My garden is registered as both a National Wildlife Federation Backyard Wildlife Habitat and Xerces Society Pollinator Habitat. The insects have certainly gotten the message. During 2021, I’ve been able to document 14 different species of insects mating in my garden.
Acanthoscelidius acephalus, minute seed weevil
Epitrix fuscula
Harmonia axyridis, multi-colored lady beetle (introduced)
Eumerus
Orthonevra nitida, wavy mucksucker
Syritta pipiens, compost fly (introduced)
Toxomerus geminatus, Eastern calligrapher fly
Toxomerus marginatus, margined calligrapher fly
Xenox tigrinus, tiger bee fly
Jalysus, stilt bug
Lygaeus kalmii ssp. angustomarginatus, Eastern small milkweed bug
Hylaeus modestus, modest masked bee
Xylocopa virginica, large Eastern carpenter bee
Danaus plexxipus, monarch butterfly
Coleoptera, beetles
Acanthoscelidius acephalus, minute seed weevil
Epitrix fuscula
Harmonia axyridis, multi-colored lady beetle
Diptera, flies
Eumerus
Orthonevra nitida, wavy mucksucker
Syritta pipiens
Toxomerus geminatus, Eastern calligrapher fly
Toxomerus marginatus, margined calligrapher fly
Xenox tigrinus, tiger bee fly
Hemiptera, bugs
Jaylsus, stilt bug
Lygaeus kalmii ssp. angustomarginatus, Eastern small milkweed bug
Hymenoptera, Epifamily Anthophila, bees
Hylaeus modestus, modest masked bee
Xylocopa virginica, large Eastern carpenter bee
Lepidoptera, butterflies
Danaus plexippus, monarch butterfly
My garden is also registered as a butterfly and monarch habitat, and monarch waystation. It proved its worth this year. I observed multiple couplings, in addition to the usual egg-laying.
New York State Gardeners: You can help re-introduce our state insect! See Links below.
A decade ago, shortly after I launched this blog, I wrote the following:
[Coccinella] novemnotata was once common. How did New York State get to have a once-native-but-no-longer-resident state insect?
Not just common; C. novemnotata, or C9 for short, was once the most common lady beetle in the eastern U.S. In 1980, when the bill was first introduced to make C9 our state insect, it was still common. It suffered a rapid decline through the 1980s. By the time it was finally designated the state insect in 1989, it hadn’t been seen in the state for 7 years.
In 2006, then-assemblywoman Nancy Calhoun introduced a bill to change the state insect to one which hadn’t been extirpated from the state. In her words, “Why do we want to get something like this wrong?” I wrote:
Instead of introducing a bill to gloss over the extirpation of a species, let’s reintroduce and restore C. novemnotata to New York State. Then our state insect would be a symbol to aspire to, and not simply an “error.”
Well, it may finally be time to do so. In 2001, 29 years after its disappearance from the state, C9 was finally found again, on Long Island. After years of research, Dr. John Losey and his colleagues at Cornell University have successfully reared C9 in captivity. And now, through the Lost Ladybug Project, they are making C9 larvae available to New York state gardeners and others.
Here’s one of them, freshly released in my garden, exploring Heliopsis helianthoides in my front yard.
Gardening for Insects
Stop using pesticides in the garden. Not just insecticides, but herbicides, fungicides, etc.
Grow more native plants, and more varieties of them. Many insects feed on plants in their larval stages, e.g.: caterpillars, and can’t feed effectively on plants with which they haven’t co-evolved.
A variety of native plant species also provides more flowers to provide nectar and pollen for adult insects. Choose plants that have clusters of small flowers, which will attract a larger diversity of insects than big, blowsy flowers.
Leave piles of leaf litter, old logs and branches, standing dead stems of plants. These provide shelter for eggs, pupae, and adults.
