What April Was For Me

   Hi all! I forgot to make a post last month. I was too excited about going outside again, I guess. Uploads to iNat and sorting through all the photos take a lot of time. Plus, chasing around an almost one year old crawling, and falling all over the place is a full time job in itself! Anyway, for my late April post I'm going to show you some of my favorite photos I took that month! 

Note: I always love finding tracks! Some sort of river bird, maybe ducks? Want to get better at learning tracks this year. 

Note: Canada goose (Branta canadensis) I forgot my lens at home so I couldn't get good pictures but I'm including them because they made my day. 

Note: I always find lichen so pretty!! But, it's hard to get an identification. My guess is common greenshield lichen (Flavoparmelia caperata).

Note: Dark-eyed junco (Junco hyemalis) These chubby little birds were in our yard one morning and they haven't left yet. They chirp a lot, a noise I find myself missing in the cold months. The top photo is of the male (back) and female (front). The bottom photo is one of a particularly round male.

Note: I'm trying to get better at bird photography and was proud of this chickadee shot. Pretty sure it's a black-capped chickadee (Poecile atricapillus).

Note: Asian Lady beetle (Harmonia axyridis) Invasive but beautiful. 

Note: Northern Red Belt (Fomitopsis mounceae). I see these all the time but I still find beauty in each one!

Note: The beginnings of some sort of fungi. Looks like a heart though, it made me smile out on a walk with Joe and Ike. 

Note: Red-winged blackbird (Agelaius phoeniceus). He was telling me to leave him alone while he tried to find a female. Message received, feathered friend. Thanks for the photo! 

Note: Hammock spider (Pityohyphantes costatus). A tiny little guy, found him under some bark on a tree. The top is a front facing photo and I took the second one to focus on the beautiful pattern on his abdomen!

   So, there you have it! That was the month of April in a nutshell for me and my family. I have many other sightings since then and I think May's post is going to be bird themed. Stay tuned for that! As always, I hope you discovered something new. Until next time! 

Yours, 

Jade

Asilidae: Robber Flies

   Hello again! I've been away a while because I had a pretty big life event: we had a little boy! He's the sweetest little thing but needed lots of care. Now he's big enough to come on walks with us and he seems to be content so I've returned to writing. 

   This time, I'd like to discuss robber flies. Firstly, they are my partner's favorite insect which got me to really look into them in the first place. We've been searching for them all summer and one just happened to land on our window at home one afternoon.

   Robber flies are in the family Asilidae. They have a waspy kind of shape, a short proboscis with a sharp, sucking hypopharynx to consume its prey. They also have three ocelli on the tops of their heads between their two large compound eyes. Their legs are long and spiny. My favorite part about them is their mystax which translates to moustache! It is thought to help protect the robber fly's head and face when they're struggling with their prey. They're sometimes confused with wasps or mosquitoes because of the similar body shape but I usually tell them apart by their moustache and halteres!

   They eat other insects and are ambush predators. In fact, they're called robber flies because they usually snatch their prey right out of the air! Their diet is the most vast I've seen in a fly. They eat: flies, beetles, butterflies and moths, various bees, ants, dragonflies and damselflies, ichneumon wasps, grasshoppers, and some spiders! Some do specialize in smaller prey though and appear smaller and more graceful to compensate. They don't seem interested in humans but will deliver a painful bite if handled improperly. Below is an example of a much smaller species which I would assume captures smaller prey and is more graceful in flight.

   The way they consume their prey is quite interesting. The fly grabs their prey right out of the air and then stabs it with its proboscis. During this time, the prey is injected with neurotoxins and proteolytic enzymes which paralyze and digest them at the same time, slurping up the liquid. I like to compare the process to eating a tube of gogurt!

   How do they reproduce? Females have an ovipositor, which enables them to deposit their eggs in low lying plants and grasses, soil, bark, or dead wood. Most lay their eggs in clusters and have a sticky protective coating. The eating habits of the larvae depend on the species because some are carnivores like the adults but others are detrivores. Regardless, the larvae then overwinter and emerge as adults. The whole process ranges from 1-3 years!

   Their chosen living space depends on the species but generally prefer habitats that are open, sunny, and dry. They prefer coming out during the brightest, hottest times of the day. They also like open or scattered vegetation, and some species even seek out bare ground. 

   Unfortunately, they are not very well studied and more research is needed to learn more about them. We do know that they occur everywhere but Antartica, they are voracious predators, and they prefer warm days and open vegetation for hunting. So far, there are over 7500 described species in about 556 genera. I hope one day to identify a robber fly down to species but that is still in the works! 

   Well, thank you for reading my blog. As always I hope you enjoyed this post as much as I enjoyed searching for the robber fly and putting this together. Until next time!

Yours,

Jade

   

Lycaenidae: Gossamer-winged Butterflies

Hello! I saw the prettiest butterfly the other day and wanted to write this blurb about its family: Lycaenidae. I think they're pretty interesting!

   It is the second largest family of butterflies and are also known as gossamer-winged butterflies. They make up about 30% of all butterfly species! 

   Adults are small, brightly colored, and either blue or green as was our little blue friend. They also have hairy antenna-like tails with black and white rings. 

   Many species have a spot at the end of their tail which mimics their front. They turn around when landing and use this spot to confuse predators and make them wonder which end is really their front! This way, they can see the predator coming ahead of time and flee before they get snatched. 

   More than half (about 75%) of these butterflies rely on ants in one way or another. This relationship can be mutualistic (benefits both), parasitic (harms one and benefits the other), or predatory depending on the species. This is called myrmecophily. As a result of these relationships, many larvae have special glands that may produce secretions that attract or subdue ants! Some larvae can even make low vibrations and sounds which they use to communicate with the ants. How cool is that?

   These butterflies eat pretty much anything. Some even exploit their relationship with ants and get the ants to feed them through regurgitation! In some species, ants protect the larvae while they eat their host plant in order to harvest the honeydew that the larvae produce. In others, this is only a mutual benefit for a while before the larvae start preying on the ants. In situations where they are in the ant nest, they usually grow up there and have to find their way out as adult butterflies so they can spread out their wings and start the rest of their lives. 

  I saw this butterfly as a flash of bright blue and we tried so hard to get photos of her. When she finally landed, she let me get pretty close so I got some pretty good shots! Always thankful for even the smallest critters can be the most beautiful. Keep any eye out and you might see one too!

Yours, 

Jade