The spectacular Green Jay (Cyanocorax incas) was one of the birds I went to Texas to see. Once we spotted them, there was no getting rid of them – just like the jays I’m familiar with in the Northeast, they are bold, noisy, and not at all averse to begging for handouts from a picnic dinner! They were so strikingly beautiful (in plumage if not voice) that I went straight back to our cabin and started drawing.
I collected several monarch butterfly caterpillars last week, and was able to film one of them pupating. (Pupation is the process where the caterpillar turns into the chrysalis where the adult butterfly will form.)
It took exactly 3 minutes from the time the caterpillar’s skin split to the pupa shaking free of the skin. I took 12 hours of footage overnight to make sure I got those three minutes! I then cut it down to a 4-minute video, which I invite everyone to watch.
Watch the video Monarch Caterpillar Pupating.
It’s almost August, so I’m going to have to check my Chilocorus kuwanae river birch trees soon! C. kuwanae has no common name in English, and has been introduced to North America for biocontrol. It is a beautiful species, glossy black with two red spots.
There are a lot of lady beetle species with this pattern, and they’re not even all in the same subfamily! C. kuwanae is one of the easier ones to identify because of the shape and location of its red spots. They are squared-off, rectangular rather than round or oval, and positioned at or behind the midpoint of the body. If you flip one over, you’ll see that its underside is half black and half red (black head and thorax, red abdomen). This distinguishes it from the most similar species, Chilocorus tumidus, whose underside is red on both thorax and abdomen. Other species of Chilocorus have round or oval spots positioned towards the front of the body.
The river birch trees where I find them here in Philadelphia are the “weeping” type of birch, with long whippy branches that dangle down, forming a canopy with an open space beneath. The lady beetles aren’t visible from outside because they and the scales are on the undersides of the leaves. The first time I pushed aside the branches and walked under one of the trees, I was astounded to see literally hundreds of lady beetles! I couldn’t look three inches from one without seeing another.
I collected live adults and they mated in captivity – quite enthusiastically and frequently! – but the females didn’t lay eggs and I couldn’t photograph a life cycle sequence. Fortunately, one of my friends was able to photograph a larva to adult life cycle this year and posted it to BugGuide.net:
C. kuwanae life cycle
The photos show the spiky larvae, pupae, freshly-emerged adults “coloring up,” and finally two adults mating. Hopefully I can find and photograph eggs this year and BugGuide.net will show all four life stages of this species!
It took me almost a day to get around to posting this because I was so flustered and thrilled to be the subject of the 100th post on the popular blog BugEric that I forgot my login name here! As I stared at the login screen all I could think about was what an honor and privilege it was to be given such a wonderful, thoughtful, friendly introduction to Eric Eaton’s many readers.
It’s been very hot here – 100 deg. F/39 deg. C yesterday! It’s also been dry and that’s a bad combination for aphids, and hence for lady beetles. They estivate in hot weather (similar to cold-weather hibernation) and will come back out when it’s a little cooler, damper, and aphid-filled! Around this time I do find scale-eating lady beetles in genus Chilocorus, though. They are less weather-dependent in this climate, it seems. My next post will be about the species Chilocorus kuwanae, one of the many “black with two red spots” species of lady beetle.
One year ago today I was looking for caterpillars and found a lady beetle larva instead – a big, orange and black, fourth-instar Multicolored Asian Lady Beetle (Harmonia axyridis). I’d seen and identified one the previous year, so I recognized it for what it was, but didn’t remember the name. That’s the last time I was unable to put a name to an H. axyridis larva…now I am one of the experts on the larval development of the species! I took that first larva to my office, along with a plant stem covered with aphids, and watched the little beast munch its way through the aphids all day. I released it in the place where I found it after work, because I wasn’t sure I could take it home and raise it like I always did with caterpillars. Finding and collecting enough aphids seemed like a challenge that I couldn’t meet yet. But just a few days later, I found lady beetle eggs, took them home, and when they hatched I was able to rear them with aphids from my backyard and various sidewalk weeds. I’ve been a lady bug nut ever since, especially for the larvae. I’ve even been consulted by the Lost Ladybug Project at Cornell University! And all because, a year ago today, I found that little orange and black creature I wasn’t even looking for. I’m not especially superstitious, but I have to say, I do believe that ladybug was lucky!
I saw these beautiful birds at one of my bus stops this morning. They are on my shortlist of most beautiful birds in North America – I would set them alongside cardinals, orioles, and painted buntings any day. Their plumage has an exquisitely soft, smooth, sanded-silk texture; they look like pastel drawings on wings.
These birds are so beautiful that they can get away with having no song! It’s been scientifically proven that none of their vocalizations serves the purpose that songs do in other species. It’s theorized that the waxy-looking red “droplets” on their wings can accomplish what another bird’s song does: attract females, challenge rivals, assist in courtship. (Which isn’t exactly the same thing as attracting females: once he has her attention, he has to win her over!)
Waxwings do have a call, like other birds; it is a high-pitched, tinkling hum that’s hard to describe. It’s very evocative, and surrounds the tree they’re in like a cloud. Finding them is a feeling in the air for me, much more than sight or sound. And then, when I see them, they are simply heart-stopping; the first time I saw them they were so beautiful I had tears in my eyes. I’ve only had that reaction to a few other things in my life. Waxwings will always be very special birds for me.
Drawing in Prismacolor pencils, in honor of my 194th life list bird. I didn’t think the drawing was finished when I walked out of the room to get a gray pencil, but when I returned, the drawing just worked in a way that forbade any further refinement. The way the edges blur and the spots fade away gives the same impression I had when I saw the elusive bird itself, slowly picking its way through the underbrush, never fully revealed.
Sadly, my little scymnine lady beetle larva has died. *sniff* I just can’t seem to keep this subfamily alive! I saw more larvae in the same milkweed patch, so I’ll try again – but leave some in the wild, lest I extirpate them from that location! Sigh…I don’t know what it is about scymnines, they just don’t survive in my care. All the other lady beetle larvae do, but not Subfamily Scymninae…
…still, it hardly seems fair for two active larvae to gang up on a prepupal larvae for breakfast. I gave them a lot more aphids and although that particular prepupa is never going to pupate, I hope the rest of the larvae will survive! I suppose that at worst there’ll still be one very fat larva left at the end…I’d rather have enough adults to breed, though.
Oddest thing happened: I met a friend of my boss while doing an aphid search, got to talking, and he invited me to, well, come and see his paintings. And then he actually did show me his paintings! Not all pick-up lines are pick-up lines.
No, I am not totally naive; my boss knows the guy well, I already knew him as an acquaintance, and the guy’s household staff were in the house. And I made it very clear right up front that I was married and my brother is a police officer. No one wants to mess with a cop’s sister…
Considerable moolah in the neighborhood around my office, and big houses full of well-to-do people, including this guy with his household staff and art collection. There were some really gorgeous and unique pieces, and although it was rather odd to be invited in, I can’t say I have any regrets about it. Oh, one maybe, turns out the guy is also writing a screenplay and when I mentioned I’d been in film school he foisted it off on me to look at. Dude, I am not in the film industry now! But I may as well do him the courtesy of making sure it’s spelled and formatted right. And meet him in a public location to give it back…like I said, I’m not totally naive!
Facebook
Ebay
Flickr
LinkedIn
Amazon Wishlist
