August 18, 2019 - Insects

Our wildflower garden is in full bloom now and it’s attracting lots of bees. It seemed like there were several different kinds of bees present so I sent some photos to Bugguide.net to identify them. This one is called a Perplexing Bumble Bee (Bombus perplexus).

BumbleBeePerplexingBombusperplexusDunningLakeItascaCounty20190802

Someone on BugGuide.net identified this bee as a Fernald's Cuckoo Bumble Bee (Bombus fernaldae). According to Wikipedia, this bee species has only queens and males, no worker bees. The females place their eggs in the nests of Confusing Bumble Bees or Red-belted Bumble Bees and those bees raise the young. Birders know that cuckoos (the bird kind) act the same way, placing their eggs in other birds’ nests and leaving the parenting to the other birds. That might be why “Cuckoo” is part of this bee’s name.

BumbleBeeFernald'sCuckooBombusfernaldaeDunningLakeItascaCounty20190801

This is one of the insects that was attracted to our porch light. It’s called a Balsam Fir Sawyer (Monochamus marmorator). Thanks again to BugGuide.net. We have lots of Balsam Fir trees on our land so it’s logical that we would have this insect.

BalsamFirSawyerMonochamusmarmoratorDunningLakeItascaCounty20190718

I found these insects on a Daisy and someone from BugGuide.net identified them as Scarab Beetles.

BeetleScarabTrichiotinusassimilisDaisywindturbineclearingDunningLakeItascaCounty20190629

This damselfly is one of the Bluet species. There are several that look very similar and I can’t tell which one this is.

DamselflyBluetspeciesDunningLake20190720

Here is another damselfly, an Eastern Forktail. The green color on its head and thorax indicate this is an adult male. Females would be either blue or orange in that area.

ForktailEasternmaleIschnuraverticalisDunningLakeItascaCounty20190628

I came out one morning to find this Katydid on our deck. According to the Master Gardner Program at the University of Wisconsin, there are about 6400 species of Katydids in the world. About 255 species are found in North America and 20 species inhabit the Midwest. Katydids look like grasshoppers but are more closely related to crickets. Diana did a Google search and found this information about Katydids. "Both male and female Katydids make sounds by rubbing their front wings together. They hear each other "sing" with ears on their front legs."

KatydidDunningLakeItascaCounty20190802