TIPPING THE SCALES

By Arthur V. Evans

Wax scales that is. Indian wax scales to be precise.

While trimming our nandina hedge this afternoon, I noticed a couple of small, white, barnacle-looking lumps on a stem. They were female Indian wax scales, Ceroplastes ceriferus (Fabricius). Sexing Indian wax scales is easy since males are not known in any wild population in Virginia. Adults are covered with a thick, white waxy layer that not only protects them from predators, parasitoids, and pesticides, but also helps them to survive freezing temperatures during the winter.

Reproduction is by parthenogenesis. One generation is produced annually in Virginia, but two or more appear in warmer climates. The first instars, or crawlers, hatch in spring and early summer and feed on leaves. They are not covered with a protective wax layer and are very susceptible to dehydration, parasites, and pesticides.

Adult Indian wax scales are conspicuous in late summer and early fall and suck sap from at least 122 plant species in 46 families. Prolific breeders, they quickly cover ornamental plants. Burgeoning wax scale populations not only ruin the plant’s appearance, but also cover them with sooty mold that develops on the prodigious amount of sticky waste (honeydew) that they produce.

Carefully tipping or lifting the scale to one side to detach the it from the plant stem reveals the orange and segmented body underneath. In the adjacent photo, the anterior of the body is on the lower right, while posterior is on the upper left. The mouthparts are visible and appear as a dark central spot at about the anterior third of the body.

Resource: Kosztarab, M. 1996. Scale Insects of Northeastern North America. Identification, Biology, and Distribution. Virginia Museum of Natural History, Special Publication No. 3. Martinsville, VA. 650 pp.

© 2010, A.V. Evans

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SHARPSHOOTERS AND BROCHOSOMES

By Arthur V. Evans

Broad-headed sharpshooter, Oncometopia orbona.

Sharpshooters (Oncometopia species) measure 11-13 mm in length and are among the largest of North America’s leafhoppers. They feed on a wide variety of plants growing in gardens, parks, meadows, and woodland edges during summer and fall. Their sap feeding activities may spread plant pathogens. Females use their knifelike ovipositors to insert eggs into soft stems. The eggs are covered with a chalky substance (egg brochosomes) that make them more resistant to excess moisture and protect them from fungal infections and possibly attacks by parasitoids.

Broad-headed sharpshooter with brochosomes.

Brochosomes are intricately shaped proteinaceous particles that are produced by kidney-like structures called Malpighian tubules and excreted as a solution. After the sharpshooter molts, the solution is spread over the exoskeleton as a water-proof coating. Female sharpshooters store brochosomes as a single white dot on each forewing to be used later as a protective coating for their eggs.

© 2010, A.V. Evans

CAN YOU SAY OSMETERIUM?

By Arthur V. Evans

This summer a cadre of dedicated parents and volunteers joined forces at a nearby elementary school to create an outdoor classroom. The Holton Learning Project Garden includes a vegetable and butterfly garden that will introduce Holton Elementary School students, their families, and the residents of Belleview and beyond to the pleasures and benefits of urban gardening.

Compared to the dreary, sterile plantings of exotic trees, shrubs, and groundcovers found throughout much of the neighborhood, the vegetable and nascent butterfly garden has rapidly become a local hot spot for insects and spiders. As such, it provides an excellent site for macro photgraphy. Since August, I have endeavored to photograph as many of its multi-legged denizens as possible as part of an ongoing effort to document the arthropod diversity of my neighborhood in Richmond, Virginia.

While walking through the garden yesterday afternoon, I noticed several clumps of green spikes rising sadly from the straw-covered beds. I soon confirmed my initial suspicions as to the identity of the culprits that laid these once fat bunches of parsley to waste. At the very base of one of the clumps were two brightly banded larvae of the black swallowtail, Papilio polyxenes, polishing off the last few leaves.

When I knelt down to photograph the ravenous caterpillars, I accidentally brushed up against their food plant. Both caterpillars reacted immediately by assuming defensive postures. Bent over backwards, they spit up green fluid and produced a pair of long tentacles (osmeterium), that resembled bright orange horns. Soon my nostrils were filled with a strong, disagreeable odor that is best described as “spicy vomit.”

The osmeterium consists of two soft, finger-like tubes that are everted from inside the body through a slit in the prothorax just behind the head as a result of  increased blood pressure. This defensive gland is found in the caterpillars of swallowtail butterflies and is coated with highly noxious chemical compounds (2-methylbutyric acid and isobutyric acid) that deter predators, especially ants.