Timeline
1970: Coccinella novemnotata (C9) is the most common lady beetle species in the northeastern U.S. 1980: Nominated as New York state insect. 1980s: Begins rapidly declining. Speculation as to causes includes competition with introduced species, but no definitive answers have yet been found. 1982: Last seen in New York state. 1989: Designated NY State Insect, despite being apparently absent for 7 years. 1992: Last seen in the eastern U.S. 2000: The Lost Ladybug Project initiated as a citizen science project. 2006-06-15: Bill 2005-A06247 passes the NY State Assembly to change the state insect from Coccinella novemnotata, extirpated from NY State, to Coleomegilla maculata. October 2006: C9 re-discovered in Virginia, first time it’s seen on the East Coast since 1992, 14 years. 2011-07-30: C9 rediscovered on Long Island, first time seen in New York since 1982, 29 years. 2016: Lost Ladybug Project launches program to re-introduce captively bred C9
Sunday, while cutting up edited plants into my compost tumbler, I caught sight of something unusual out of the corner of my eye. It turned out to be Bombus fervidus, golden northern bumblebee, or simply, the yellow bumblebee.
This is at least the 21st bee species I’ve found in my garden. And this brings to 20, or more, the number of new insect species I’ve identified in my garden this year alone.
2015-09-19: Added Homeosoma, observed 10 days ago and just identified, bringing the total to 23. 2015-09-13: Two more Hymenoptera species identified from the last weekend in August: Bombus fervidus, golden northern bumblebee, and Gnamptopelta osidianator, an Ichneumon wasp. And a new Diptera species identified today: Hermetia illucens. That brings the number of species to 22. 2015-07-12: Added two I’d forgotten about: Orius insidiosus, and Anthrenus verbasci. That brings the number of species to 19.
These are the insect species I’ve discovered or identified in my garden for the first time this year.
Ceratina calcarata, spurred ceratina, small carpenter bee
Cerceris, two different species, not identified down to species.
Nomada, cuckoo bee
Osmia pumila, mason bee
Stelis louisae, Megachilid bee, cleptoparasite of Megachile campanuelae and perhaps related bees
Hymenoptera – Wasps
Gasteruption, carrot wasp
Gnamptopelta obsdianator, Ichneumon wasp, spider wasp mimic, a parasitoid on Sphingid moth caterpillars, especially those feeding on Vitis, grape, hosts. 2015-08-31
CORRECTION 2014-07-27: ID’d by William H. Taft on BugGuide as a male S. exitiosa, not S. fatifera, Arrowwood Borer, as I thought.
A lifer for me. I never even knew such a thing existed.
Synanthedon exitiosa, Peachtree Borer/Clearwing Moth, male, on Pycnanthemum muticum, Clustered Mountain Mint, in my garden yesterday afternoon.
I was showing a visitor all the pollinator activity on the Pycnanthemum. I identified 8 different bee species in less than a minute. Then I saw … THAT.
In my peripheral vision I thought it might be a wasp from the general shape and glossiness. Once I focussed on it, I recognized it as a moth.
How did I get “moth” from that?!
Body shape: It doesn’t have any narrowing along the body, which wasps and bees have.
Eyes: Large round eyes on the sides of the head, unlike the “wraparounds” of bees and wasps.
Antenna: They just looked “mothy” to me.
It was nectaring on Pycnanthemum muticum, Clustered Mountain Mint, in my garden. This patch of Pycnanthemum is just a few feet from the large Viburnum dentatum, Arrowwood, in my garden.
I’ve seen other Clearwing Moths, Sesiidae, so that gave me something to search on. The slender body was something I’d never seen before. Comparing with other images of Clearwing Moths, I was able to narrow it down to the genus Synanthedon. Then I used BugGuide and other authoritative sources to compare the coloration of the body and legs, and the markings on the wings, to key it out to species.
2014-07-24: But my original specific identification was incorrect! William H. Taft commented on one of my photos (the first in this blog post) on BugGuide that the amber color of the wings is a key to distinguishing S. exitiosa from S. fatifera. The BugGuide species page notes the yellow bands of “hairs” at the joints between the body segments. But the comparison species are other Peachtree Borers, not Arrowwood Borer, so I missed the comparison.
