Psyche casta Mating

This is the text of an article Jody and I submitted to the Vermont Entomological Society. It was published in the fall/winter edition, #128, of the Society's newsletter, VES News. I have included more photos here than were in the original article.

Home of the female Psyche casta moth

On June 19, 2026, Jody and I drove around some of our favorite places for bugging in Barton. We ended up at May Pond, where there are fields and forest, and, of course, the pond. The brush scraped the car on the one track road down to the pond. We stopped to see if we could find any creatures on the alder and willow.  And we did: the home of a female Psyche casta moth, the common bagworm moth.

We have probably all found these everywhere. They are not native to North America, but they are certainly plentiful. The female is wingless. I’ve always wanted to see a wingless moth, but I never have. I have been reluctant to dissect their little houses of dry grass and disturb them.

We photographed the moth dry-grass house, plucked the leaf from the tree, and brought her home where I put her in a moth house. I thought that if there were eggs inside her house, perhaps I would be fortunate enough to see them eclose. However, as the days went on and nothing happened, I forgot that she was there.

Some of the dozen male moths trying to find the female.

But on June 29 at 6 AM, I went to the porch to check my moths and found at least a dozen very small brown moths fluttering feverishly around the moth enclosure. Being only half awake and having no early morning cognitive abilities, I was totally confused and went back inside my own house. The only thing that I could figure out in the moment was that the small brown moths were most likely male because of their antennae. Later, I suddenly remembered the moth inside the enclosure and quickly looked up the lifecycle of Psyche casta moths. Sure enough, the male bagworm moth is called to the female by her pheromones. I quickly went outside and opened the moth enclosure and waited to see what would happen.

Two male moths entered the enclosure. Then the female finally appeared! I had the time of my life photographing them and their experiences in there. After the males left the enclosure (after hours and hours of rest), I closed it up again. If there are eggs from this mating(s), they will be inside the grass house. They will overwinter there. Unfortunately, the female will die after laying eggs in her house. Hopefully the eggs will survive the winter on my porch, and I will watch them as they make cocoons and eclose next spring. I have read that they don't require any fancy food, only leaf litter. This was a great experience, even if it was for a non-native species.

Male moth

Female appears

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A Black Scavenger Fly Blows Bubbles

Jody's bubbling masked bee photo

I re-downloaded iMovie to my iPad the other day for nature videos. I had purchased it years ago but never used it. I had found a black scavenger fly. They are very, very small. They have heads like ants but eyes like flies. They also seem to dance on leaves because they continuously open and close their wings. When I got my shots into the iPad (which I now do with my new, streamlined Lightroom-free workflow), I found the fly had been blowing bubbles. Why?

Jody had found a solitary masked bee blowing bubbles that week, also. We learned that solitary bees, being more primitive than social bees, cannot digest pollen as the social bees do. So they make the pollen more digestible with bubbling. But not flies.

Nobody agrees why flies blow bubbles. It isn't just scavenger flies that do it: just about all species of flies bubble. At least that is what I gather from my reading.

There are three explanations for fly bubbles:

• to disperse pheromones
• to dehydrate dilute food
• to cool down

I expect research will settle on one explanation sooner or later.

I decided to make a video of this one individual fly blowing bubbles. And I decided to make a "real" movie with iMovie. It took hours to re-learn the software, pick the appropriate music and make title boards. I was so immersed in the project that I lost sight of the nature of the beast. Literally. This was to be a nature video and I now feel that I made it ridiculously frilly. However, I'm too busy dealing with flash flood issues and my so-called normal activities and I don't feel like re-doing it. So here is my frilly bubbly fly video.  By the way, I never truly finished the video to what I wanted it to be. 😳

00:01:04

Resources:

• "BEE-havior: The “Bubble” Bee—Hylaeus"
• "Flies blowing bubbles"
• "Structural Differences in the Digestive Tract Between Females and Males Could Modulate Regurgitation Behavior in Anastrepha ludens (Diptera: Tephritidae)"
• "A bubble-blowing fly"
• "Backyard curiosities 1: Bubble-blowing flies"
• "Flies as pollinators and bubble-blowers"

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From Bug Hunt to Restaurant

Jody's mating mosaic darners

Jody decided to close up her law office for a long weekend and spent Friday at Crystal Lake State Park. I picked her up after school and we came back to my house (one mile away) for more bug hunting. She got some magnificent photos on that iPhone of hers. She found these dragonflies hanging together under a branch of a pine tree. They allowed her to carry them down to where I was inspecting a leafroller larva. And as soon as Jody got to me, they flew away still coupled together. It was a memorable sight.

The darners in the tree.

I was not as fortunate yesterday. I found my leafroller larva, some type of moth, and unrolled it. When touched with a piece of grass, it wriggled very violently. I thought I had a video of that action but I didn't press the right button. I have found more of these larvae and will be sleeving the dogwood branch where they are maturing. 

The tiny caterpillar inside the leaf that it had rolled up.

Outside of the leaf.