© 2010, A.V. Evans

A BEVY OF BUCKEYES

By Arthur V. Evans

For the past month or so, Virginia has been awash with the Common Buckeye, Junonia coenia. The name Junonia is derived from the diminutive form of the Greek Juno, Zeus’ consort, while the specific epithet, coenia, comes from the Greek kionos meaning common. With six distinct eyespots on their wings, these handsome and energetic insects cannot be confused with any other butterfly species in the Commonwealth.

Their rapid, low, and somewhat erratic flight consists of fluttering strokes occasionally interrupted by meandering glides usually of no more than a foot off the ground. When alarmed, Common Buckeyes are capable of taking to the air in a rapid and sustained flight. They sip nectar from a variety of flowers and frequently rest in open, sunny spots in neighborhoods, parks, wetlands, fields, roadsides, and other open habitats with plenty of low-growing vegetation.

The orange-headed and metallic blue-spined caterpillars are highly variable in color and pattern. They feed on plants in several families and are especially fond of those in the snapdragon (Scrophulariaceae) and acanthus (Acanthaceae) families.

Although they occur throughout the United States, Common Buckeyes only persist in the frost-free southern and eastern halves of the country; individuals observed in the Great Lakes States, New England, and southern Canada are migrants. In eastern United States, these butterflies are in evidence throughout the winter in Florida and the coastal regions of southeastern and Gulf States.

© 2010, A.V. Evans

LUNA MOTHS ARE ON THE WING

By Arthur V. Evans

The luna moth, Actias luna (Linnaeus). Although the luna moth is native to North America, most of its relatives live in Asia.

Last night, while black lighting for beetles on a cool and still spring night in the Bull Run Mountains in northern Virginia, I was treated to an incredible display of luna moths, Actias luna (Linnaeus). Within an hour of turning on the lights, a baker’s dozen of these marvelously green and ornately tailed creatures had settled on the sheet and nearby tree trunks. Such a sight made me feel quite giddy and brought back a flood of memories of some of my earliest encounters with other spectacular insects as a young naturalist.

The first luna moth that I ever saw in Virginia flew through an unscreened upstairs window. It looked like a soft, green bat as it circled the light at the top of the stairs. It was all that I could do to keep it from being gobbled up by our cats!

They range throughout the hardwood forests of eastern North America. Luna moths were long known to naturalists by the time they were described by Carolus Linnaeus in 1758. The earliest known reference to luna moths in North America was in a note published James Petiver 1700, who had based his comments on a specimen collected in Maryland.

Like other moths and butterflies, the wings of luna moths are covered with scales that make up their colors and patterns.

Luna moths typically emerge from their cocoons in the morning. Powerful fliers, they are often attracted to porch lights and well-lit storefronts. There is only one generation produced in the northern parts of its range and two or three generations are produced in the south. Moths emerging in spring are bright green or blue-green with prominent reddish-purple margins on the outer forewings, while summer broods tend to be more yellow over all with yellowish outer wing margins.

Mating takes place after midnight. Pairs of luna moths sometimes remain coupled until the following evening. Eggs are laid singly or in small batches on upper and lower surfaces of leaves and hatch in about a week. The ravenous and solitary caterpillars feed on the leaves of a wide range of hardwoods, including birch, hickory, walnut, persimmon, and sweetgum. Different populations of luna caterpillars show regional preferences for host plants.

The feathery, or pectinate antennae of the male luna moth are covered with sensory pits that enable to them to detect just a few molecules of the pheromones released by receptive female moths.

Only when they are ready to pupate do the mature caterpillars wander away from the food plant. Cocoons are spun on the ground among the leaf litter at the base of the host tree. Each cocoon consists of a single layer of thin and papery silk that incorporates one or more leaves.

Sightings of the luna moth’s spring brood will still be possible over the next few weeks. Look for them at lights near wooded areas and you just might be treated to a glimpse of one of North America’s most spectacular animal species.

© 2010, A.V. Evans

FALCATE ORANGETIPS

By Arthur V. Evans

After a few false starts spring has finally arrived here in central Virginia, and not a moment too soon. In hopes of seeing some examples of the early spring insect fauna, I recently set out on a warm, sunny day for the James River Park near the 42^nd Street entrance.

The orange and slightly hooked wing-tips were the unmistakable field marks of the male falcate orangetip, Anthocharis midea, the only species of orangetip butterfly found in the eastern United States.

The latest floodwaters from spring rains had only just receded, leaving a thin and dusty film of silt and debris high above the river’s usual channel in the park. Just past the flood residue, small plants had raised their tiny blossoms high to lure the season’s first pollen- and nectar-loving insects.