Looking at other photos of male Peachtree Borers, they look more like my find than Arrowwood Borer. Markings on the wings appear to be variable, not as diagnostic as I’d assumed. This is a lesson for me to be more conservative in my identification, and rely more on diagnostic keys than naive visual comparisons.
Oblique shot, showing the wing markings and venation.
Another common name for this species is Arrowwood Borer. It seems likely that this adult either just emerged from my shrub, or was attracted to it. I’ll look to see if I can find any borers still in the shrub.
Earlier this evening, I was interviewed on Sex and Politics Radio, a program broadcast on Brooklyn College Radio. If you missed it, the podcast will be published sometime next week.
Related Content
If you want to learn more about some of the issues I talked about on the radio tonight, take a look at some of my past blog posts about bees.
Yes, that is a fly, not a wasp. You can tell it’s a fly from the antennae in the center of the face, instead of the top of the head, the large, rounded eyes that cover both sides of the face, instead of being restricted to the upper part of the head, and the “forked” feet.
For comparison, here’s the all-black Sphex pensylvanicus, Great Black Wasp, to which Physocephala bears, I think, a superficial resemblance. Note the position of the antennae, the location, size and shape of the eyes, and the clawed feet.
Even before I knew what it was, from past experience, I knew that wing venation would be important in identification. By chilling this individual in the refrigerator overnight, I got a few minutes of close-focus macro time to highlight all the key features. Based on comparing the wing venation to other examples on BugGuide, I think this is Physocephala, but I’ve submitted it to their experts for positive ID.
Here are my other photos of this impressive mimic.
Amphion floridensis, Nessus Sphinx Moth, on Rhododendron viscosum, Swamp Azalea, in my urban backyard native plant garden and wildlife habitat. The two bright yellow bands are a key for this species.
Another lifer moth for me, I saw this in my backyard a few weeks ago. Fortunately, I had my camera with me. Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to break out the flash, or the tripod. This was a fast-moving moth.
Here is a better view of the moth at rest. This is from Flickr member Circeson, taken in Atlanta, Georgia.
Amphion only has one brood as far north as New York, from April to July. The specific epithet floridensis – of Florida – points to its more southern range.
Swamp Azalea flowers are intensely fragrant, reminding me of cloves and maple. The deep, trumpet-shaped flowers are perfectly suited to this moth, which hovers in front of each flower while it sips out nectar with its long tongue from the nectaries at the base of the corolla.
Sphinx Moths, Family Sphingidae, are medium to large moths, generally colorful, and certainly eye-catching in flight.
One of the great pleasures of gardening is observing the activity the garden invites. I can lay out the welcome mat, and set the table, but the guests decide whether or not the invitation is enticing enough to stop by for a drink, a meal, or to raise a family. While charismatic megafauna such as birds and mammals are entertaining, the most common and endlessly diverse visitors are insects.
The Hymenoptera includes bees, wasps, and ants. Although my garden also provides amply for ants, we’ll stick with the bees and wasps today. Following are some of the few portaits I’ve been able to capture of the many visitors to my gardens. The pollinator magnet, Pycnanthemum, Mountain-mint, in the Lamiaceae, provides the stage for many of these photos. I’m always amazed at the variety and abundance of insect activity it attracts when blooming.
Multiple pollinators on Pycnanthemum
Bees
There are over 250 species of bees native to New York City alone. I’m still learning to identify just a handful of the dozens of species that frequent my garden.
My current favorite is the bejeweled Agapostemon, Jade Bee Bombus impatiens, Common Eastern Bumblebee, on Monarda fistulosa
Coelioxys, Cuckoo Bee. I think I’ve got several species from the genus visiting my garden, but I’ve yet to get identification for the others. These are in the Megachilidae, the Leaf-cutter and Mason Bee family. Bees in this family typically carry pollen on hairs beneath their abdomens, instead of in pollen baskets on their legs. You can see this bee isn’t carrying any pollen; it doesn’t even have the hairs beneath its abdomen to do so. It doesn’t need to, because it takes over the pollen-provisioned nests of other leaf-cutter bees for its own young.