Other creatures that we found:

Another Swamp Milkweed Leaf Beetle (Labidomera clivicollis)

Tricolored Bumble Bee (Bombus ternarius)

Everyone's favorite crane fly: Eastern Phantom Crane Fly (Bittacomorpha clavipes)

Banded Garden Spider (Argiope trifasciata)
Its zig-zag web is barely visible at the bottom.

Banded Tussock Moth (Halysidota  tessellaris)

Genus Stictocephala
(A buffalo treehopper)

A robber fly for your nightmares:
A Hanging-Thief (Genus Diogmites)

Everyone's favorite caterpillar:
Brown-hooded Owlet (Cucullia convexipennis)

Revisiting our jagged ambush bugs at the end of the season.

They wear different colors now.
Here, the male has the brown face and the female has a yellow face.

But then . . .

😱😱😱 

Jody found bear scat full of cherry pits not 20 feet from my back door. Lucy was calm so we knew that the bear was not close by, but our wanderings were now at an end. Bears scarf down so many cherries it is totally ridiculous. And at this time of year, it seems that all my trees are cherries. They are everywhere. In fact, I have read that my Black cherry trees (Prunus serotina) are the most populous tree in New England forests. Cherry picking time is when Jody and I stay out of the woods.

We retired to Orleans to a restaurant for supper and swapped photos and stories of our day. It was a wonderful day.

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The Pesky Details

Every photo of mine and Jody's confirmed the misidentification.

Remember these cute August 8 caterpillars when I posted about creatures that camouflage as bird droppings? The first creature I highlighted was the Beautiful Wood-Nymph (Eudryas grata). But it wasn't.

Kathryn got in touch with me last night about a caterpillar she had from her property and could identify to genus but not to species. It was a Eudryas. Without looking closely, I told her it was E. grata, the Beautiful. But she had comparison photos from the Internet and wanted to know how I was sure because she thought it might be a Pearly, E. unio. Now, Kathryn has always had an excellent eye for the small details in insect identification. I remembered how she would keep me honest and see what was in front of us, not what I wanted to see. So I looked up the details.

When I submitted my caterpillar to iNaturalist, the AI said it was E. grata. Jody had named it that, also. And then two other people quickly confirmed it. Without ever looking (but I remember wondering) at the two other Eudryas species caterpillars, I accepted the IDs and moved on. But if Kathryn had doubts, I knew I had to look again.

On Bugguide, there are no photos of the third Eudryas species caterpillar (Eudryas brevipennis), and I could safely ignore that one because it lives west of the Rockies. 

There are only two differences between the Beautiful Wood-Nymph caterpillar and the Pearly Wood-Nymph caterpillar: dots on the prolegs (1 dot on the Beautiful and 2 dots on the Pearly on each proleg) and the color of the pro-thoracic shield (orange on the Beautiful and white(ish) on the Pearly), both of which I marked on the photo above. I had to reacquaint myself of the meaning of pro-thoracic and how the heck you find it on a caterpillar, but I did. 

Kathryn and I agreed that all the caterpillars that she, Jody, and I had were Pearly and not Beautiful. Which meant I had to update the IDs on iNat, tell Jody, and update my post of August 8.

The moth I posted on August 8 was the Beautiful, and did not belong there with that Pearly caterpillar. Below are my Beautiful moth and Joanne Russo's Pearly moth. The inner brown band is smooth on the Beautiful and scalloped on the Pearly. And that's about it for the difference between the two species. It gets a person to wondering why Nature does this. It must be out of perverse pleasure to making humans nuts.

Beautiful Wood-Nymph - Hodges#9301 (Eudryas grata) 

Pearly Wood-Nymph - Hodges#9299 (Eudryas unio)

© Joanne Russo

AND . . . the biggest news! 

Kathryn says she is doing bug photos again!

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A Fly for Supper

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Jody found her ambush bug the other day and gave me permission to post her photos. These are special photos that are not simple insect portraits. So I made a slideshow of them. She only uses her iPhone for insect photos and I am always stunned at the quality of her work. Her iPhone videos are also awesome. She also never edits her shots!

Jagged ambush bugs are fairly plentiful this time of year. Every season we have an informal contest to see who can find the first one. They are very small (less than 1/2 inch long) and well camouflaged so it is a competition of our bug eyes. This is the first year that I have won, with my shot of the ambush bug hiding in yarrow that I posted for Wordless Wednesday:

The ambush bugs lie in ambush in flowers. Their huge front legs enable them to snatch an insect out of the air as it flies by, or to grab it as it walks or crawls by. The ambush bug has piercing and sucking mouth parts, so it injects a paralyzing agent through its beak and into the other insect. I can't find information on whether this paralyzing agent also anesthetizes the insect. Because after the prey is paralyzed, the ambush bug uses that beak to slurp up the insides of the insect prey. And that knowledge made it difficult for me to look at Jody's photos the first time. But like we tell each other, everything has to eat.  

Jody identifies as a gardener and she maintains the gardens not only at her home but at church and the library. We are all enriched by her insights with insects. I am especially enriched that her knowledge of botany enhances my knowledge of insect behaviors.

