Predator Perils, By Ambush

Ant in the clutches of a spider

A hungry spider waits in the heart of a sunflower.

Goldenrod Crab Spider, Misumena vatia

A well camouflaged spider waits ready to snap its arms around a passing insect.

Goldenrod Crab Spider with fly

It hunts effectively without having to spin a web.

Jumping Spider, Phiddipus sp. with prey

Jumping spiders catch their prey with well-developed leg muscles and remarkable quickness.

Jagged Ambush Bug, Phymata pennsylvanica

The forelegs of Ambush Bugs foretell their outsized grasping power.

Jagged Ambush Bug with captured fly

They catch, bite, and subdue their victim with an injection of venom and digestive juices.

Jagged Ambush Bug devouring Honeybee,
Freeloader, or Jackal, Flies in attendance

Insect ambushes can draw immediate attention from adventitious carnivores like Freeloader, or Jackal, Flies which dare share the dinner of spiders, mantids and other predatory insects much larger than themselves. They seem to follow the scents exuded by killed prey rather than trailing the predators themselves. (Wikipedia)

'Freeloader' Fly Milichiidae sipping bee fluids
(detail of photo above)

Some species of Michiliidae serve a function analogous to that of cleaner wrasse and cleaner shrimp; they literally scavenge around the chelicerae (jaws) and anal openings of large spiders that cooperatively spread their wet and sticky chelicerae thus allowing the flies to feed actively all over the bases, fangs and mouth. (Wikipedia)

Chinese Mantis Tenodera sinensis captures Bumblebee

A "praying" mantis is the apex ambushing insect at Halibut Point. It's name might aptly be spelled "preying."

Chinese Mantis devouring prey (detail)

Seen up close from a bee's perspective, the statuesque mantis is fiercely equipped and armored.

And so the jostling goes on in the insect's world of life and death. In the human realm civilization aspires with mixed outcomes to smooth the rough edges.

Predator Perils, By Wing

 The insect world is a busy place of eating and being eaten.

Blue Dasher dragonfly

Dragonflies come by their name from their fearsome maneuvers, not their glittering colors. Their legs form a fatal basket for clutching prey in midair.

Robber Fly with captured Greenbottle Fly

Similarly the robber fly's legs are better adapted to snatching than to walking.

Green Heron with captured dragonfly

Of course even the fast and the fearsome can never let their own guard down.

Eastern Yellowjacket dismembering prey

Generally mild-mannered creatures can become ferocious during a brief period in their lifespan when they need to provide protein to their young.

Bald-faced Hornet on patrol

Blossoms of goldenrod draw nectar-seekers that in turn draw fast-flying hunters.

American Sand Wasp hunting on the wing

The intended victims are fairly well armored against attack by their hard outer shells.

Eastern Phoebe bringing home a meal

Every niche in the chain of life incorporates food for its temporal being and stays alert to its own mortal dangers.

Butterflights

Sitting in the meadow my young-at-heart companion pointed to the bright creature winging by. "A flutter-by!"

Monarch of the realm

We discovered that blooming goldenrod is a fine place to find these late summer beauties.

Common Ringlet, of the family Nymphalidae

We took pictures, and looked up butterfly names. The butterflies come from different families. This made sense, because we come from different families too.

American Lady, Nymphalidae

Family names flew around in our imaginations. Nymphalidae sounded like dancers in a Russian ballet.

Clouded Sulphur, Pieridae

When we pronounced all the letters those names came smiling out like music.

Pink-edged Sulphur, Pieridae

We found out that the Pierides were the nine daughters of King Pierus who defied the Muses in a contest of song. In defeat they were turned into birds, which didn't seem like a loss.

Eastern Tailed-Blue, Lycaenidae

We mused on the world of early naturalists who wrote in Latin and Greek. They were developing modern systems of classification to expand ancient knowledge. They laced their scientific nomenclature with classical imagery. 

American Copper, Lycaenidae

We pictured those robust insect collectors with knapsacks and nets and walking sticks clambering out of canoes, sliding down rocky screes, chasing insect novelties. We pictured desiccated academics adding desiccated specimens to desiccated collections. We savored all of their dreams of discovery and of  name-giving at the frontier of knowledge.

Red-banded Hairstreak, Lycaenidae

Name-giving puts language into life, and vice versa. It makes things memorable for people. Naturally the name-givers would sanctify both their systematics, and each newly added species, by turning to ancient sources for names. Perhaps they were able to honor a colleague.

Over the centuries some of the meaning has become obscure, but classical names still taste like rooted romance. We liked saying  Lycaenidae over and over until it slid easily over our tongues. 

Peck's Skipper, Hesperiidae

When it came to the Skipper family our imaginations fluttered. Hesperiidae refers to nymphs in charge of the golden light of sunsets. ² We learned that our modestly colored local Skippers have ravishing relatives in other parts of the world.

 Our time meandering through internet references was as delightful as the hours afield. We wanted to offer you a couple of delicious sidetracks as footnotes to our story.

_________

 1. The etymology of the genus Lycaena has vague and different interpretations. Some maintain that it comes from Lycia, an epithet of the goddess Diana, some from lukaina = she-wolf, others from Lukaios or Lycaeus of Lyceus, the name given to some gods worshipped on the mount Lycaeum in the old Arcadia. Still others from Lykaon, king of Arcadia or from Lukeion, a gymnastics school of old Athens where the mastery of the gymnasts was said to imitate the frantic flight of this butterfly.

