Bugs in the garden

#1

#2

#3

#4

#5 on spent Petunia calix (the brownish thing at the top of the pic is about to spill over with white Petunia seeds :-).

#6

#7

#8

#9

#10

#11

Julie, your pictures are always awesome. What kind of camera do you use?

jnana


This message was edited Jun 13, 2006 10:11 AM

This message was edited Jun 13, 2006 10:11 AM

#12

#13 on a hollyhock bud

Val, thank you very much :-). I have a Canon PowerShot G3.

-Julie

I'm thinking of replacing mine so I'm going to seriously consider the Canon. Fabulous shots you take, should consider submitting them to National Geographic. What kind of spider is #11? It gives me the heebie jeebies.

Val, you're far too nice. You should check out Rich's photos (Monterey). He takes fantastic macros :-).

I don't know the ID's on most of the critters above. The spider in #11 though was an itty bitty one. I caught him spinning his web industriously up and down, up and down between a Cuphea hyssopifolia plant and a box mounted on the garden wall above. He's only about the size of a pencil eraser (including his legs) :-)

-Julie

A great series of shots Julie. Here are my thoughts on what they all are:
1. Small white butterfly Pieris rapae
2. A fly, possibly a hover fly in the Syrphidae
3. A stink bug in the Pentatomidae
4. A bug, possibly in the Pyrrhocoridae
5. Insect eggs?
6. A honey Bee Apis melifera
7. A grasshopper, I love the stripes across its eyes
8. A cricket
9. A fly
10. A jumping spider (Salticidae)
11. An orb-weaver spider (Araneidae)
12. Spider, possibly a Nephila species in the Tertagnathidae
13. A leaf-hopper, possibly in the Cicadellidae

This message was edited Jun 30, 2005 10:27 AM

Ken, thank you!!!

I'm positive that the butterfly is Pieris....and you're probably right about the species. Hard (for me personally) to tell without it opening it's wings.

Those hover flies have been soooo difficult to get photos of. I've been trying for months, but they dart and zigzag too fast and too frequently. This was a lucky shot and I have NO idea how my camera managed to focus and click before it darted out of frame.

I will be watching those eggs....I'm VERY curious to find out what they might be. And hoping they'll turn out to be something good LOL

That's also interesting that you guessed #13 to possibly be in the Cicadellidae as I also thought it looked a bit like a very tiny Cicada :-)

The grasshopper is my favorite too. He landed on the grass beside me (how appropriate!) and actually let me pick him up without protest. Then he walked around on my hand for a few minutes before I put him back down. Luckily I was already shooting pics in the garden, so I was able to get some close ups.....yes, the eyes are very cool :-)

-Julie

Julie you really have some cool looking bugs...so far away and still so similar to ours. LOL

I like the the butterfly and grasshopper too. Insects have such incredible eyes and both those pictures show them clearly! Great shots!

Super photos and great info kennedyh !

Remember those eggs from yesterday? Well, they hatched! :-)

Here are 4 of the teeny tiny little rascals:

closer up:

face to face:

and an idea of how teeny they really are:

Great close-ups Julie! They look like mini caterpillars, so they will eventually be a moth or butterfly, but I couldn't begin to suggest which species.

What a great selection of insects!

Have your little caterpillars dispersed or are they still where you can keep an eye on them?

Exceptional micro photos, Julie .... I've been playing around with my 105mm micro lens, working on Depth of Field issues. I still have alot to learn !!!

Or, maybe collect them along with some leaves and bring inside and see what developes?

Ken and Galanthophile, thank you :-)

Stacey and John, I thought about bringing in the caterpillars with some leaves....too late. The next morning I went out to check on their progress and I couldn't find a single one of them. So they either morphed into something unrecognizable rather quickly, got eaten, or crawled away. I hope it's option #1 or #3 LOL. There is one person here who may be able to ID the little guys for me though....I'll let you know if I find out anything :-)

Linthicum, thank you! :-) I look forward to seeing some of your macro shots :-)

-Julie

Yep, new hatchlings tend to disappear pretty quickly, the hunt for food begins immediately. I'll bet you find one or two of them around the yard one of these days.

Still working on the cat id are ya?

Stacey, I just wish I knew what they were and what they were looking to eat. There isn't any sign of them having eaten the Petunias, so I'm doubtful that's what they like......but why would the eggs have been on the Petunia if that weren't a host plant?

John, I've emailed "the source" with the pics. I'll let you know if and when he replies. :-)

-Julie

Okey-dokey. I like your tenacious pursuit for an id!

Okay, I've got a probable ID on the little cats: Pachypasa otus

Here's the (very prompt!) reply I got:

I've read that some will lay eggs on plants near a host plant. It discourages predation, same as the caterpillar that leaves the host plant to pupate elsewhere.

I can see a resemblance. Way to go!

Stacey, the weird thing is that this pot of Petunias was on the patio in the back of my house and the possible Cypress tree is in the front of the house. It was sheer dumb luck that I had more potted Petunias on the front patio and decided to move the pot with the cats to the front so they'd have more Petunias to eat......lucky for them as the potted "cypress" is just 2 feet from the Petunias on the front patio. Otherwise they'd have had to crawl a good 150 meters around the house to the tree....half of that over a hot ceramic tile patio. I don't think they'd have made it even if they had such amazing senses that they could even detect the tree from that far away....but then, I'm not a cat expert LOL.

Thanks John :-) Oz has always been really great about helping me out with IDs. And his site has been critical in all the Israeli butterfly/moth IDs I've been able to make on my own. :-)

-Julie

LOL Julie, That would be a lot of feet to try to keep off hot pavers...ow ow ow hot hot hot...