July 18 Bugsit Video

I have decided to free myself from restrictions and simply make  videos without rules. Commenters have freed me. I thank you. Today is another iPhone memory video I made of today's finds. 

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• Margined Calligrapher (Toxomerus marginatus): a flower fly
• Butterfly: Dun Skipper (Euphyes vestris)
• Yellow fly: Hystricia abrupta, a tachinid (bristle) fly. The larvae of these flies parasitize other insects and arthropods. Many of the adults feed on nectar. I am not a fan.
• Tiny crab spider (Tribe Misumenini)
• One of the indistinguishable Looper moths (Genus Caenurgina)
• Leaf beetle (Genus Plagiodera)
• One-striped Deer Fly (Chrysops univittatus)
• Macquart's Deer Fly (Chrysops macquarti)

We are finally having normal, awesome weather today. I have great plans for Sunday with Jody. 

If you like birds, please look at the new addition of bird song on the sidebar. I got the Merlin Bird ID phone app, made by Cornell University. It is free and it changed my life. Now all my family and friends are using it. I just stick my arm out (so that the phone does not hear me breath) and record bird song. 

Have a great weekend! 

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Saturday Critters: Chrysomelid beetle larva

Case-bearing Beetle Larva

This is a photo of an exciting find for my late husband and myself. It wasn’t just a lifer (bug hunters have lifers, just as birders do), it was one of an entire subfamily that I had never known, let alone seen. We all know leaf beetles to some extent: seed beetles, tortoise beetles, calligrapha beetles, the Colorado potato beetle, flea beetles, even lady beetles. But this is the larva of another: a case-bearing leaf beetle: “Larvae are casebearers, living in and protected by a case constructed of their fecal matter and sometimes plant debris. The case is shorter than the larva that remains folded inside it. Eggs are laid in carefully sculpted packets formed from feces and abdominal secretions. . . " (1)

I saw this minute lump, or dot, on an alder leaf in the top photo with my finger tip for scale. A flea beetle was inspecting the lump. I could tell immediately that this was a living creature because of the color and pattern on the dot. I did some shots, took the leaf, and carried it home for inspection. We had a great time figuring out what it was: we went through sawfly larvae, spiders (at one point, it looked like spider legs coming out of the case), until finally, after all the photos and observations, I thought of case bearers. Some case-bearers use leaf litter to construct their cases. This case-bearer uses its own poop (frass).

The only case bearers I knew of at that point were moths, but I searched for others and found Cryptocephalinae. Discovering the ID of a new-to-me insect without help from scientists is one of the most exciting things to do. Of course, what those entomologists have taught me through discussions of their finds and of my photos is what prepared me to be able to figure this out.

I kept the larva in a mason jar with alder leaves for a while but I didn’t like how the life cycle was progressing so I set it free. Unfortunately, I have never found another. I so wanted to see the adult. We could have identified which leaf beetle it was.

By the way: if anyone is interested in insect hunting, I suggest investigating groves of alders. They sustain a huge variety of insects and, therefore, the birds, especially warblers, are there to feed on them.

References: 

1. Bugguide: Subfamily Cryptocephalinae - Case-bearing Leaf Beetles

More critters at
Viewing Nature with Eileen

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A Leaf Beetle

Leaf Beetle (Calligrapha philadelphica)

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