Yard bugs, NE Corvallis
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Lisa Millbank
Jul 21, 2014, 1:15:30 AM7/21/14
to Mid-valley Nature
While we worked in the yard this weekend, it was easy to get
distracted by bugs of all kinds.
I found a LACEWING larva of undetermined species crawling around on my hand. Some people call these "aphid wolves" since they're helpful garden predators. This one was just a little more than 2mm long, but it was such a ferocious little beast that it decided to sink its curved jaws right into my skin! The jaws are quite obvious in the attached picture. While it was biting me, it felt somewhat like pulling out a single hair. Now that it has tasted human flesh, who knows what it may do next . . . .
Another little yard monster was a POMPILID WASP with her paralyzed prey, a CROSS ORBWEAVER. She had stung the spider and carried it off, and was looking for a safe place to stash it. Then she would lay an egg on the spider. It's fascinating and disturbing at the same time to think of that spider, still alive, with a wasp larva eating its innards and saving its vital organs for last.
We noticed a couple of pink-and-white CANDYSTRIPE SPIDERS (Enoplognatha ovata), with one living inside a basil leaf that she had made into a shelter by binding the leaf edges with silk. On bugguide.net, we read that these spiders are from Europe but naturalized in much of North America.
With the help of the OSU pocket field guide to native bees that Maggie posted the other day, we (tentatively) identified a female Long-horned Bee on a marigold. The extremely long hairs all over the back legs seemed to rule out the others.
While having dinner outside, we often see BLACK SADDLEBAGS dragonflies or large MOSAIC DARNERS of some kind flying over the yard. We recently added CARDINAL MEADOWHAWK and BLUE DASHER to our yard list of dragonflies and damselflies.
Lisa Millbank
www.neighborhood-naturalist.com
I found a LACEWING larva of undetermined species crawling around on my hand. Some people call these "aphid wolves" since they're helpful garden predators. This one was just a little more than 2mm long, but it was such a ferocious little beast that it decided to sink its curved jaws right into my skin! The jaws are quite obvious in the attached picture. While it was biting me, it felt somewhat like pulling out a single hair. Now that it has tasted human flesh, who knows what it may do next . . . .
Another little yard monster was a POMPILID WASP with her paralyzed prey, a CROSS ORBWEAVER. She had stung the spider and carried it off, and was looking for a safe place to stash it. Then she would lay an egg on the spider. It's fascinating and disturbing at the same time to think of that spider, still alive, with a wasp larva eating its innards and saving its vital organs for last.
We noticed a couple of pink-and-white CANDYSTRIPE SPIDERS (Enoplognatha ovata), with one living inside a basil leaf that she had made into a shelter by binding the leaf edges with silk. On bugguide.net, we read that these spiders are from Europe but naturalized in much of North America.
With the help of the OSU pocket field guide to native bees that Maggie posted the other day, we (tentatively) identified a female Long-horned Bee on a marigold. The extremely long hairs all over the back legs seemed to rule out the others.
While having dinner outside, we often see BLACK SADDLEBAGS dragonflies or large MOSAIC DARNERS of some kind flying over the yard. We recently added CARDINAL MEADOWHAWK and BLUE DASHER to our yard list of dragonflies and damselflies.
Lisa Millbank
www.neighborhood-naturalist.com
Lisa Millbank
Jul 21, 2014, 1:32:26 AM7/21/14
to Mid-valley Nature
Well, I thought that was a teneral male
Blue Dasher, but now I think I'm probably wrong about that. If
anyone can point me in the right direction on that dragonfly photo
I'd appreciate the help.
Lisa
Lisa
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