attached
to this snout somewhere between the head and the end of the snout.
Tammy
found a Larger Elm Leaf Beetle that left her with a messy secretion in
her hand. This is a common defense of beetles in the Leaf beetle family
(Chrysomelidae) – many species ooze body fluids from their leg joints to discourage a predator from eating them. Tammy wasn’t even tempted.
Both
the adults and the larvae eat the leaves of Elm trees.
Bush
Crickets were seen on several wingstem plants at the edge of the trail. At
first glance we thought these were Red-headed Bush Crickets, but on looking at
Don’s photograph, the head isn’t red – it’s black. I'm pretty sure this individual is a Bush Cricket because it has the same black paddle-shaped
structures below the head that the Red-headed species has and those are pretty
unique.
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| Pearl Crescent (click to enlarge) |
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| Silvery Checkerspot (click to enlarge) |
How to identify the Silvery Checkerspot. There is another butterfly that looks very similar to the Silvery Checkerspot -- the Pearl Crescent. The photos above show examples of the two species. The best single character to separate them is the row of black dots inside the margin of the hind wings. The Silvery Checkerspot will have at least one of the dots with a lighter color center; the Pearl Crescent has solid black dots. The Pearl Crescent is smaller, but you need to see them side-by-side to appreciate that difference. There is a curved orange band that runs from the front of the wing to the back. It has irregular margins but is usually continuous in the Silvery Checkerspot. In the Pearl Crescent it is broken up and criss-crossed by a network of black lines.
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| Bush
Katydid nymphs are abundant, but hard to identify until they are adults. (click to enlarge) |
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| A Leaf-footed Bug nymph; note the wing pads on the front of the abdomen - they will expand into fully developed wings at the last molt. (click to enlarge) |
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| Green Cone-headed Planthopper less than 1/4 inch long. (click to enlarge) |
The Green
Cone-headed Planthopper is a common planthopper. Planthoppers are related
to cicadas and have piercing, sucking mouthparts that enable them to feed on the
sap of a variety of plants.
SUMMARY
OF OBSERVED SPECIES:
Velvet
Ant (male)
|
Dasymutilla occidentalis
|
Cicada
Killer Wasp
|
Sphecius speciosus
|
Yellow-necked
Caterpillar Moth
|
Datana ministra
|
Nine-banded
Armadillo
|
Dasypus novemcinctus
|
Silver-spotted
Skipper
|
Epargyreus clarus
|
Coastal
Sweet Pepperbush
|
Clethra alnifolia
|
Hibiscus
|
Hibiscus
sp.
|
Bumblebee
|
Bombus
sp.
|
Hibiscus
beetle (?)
|
Macoura concolor
|
Purple
Passionflower
|
Passiflora incarnata
|
Gulf
Fritillary (caterpillars)
|
Agraulis vanillae
|
Leaf-footed
Bug (nymph)
|
Leptoglossus phyllopus
|
Assassin
Bug (nymph)
|
Family
Reduviidae
|
Spring
Peeper
|
Pseudacris crucifer
|
Yellow
Garden Spider
|
Agriope aurantia
|
Orchard
Spider
|
Leucauge venusta
|
Widow
Skimmer Dragonfly
|
Libellula luctosa
|
Grapevine
Beetle
|
Pelidnota punctata
|
Two-lined
Spittlebug ?
|
Prosapia bicincta
|
Lady
Beetle (larva)
|
Family
Coccinellidae
|
Turkey
Vulture
|
Cathartes aura
|
Cocklebur
Weevil
|
Rhodobaenus quinquedecimpuntatus
|
Larger
Elm Leaf Beetle
|
Monocesta coryli
|
Bush
Cricket
|
Phyllopalpus sp.?
|
Green
Cone-headed Planthopper
|
Acanalonia conica
|
Bush
Katydid
|
Scudderia sp.
|