Monaco Nature Encyclopedia (online) by Dr. Gianfranco Colombo, trans. Mario Beltramini

2. Hesperiidae [means] “land of the evening” and was applied to Italy by Aeneas, the Trojan prince who founded Rome in Virgil’s Aeneid. Aeneas, as a Trojan, had to travel west towards the evening or setting sun to reach Italy. The genus Hesperia was first created in 1793 by Johan Fabricius (1745-1808) when Hesperia comma (our own Common Branded Skipper) was moved by Fabricius from the genus Papilio (the genus into which Linnaeus (1707-1778) placed all butterflies and skippers) to this newly created genus. The type locality of Hesperia comma, (meaning the place from which the specimen originally described by Linnaeus was from) is Sweden. Why, then, would Fabricius have named the genus for a classical word meaning Italy? The answer, I believe, lies in the evening sky. In Greek mythology, the three Hesperides, sisters named Hespere, (“evening”), Aegle (“dazzling light”) and Erytheis (“Crimson”) lived in the far west in the apple orchard of Hera. I believe Fabricius used the name Hesperia as a genus for those dazzling, golden-hued skippers that were clad in the colors of an evening sunset – reddish-orange and yellow. Certainly the skippers in the genus now comprising Hesperia, including Common Branded Skipper, fit that description.

"Taxonomists Just Wanna Have Fun: All in the (Sub) Family," Harry Zirlin, American Butterflies, Vol 14 No 3/4, Fall/Winter 2006.

Summer Nectar 4 - Goldenrod Gallery

 

American Lady butterfly, Vanessa virginiensis

The final month of summer is a frenzy of ripening and provisioning for all the forms of flora and fauna at Halibut Point.

Bumblebees, Bombus impatiens

The many species of goldenrod fuel a tremendous diversity of insects hurrying through the final preparations of their season.

Cellophane Bee, Colletes inaequalis

Dozens of species of bees, some less than a quarter of an inch in size, congregate at the flowers.

Augochlorine Green-Sweat Bee

Whatever the stages and sequences of their dispersed lives may be the insects make a grand jamboree at the goldenrod.

Feather-legged Fly, Trichopoda pennipes

A new observer's preconceptions are shattered by the colors and configurations across every branch of the insect world.

Hover Fly, Helophilus fasciatus

Some of the patterns have evident utility while others, to the human mind, suggest whimsies beyond rational explanation.

Carabid Beetle, Lebia viridis

With analysis suspended they are simply beautiful.

Locust Borer, Megacyllene robiniae

Like us, the various insects consume plant tissues that are at the origin of all organic life. Our parallel habits may be considered benign, or necessary, or destructive.

Great Golden Digger Wasp, Sphex ichneumoneus

Many insects feed on other insects at some point in their life cycle. For that part they are carnivorous.

American Sand Wasp, Bembix americana

At the goldenrod they are primarily interested in high-calorie nectar.

Gold-marked Thread-waisted Wasp, Eremnophila aureonotata

Each one demonstrates remarkable abilities of travel and agility in this phase of its natural history.

Black-and-yellow Lichen  Moth, Lycomorpha pholus

Every detail of its being suits its purpose within a vast complex of challenges and opportunities.

Clouded Sulphur, Colias philodice

The refinement and animation of its myriad parts take observers to ever-widening thresholds of wonder.

Summer Nectar 3 - Tragedy

Knowing how attractive Japanese knotweed flowers are to insects, I kept my eye on the developing inflorescence  during late July and early August. Apparently a fragrance message finally went out into the air. Insects arrived in earnest on August 11.

Japanese knotweed by the meadow

Although it looks like a shrub in summertime Japanese knotweed is really a perennial that dies back to its subterranean crown with winter frost. The only clump of it blooming in Halibut Point State Park grows close to where the White Fir was wantonly cut down in the first phase of the landscape renovation.

Honeybees nectaring on Japanese knotweed flowers

A has friend written in, "I just learned from a beekeeper in Peabody that goldenrod, purple loosestrife and Japanese knotweed are the three major botanical plants to supply honey bees with nectar in the fall."

Pure Green-Sweat Bee, Augochlora pura

For two days in mid-August after the flowers opened the knotweed grove was a wonderland of insect life.

Swift Feather-legged Fly, Trichopoda pennipes

Many of the flies that came to feed in the banquet arrived in the protective guise of bees or wasps.

A bee-like Margined Calligrapher Flower Fly, Toxomerus marginatus

A wasp-like Thick-headed Fly, Physocephala tibialis

An occasional butterfly joined in the winged melee. For an observer the knotweed provided close-up views of a stream of life that is usually much more dispersed and elusive.

Silver-spotted Skipper, Epargyreus clarus

On the third morning as I arrived at this showcase, a man in an orange HazMat suit was leaving carrying a sprayer. The foliage and flowers of the Japanese knotweed glistened with herbicide.

August 13

Something about the State-sanctioned landscape improvements had condemned the knotweed. An inconvenience? An invasive species? Honeybees themselves are a non-native species, and homo sapiens must be the ultimate invasive species.

Once the original ecology of Halibut Point was disrupted by agriculture, by industrial quarrying, and by horticultural introductions, the land was opened to all manner of adventitious plants. Some of these have commingled enthusiastically and irreversibly with native species in the reforestation of the area. Some of them offer crucial sustenance to insects and birds.

Gut-wrenching memories from Vietnam flooded back to my mind, of lethal science justified against an enemy, of a poisoned countryside, of disintegrating health in exposed veterans, of multi-generational deformities among victims of Agent Orange. It was a tough day in the sanctuary.

Two weeks later

Time has passed, and I have gradually absorbed the realization that this tragedy was a small event in the constant tumult of beauty and destruction that accompanies human footsteps.

 Those two days at the knotweed were a special portal into the wonder of it all.