As I wandered upriver toward the Nickle Bridge, a flash of white with a hint of rich orange crossed my path. It slowly yet deliberately flitted about the freshly emerged sprigs of green that populated the edges of the path before finally settling for just a moment or two on a small flower. The orange and slightly hooked wing-tips were the unmistakable field marks of the male falcate orangetip, Anthocharis midea, the only species of orangetip butterfly found in eastern United States.

The females lack the orange patch, but are otherwise similar in appearance to the males. The wings of both sexes are mostly white; the underside of the hind wing bears a finely marbled yellowish-brown pattern. From tip to tip, their wings span no more than one-and-a-half inches across.

Falcate orangetips are among the first butterflies to emerge from their pupae in spring. Widespread in Virginia, they are found in a variety of habitats, including parks, rocky mountain outcrops, open deciduous and mixed pine-oak woodlands, sandhills, and floodplain forests, especially along stream and river courses.

Females lay their greenish-yellow eggs singly on the flowers of various cresses and other members of the mustard family. The eggs soon turn red and hatch into ravenous larvae that devour mostly seed pods, buds, and flowers, and not leaves. Because of the limited number of reproductive structures on each food plant, larger caterpillars will not hesitate to eat their smaller brethren to reduce competition for meager food resources.

Mature caterpillars are green or blue-green and sprinkled with shiny dark plates bearing short bristles. A yellow stripe runs down the length of the back, while a broad white stripe runs from the head and along each side and meet on its backside. The winter is spent, sometimes two, as a narrow chrysalis that is sharply pointed on both ends.

Don’t hesitate to look for these attractive insects in an open woodland or bottomland forest near you. By early June the falcate orangetips will all be gone, and you will have to wait until the following spring for the next generation to once again make their brief and welcome appearance as heralds of spring.

© 2010, A.V. Evans

CARPENTER BEES ARE BORING!

By Arthur V. Evans

It's spring and the eastern carpenter bees, Xylocopa virginica, are back!

The usual suspects of spring are all around me once again, including large, buzzing, blue-black eastern carpenter bees, Xylocopa virginica. They are noisily patrolling dead limbs and wooden structures in our neighborhood as they search for mates and nesting sites. Unlike the social honey bee imported from Europe, carpenter bees are solitary creatures native to North America. The bees buzzing around now reached maturity last summer. Back then they stretched their wings for a bit before tucking themselves away for the winter deep within the recesses in the very nest chamber where they had grown up.

Unlike the dark-faced female, the male Xylocopa virginica has a white "face."

White-faced and stingless, males are very territorial and spend much of their time claiming prominent flowering plants and bare patches of ground as their own. They aggressively drive off other bees and insects and often face-off with unsuspecting humans that unwittingly venture into their territory. The territorial borders of male carpenter bees are quite fluid and change from day-to-day. Amorous males regularly patrol flowers in search of females. Courtship involves lots of loud buzzing and aerial acrobatics, with the pair flying apart and coming together several times.

Dark-faced females are capable of delivering a painful sting, but are relatively docile. They chew their nest tunnels in dead trees, logs, or unfinished wooden structures, especially those with southern or eastern exposures. Females will consider exposed rafters, old house frames, picnic tables, rail fences, posts, trellises, and other exposed wood surfaces as potential nest sites.

With their powerful jaws working non-stop day and night, female carpenter bees will chew a perfectly round entrance hole that is about one half-inch in diameter. After tunneling in about one body-length, the tunnel turns sharply to the left or right at a 90º angle to follow the timber’s grain. They may construct two or more parallel tunnels from the main entrance that measure up to 14 inches long, each slightly wider than the entrance in diameter.

Sometime in May or June, the first egg is laid on a doughy pill of pollen about the thickness of a kidney bean at the end of a blind tunnel. The provision of pollen serves as the sole food source for the developing bee grub. The surrounding wood in the tunnel is then chewed into a fine pulp for form a disk-shaped partition that seals the egg off in its own cell. Each tunnel may have up to 6-8 cells.

Carpenter bees do not eat wood, but rely instead on flowers for nourishment. As the adults forage for pollen and nectar, they will mark each flower that they visit with a repellant chemical, or pheromone, that lasts up to 10 minutes. By skipping marked flowers carpenter bees can save time and effort by avoiding flowers recently depleted of their resources by other carpenter bees.

Tolerance is the key to appreciating carpenter bees. In spite of all the sawdust created by their nesting activities, they seldom cause severe damage. What damage they do cause is easily offset by their pollination services. Our gardens, fields, orchards, and forests would not be nearly as productive if it were not for their efforts and those of other pollinators. Besides, whether they are energetically visiting flowers, zooming through the air in conjugal bliss, or tirelessly engaged in nest-building, carpenter bees are just darned fascinating animals to watch!

© 2010, A.V. Evans