Along with the Hymenoptera come the mimic flies. Many of the seeming bees and wasps, seen from a distance, turn out to be flies on closer inspection. In “the field,” i.e.: my garden, there are two features that provide quick distinction between the two familes:
Antennae: Flies have short, clublike antenna, like feelers, in the center of the face, between the eyes. Bees and wasps have long, segmented antenna arising higher up on the face, almost from the top of the head
Eyes: Flies’ compound eyes are huge, covering nearly all of their face. Bees and wasps have compound eyes that wrap partially along the sides of their heads.
The feet are also different, but I usually don’t notice those until I’m browsing and culling my shots. Finally, bees and wasps have four wings, while flies only have two – Di-ptera, two-winged.
The Syrphidae/Flower-Fly family hosts countless mimics of bees and wasps.
Eristalis arbustorum on Hydrangea
Eristalis transversa, Transverse Flower Fly
Their tactics of mimicry are not limited to patterns and colors. Many species have evolved body modifications to mimic even the shapes of wasps and bees.
Syritta pipiens provides a good example of this. This is the most wasp-like fly I’ve found yet in my garden, though more extreme mimics exist. Glimpsed from behind as it moves quickly over the flowers, it could easily be mistaken for a tiny wasp.
Viewed from the side, or the front, Syritta is more obviously a fly, not a wasp, and a dedicated mimic.
Toxomerus geminatus sports a radically flattened abdomen. This seems to be an adaptation to present a wider area from above, as a predator might view it, for displaying its mimicry, while preserving a smaller volume and keeping weight down.
I wonder what they are mimicing? Might some of these mimics mirror actual target species, not just general “bee-ness” or “wasp-ness”? If so, I would expect to find both the mimic and subject in the same range, and exhibit the same phenology. For example, Toxomerus bears a resemblance to Agapostemon at a quick glance.
Photographing Insect Activity
This is my setup for doing live insect macro photography “in the wild,” i.e.: in my garden. The lens is a specialized macro lens that allows for an extremely close focusing distance, though I’m not taking advantage of it in this example. I target some flowers with lots of insect activity, in this case, a local ecotype of Monarda fistulosa, in the Lamiaceae, the Mint Family. Then I wait for insects to visit the flowers, within range of the camera.
I use the tripod handle to pivot up and down; it turns side-to-side easily. Ease of rapid movement with stability is critical, as the insect subjects move rapidly over each inflorescence, and from bloom to bloom. Still, the tripod only steadies my own shaky hands. The insects, of course, are moving, but so are the plants, which sway with the slightest breezes. A fast auto-focus helps; a quick hand is still needed when automation fails.
The mobility allows me to track a single insect as it moves around, and capture different shots, and perspectives, on the same individual. This is critical for identification, since I don’t know until later what the key features to look for might be. It’s often some tiny detail, only revealed from some obscure angle, that distinguishes the species.
My subjects, while largely oblivious to my actions, are not cooperative. I have to shoot hundreds of photos to get a few good shots that are in focus, free of motion blur, and have enough of the right details to identify the species, or at least narrow down to the family. This was never possible, or at least not economically feasible, before digital photography.
Macro shot of Pycnanthemum inflorescences, with common objects for scale: left, pencil eraser, right, U.S. nickle coin.
Eric Grissell, Bees, Wasps, and Ants: The Indispensable Role of Hymenoptera in Gardens
Douglas W. Tallamy, Bringing Nature Home: How You Can Sustain Wildlife with Native Plants
The Xerces Society, Attracting Native Pollinators:Protecting North America’s Bees and Butterflies
Links
The bug geeks at BugGuide are awesome. Only through their generous sharing of knowledge and expertise have I been able to identify my little visitors. They cover the United States and Canada.