Another JAB I found on August 8

University of Minnesota: Small Wonders: Jagged Ambush Bugs

Missouri Department of Conservation: Ambush Bugs

Video: Bug of the Week: Ambush Bug Catches a Bee

Piyushi Dhir: What's That Bug? Ambush Bugs: All You Need to Know for a Bug-Savvy Backyard

Michael J. Raupp, Ph.D.: Bug of the Week: Ambush - Ambush Bugs, Phymatinae and Crab Spiders, Thomisidae

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The Grimness of Nature, Part 2

00:12

When Jody sent me this video last week, I didn't even know what I was looking at and thought it was a two-headed snail (even though that made no sense . . . were the two heads wanting to go in conflicting directions? No.). But Jody reminded me that snail eyes are at the end of the tentacles, not on their head. I still had no idea what I was seeing. 

Leucochloridium infected amber snail (Jody's photo)

Jody told me I was watching the action of a parasitic worm, Leucochloridium, that was residing in the eyestalks of the snail. The worm dances in order to imitate caterpillar behavior. The worm wants to be eaten by birds, but the dancing eyestalks need to be seen by the birds, so the worm manipulates the snail's behavior and coerces it to climb as high as possible in daylight (the snails are nocturnal in order to avoid drying out in the sun). A bird will see this faux caterpillar and peck out the snail eyes in order to eat it. Inside the bird's guts, the worm reproduces, the bird defecates the worm eggs, the eggs are eaten by another snail, and the entire cycle repeats.

This isn't the end of the snail, however. The bird only eats the eyestalks, which regenerate and the snail lives on to see another day. It will again reproduce and create more little hosts for more little worms. 

Amber snail (Genus Succinea)

The only type of snail I see is the amber snail, an entire family (Family Succineidae) of many species of snails worldwide. All of ours here seem to be of the same species but nobody seems to know (or care) which species. Since Leucochloridium only preys on amber snails, I am in a perfect position to find an infected snail.

Below is a photo of what could be snail eggs. Or slug eggs. I find them under rotting wood where it is damp. They are like little jewels.

You can also find these infected snails and observe their behavior. Look on the vegetation, not down near the ground. Remember, the worm forces the snail to climb as high as it can. Good luck!

Wired: "The Parasitic Worm That Turns Snails Into Disco Zombies"

W. Wesołowska, T. Wesołowski: "Do Leucochloridium sporocysts manipulate the behaviour of their snail hosts?"

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Jody's Cats Update

Cat #1 is a chrysalis today.
It was a caterpillar at 7:30 AM
So new that I missed it by maybe one hour!
You can easily see its silken harness.

Cat #2 is doing fine.

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Jody's Cats J'd Up

Black swallowtail caterpillars at Jody's
at the top and right assuming J position

I got a text from Jody on Sunday morning that her latest black swallowtail caterpillars had J'd up. That is the position they assume when they are ready to become a chrysalis. This brood will be overwintering. She already has some overwintering, so she asked if I wanted them. Sure, I said! I picked them up after church.

The sticks in the plastic container, above, are for them to make a chrysalis in the proper position for eclosing. They spin a silk thread that harnesses them to the stick. They must be upright. But these decided to be a chrysalis on the enclosure itself. Just great, I thought. Now I have to be extra careful with the enclosure. 

I checked them today (they are in the cold garage for the winter), but something is not right. One is a chrysalis but the other is doing nothing.

This one looks okay so far.
You can see the tattered shed skin on
the very bottom of the chrysalis.

This one could be parasitized.
The two need to be separated.

There are many parasitizing wasps and flies out late in the season, so one or both of these could have been parasitized. I want to separate them, but since they are attached to the enclosure itself, it would require me to cut up the enclosure. It's Jody's, not mine. So I'll think of another way to quarantine them.

Here's hoping for the best! Unruly children can be a pill.

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Wordless Wednesday: Sunflower

Jody's sunflower at church

Wordless at
Comedy Plus

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Insects on Jerusalem Artichokes

Jagged Ambush Bug (Phymata)

Every bug hunter I know keeps their eyes out for Jagged ambush bugs in late summer when the goldenrod blooms. They are so bizarre! They even have different appearances, like chameleons, depending on what the plant they settle into for their ambush. I've seen them bright yellow like black-eyed susans. Jody and I were very surprised to find this on a Jerusalem artichoke leaf.

Asian Lady Beetle (Harmonia axyridis)

As I prepared an earlier post about Jerusalem artichokes, I saw the different species of insects I had found on them. I thought it would be fun to collect them in one post.

Tiny unidentified wasp

Jerusalem artichokes are late bloomers. In Barton they bloom just before and after the first frosts. We've had many heavy frosts so far this October and late September. That's why I wanted to have these plants! But that is not what happened (see the article linked above).

Common Eastern Bumble Bee
(Bombus impatiens)

 Aphids (Tribe Macrosiphini)

There weren't as many insects as I had hoped to find on the artichokes. That could be a function of their height, however, which prevented me from looking at them often. And usually, I never even checked them for bugs. Because I couldn't.  🤷

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