July 24, 2011-Interesting Insects

Birding is kind of slow at this time of the year so I turned my camera on some of the many insects found at our home in northern Minnesota. On our deck, we have a stone sculpture carved to look like the face of an owl. This Gray Comma butterfly decided to land on the owl. It looked like the owl was startled and was saying, “What is THAT???”

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This photo will certainly win no awards. But I wanted to include it to show you a male Calico Pennant dragonfly that is still flying around even with battered wings and one wing almost completely missing.

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This is a Four-spotted Skimmer and it was very cooperative. It was perching on a post in our yard and let me get quite close so I could take this photo from behind.

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The Skimmer allowed me to move around to the other side and get a nice close shot from the front. This gives you a good look at the huge eyes of a dragonfly. It would occasionally fly up in the air but seemed to always come back to this same perch. It even flew onto my hat a couple of times.

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One time, the Skimmer came back to the perch with another insect in its mouth. (I think it was a deer fly but I’m not sure.) It proceeded to eat the other bug as I watched in fascination. I did remember to take lots of shots while this was happening. Later, after it was all over, I realized that I should have turned on the video. My mindset is still on individual photos, but this would have made an interesting video. One of the reasons we really like dragonflies is that they eat lots of other insects, especially mosquitos.

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At first I thought this might be a June Bug. That’s a name we use for a group of hard shelled bugs that we hear banging against our window screens at night. I posted it to BugGuide.net and the experts there identified it as Phyllophaga which is the scientific name for a group of insects known as May Beetles. They also said that identifying it to the species level usually requires dissection of the genitalia. Well, I can assure you that isn’t going to happen. So, I guess I will have to be satisfied just calling it a May Beetle. Notice the interesting antenna.

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I found this Monarch Butterfly caterpillar on a Swamp Milkweed plant growing at the edge of our lake. This is the preferred food plant of the Monarch caterpillar. You can’t tell from this close up shot, but the caterpillar is still small, only about an inch long. It will grow much bigger. I have a series of photos on my web site that shows a monarch changing from a caterpillar to a chrysalis and then emerging as an adult butterfly. Here’s a link to the Did You Know galleries. Click on the Monarch Butterfly gallery when you get there. http://earlorfphotos.smugmug.com/Did%20You%20Know

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