Insects seldom get their due. Sure, they are tiny, often times hard to see clearly enough to know what they are, and there are so, so many of them! And some are annoying, but they all have a purpose, and some are quite beautiful! Some are important pollinators, others are food for other, larger creatures.
I enjoy looking for them, and trying to photograph them, even though they are constantly on the move and don't seem to appreciate me trying to capture their activities. Here are some that I have photographed recently. I'll start off with a large and easily identifiable one, the American Snout butterfly, which came to my yard.
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| Brown-belted Bumblebee |
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| Bicolored Striped Sweat Bee |
These next two are photos of a rare species, and it was in my yard. It is a Beebalm Shortface.
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| Ailanthus Webworm Moth |
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| A type of Long-legged Fly |
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| Eastern Comma |
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| Great Golden Digger Wasp |
These next three photos show a Hickory Tiger Moth caterpillar. I first encountered it suspended on a long silken thread at about eye level, and it was slowly dropping to the ground. The second photo here shows it in suspension. But as it got to the ground vegetation, it latched onto a leaf stem, then crawled onto the leaf.
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| Lunate Longhorn-cuckoo Bee |
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| Margined Leatherwing Beetle |
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| Marsh Greenbottle Fly |
There have been quite a few Monarch butterflies around, and occasionally a female will stop by and quickly deposit an egg on the underside of a Common Milkweed. The eggs are very tiny!
Unfortunately some don't make it. This Monarch caterpillar got caught up in a spider web, and that was the end.
Fortunately some do make it to adult hood.
Another butterfly is this Mourning Cloak.
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| Pennsylvania Ambush Bug |
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| Potter's Grass Spider |
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| Question Mark |
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| Red-spotted Purple |
I go out along the grassy beach dunes on occasion, as Marie enjoyed walking along the beach, so I have memories of her. And I keep a lookout for something, such as this Seaside Grasshopper.
I also came across this American Sand Wasp, busily digging into the sand.
Resting on a milkweed leaf was this Small Bird-dropping Moth...
...and on another occasion I came across this caterpillar of the Spotted Apatelodes Moth.
On a railing along the boardwalk was this Striped Horse Fly...
...and a Swamp Milkweed Beetle....
...on a Swamp Milkweed.
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| Two-spotted Longhorn Bee |
And finally, for this post, a Viceroy, looking much the same as a Monarch, except for its slightly smaller size, and the black median stripe on the hind wing is fairly straight, not a u-shape.
Lots more creatures of various types to photograph and show!
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