Some eggs

At the arboretum, on this plant...


These eggs. True bugs of some kind?



Then there were these on a dandelion bud. I took it home to see what hatches.

Moments before it emerged

This was my experimental monarch, just before it emerged from the Chrysalis. This was last weekend during our big Green Scene at the arboretum. I missed the emergence by moments. Why it didn't occur to me to take more pictures, I have no idea. Well, yes I do. I was busy with a bunch of kids. Anyway, it was a boy, and we let it fly away later that day.

Tiny beetles on a flower

Tiny beetles on a flower

A life of sex and toil and then you die

Popout

The same and more of the same

Yet another in my seemingly endless series of porch moths.


It sort of looks like some of the other moths I've seen and photographed, but I'm pretty sure it's a little different.



And some crane flies on a date. I actually made a video of a female crane fly digging in the ground to lay her eggs, and I tried but for some technological reason, it wouldn't upload. You can see it here on Flickr. While you're at it, why not look at my sphinx caterpillar video too.


My experimental caterpillar grew up just fine. It is now in a chrysalis, in a small enclosure at the arboretum, hopefully to eclose during our big plant show and sale this weekend.

Other "experiments" have not fared as well. A pair of tiny ground mantid nymphs that I brought home from the desert died after they failed to eat any of the tiny insects I provided for them. I tried aphids, ants, and "grass plankton", a mix of minute critters I netted up from our lawn. I wonder what they would be eating in the desert.

Also, the lovely green caterpillar I found last month died while we were on vacation. It had burrowed under the soil, but then it just shriveled up.

PBS show about frogs in peril

I watched this show tonight on PBS. It was interesting and pretty scary, the thought of frogs going extinct. And not just because frogs are cute. They are a vital part of the food chain. Without frogs, lots and lots of insects will go uneaten. Without tadpoles, the water quality of streams change because there is overgrowth of algae. Birds, snakes, and other predators are declining in areas where frogs have disappeared. Habitat loss and a fungal disease are responsible for much of the problems. Some people and scientists are trying to help the frogs, but we're running out of time.

Check your local TV listings to see when this show plays in your area. Or click on the photo above to go to the PBS/Nature website where you can view the program online.

Because they're everywhere

I've been meaning to update my blog header photo for a long, long time! I decided that since the crane fly population seems to have reached a critical mass, I would put up a picture of one. These things are everywhere, all over the yard, and every time we open the door, a crane fly comes in. So now they're all over the house, too.
Happy crane fly season!

Exposed

I accidentally unearthed this bright green caterpillar while I was weeding. I wonder if it will turn into one of these green moths? It might just as well turn into a brown one, for all I know.

I popped it, weeds, soil and all, into a little container. With a little luck it will pupate soon and we'll see what comes of it.

Enforced captivity

It's the dawn of the second day of the little monarch's life. I found that he had enlarged the hole he made in the leaf last night, after which he made his way to another leaf, and was actively exploring when I took these pictures.


I wonder if he's just looking for a place to settle down, or is he not satisfied with what this plant can provide in the way of nutrition? Maybe he's trying to find the real milkweed. In any case, I decided I had better put him and his plant in a little enclosure to keep him from wandering too far.



It will be harder to observe him now, but it's better just to let nature take its course for the next few days, and then I'll open it up and see how he's doing.

Just hatched

One of the monarch eggs on the plant I'm observing. I knew it looked ready to hatch this morning, but I was not able to just sit and watch it all day, so I just kept checking on it when I could and sure enough, I managed to just miss the actual hatching.


Here's the little guy eating his first meal: his egg shell.


At last check, he had finished eating the shell, and had also eaten a teeny little hole in the leaf, but it's too dark to take his picture any more today. (The pictures above were taken outside in the sun.)

A Milkweedy Weed

While walking through the arboretum the other day, I came upon a weak and tattered Monarch butterfly. Although she could barely fly even 2 feet off the ground, she was still fluttering busily from one tiny plant to the other.








I soon realized she was actually ovipositing, laying eggs, on these little plants. But what are these little plants? They don't look like the regular Asclepias curassavica milkweed plants that the Monarchs use at the arboretum.


My first thought was that this poor old, dying female was trying to put her last few eggs somewhere, anywhere, because she could no longer fly to where the proper host plants were.


Here's a shot of one of the little weeds next to my hand, for a size reference. The little white spots you see are not monarch eggs, but the white milky sap that oozed out when I picked a leaf.


So, hmmm.....maybe the butterfly knows something about this plant that I don't.


A little farther along on the same trail, I found these same plants supporting small colonies of yellow oleander aphids. This is the same aphid that commonly infests the milkweed plants (A. curassavica) that the monarch caterpillars love to eat.

So, I sought an ID from our ever-knowlegable plant curator, who quickly recognized it as Araujia sericifera, an invasive vine that is from the same milkweed subfamily: Asclepiadoideae. He said they must remove this pesky plant, or the vines would grow and grow until they overtake even the tallest trees in the arboretum. So don't expect to save it for the caterpillars. I didn't expect that, I assured him. I just wanted to find out if it really was a monarch host plant. Besides, so far I had only just seen one tattered old butterfly laying eggs on it. I hadn't seen any caterpillars...

But wait!
Today when I went to collect a few of the plants that had eggs on them, I found a small caterpillar on one. I am going to try potting up a few of these weeds (taking care to make sure they don't escape and take over my whole back yard, of course) and try to see if a caterpillar will actually grow well on them. If they do, it would at least be another food source for the teachers who are always running out of milkweed for the caterpillars in their classrooms.

A short lizard tale

This morning, as I was gathering some old palm fronds to put out for the trash (green waste, it will be composted), I exposed some critters that had been lying beneath them. After I had put the fronds in the trash can, I turned back to see a large alligator lizard where they had been.


I'm guessing it was a female, by the head and body size. And she had a sowbug-killer spider in her jaws. The spider was probably looking for a new place to hide under, and the lizard was quick to grab herself a little breakfast.


And nice enough to sit still while I ran for my camera.



And that's the end of the tale. I told you it was short :)