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Do you know your plants?
For my Leafminers of North America project, I periodically need help identifying hostplants I find in my travels. You can peruse photos of them at iNaturalist. Thanks!
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Meta
Tag Archives: larva
False Hellebore Fauna
For the past decade, I have been trying to rear an unknown species of Liriomyza (Agromyzidae) that mines leaves of false hellebore (Melanthiaceae: Veratrum viride). The mines are very scarce considering how common the plant is along streams and in … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged Agromyzidae, Aton Forest, beetle, Braconidae, Bradysia, Bradysia impatiens, Ceratopogonidae, Chloropidae, Chrysocharis, Coleoptera, Culicoides, Culicoides sanguisuga, dark-winged fungus gnat, Dasyhelea oppressa, Diptera, Earomyia, Earomyia veratri, Elachiptera, Elachiptera nigriceps, Eulophidae, fly, frit fly, Geometridae, Ichneumonidae, inquiline, lance fly, larva, leaf mine, leafminer, Lepidoptera, Liriomyza, Lonchaeidae, Melanthiaceae, moth fly, new species, Opiinae, parasitoid, Phygadeuon, Psychodidae, puparium, Rhadinoceraea, Rhadinoceraea nubilipennis, rove beetle, sawfly, Sciaridae, Staphylinidae, stem borer, Tenthredinidae, Threticus, Threticus bicolor, Tricimba, Tricimba trisulcata, Veratrum, Veratrum viride
8 Comments
Caterpillar Craftsmanship
On October 6 last fall I visited Aton Forest in northwestern Connecticut, in part to look for some leafminers I had found there the previous year on red oak (Fagaceae: Quercus rubra). I found what I was looking for (mines … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged Aton Forest, Bucculatrix, cocoon, Fagaceae, larva, leaf mine, Lepidoptera, moth, oak, Quercus, Quercus rubra, red oak
6 Comments
Beetle Art
On June 9, I was exploring a powerline corridor in Kent, New York when I spotted some little jewels that I recognized as the poop-covered eggs of a leaf beetle in the tribe Clytrini (Chrysomelidae: Crytocephalinae). They were the first … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged beetle, Chrysomelidae, clytrini, Coleoptera, cryptocephalinae, egg, larva
6 Comments
Hazelnut Sawflies
It’s normally a little disappointing to find an ichneumon wasp in one of my rearing containers, since that generally means I failed to rear whatever insect I was trying to rear. So when this one appeared yesterday… …I braced myself … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged Arge, Arge willi, Argidae, Betulaceae, Corylus, hazelnut, Hymenoptera, Ichneumonidae, larva, parasitism, parasitoid, sawfly, Tenthredinidae, wasp
4 Comments
A leaf-mining midge odyssey (Part 1)
Back in 2012, when I had only recently realized I needed to write a complete guide to the leafminers of North America and as a result Julia and I were driving around the US to find them all, we visited … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged Agromyzidae, Balsaminaceae, Ceanothus, Chironomidae, Diptera, Eriodictyon, Erythranthe, exuviae, fly, Gelechiidae, Impatiens, jewelweed, larva, leaf mine, Lepidoptera, Limnophyes, Limnophyes viribus, Metepeira, Metriocnemus, Metriocnemus erythranthei, Metriocnemus eurynotus, midge, Mimulus, monkeyflower, Namaceae, Nepticulidae, new species, orbweaver, Phrymaceae, Phytomyza, Phytomyza eriodictyi, Plantaginaceae, pupa, Rhamnaceae, speedwell, spider, Tischeria, Tischeriidae, Veronica, Veronica anagallis-aquatica, water speedwell, web, Xenolechia ceanothiella, yerba santa
2 Comments
Celebrating Silky Willow
Simply not mowing the lawn, and welcoming whatever plants decide to grow in its place, has done wonders for the biodiversity of our yard. But we have also welcomed gifts of native plants from friends, and today I’d like to … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged ant, Caloptilia, Caloptilia stigmatella, cocoon, extrafloral nectary, Formicidae, genitalia, Gracillariidae, Ichneumonidae, larva, leaf mine, leaf roll, moth, Nematinae, parasitism, parasitoid, Phyllonorycter, Phyllonorycter scudderella, Platygastridae, pupa, Salicaceae, Salix, Salix sericea, sawfly, silky willow, Tenthredinidae, Thrinax, Thrinax dubitata, wasp, willow
5 Comments
Can gall midges be leafminers?
The Leafminers of North America project I created on iNaturalist a few years ago has been an excellent way for me to collect new host plant and geographic distribution records for known leafminer species, as well as to identify new … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged alternate-leaved dogwood, Cecidomyiidae, Cornaceae, Cornus, Cornus alternifolia, Diptera, dogwood, gall, larva, leaf mine, midge, Parallelodiplosis subtruncata
3 Comments
A Curious Flower
Today I break my four-month silence to bring you this: Yesterday morning while we were eating breakfast on the back deck, Julia exclaimed something like “The poop beetles are eating the groundcherry!” This wasn’t news to me; a week or … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged beetle, Chrysomelidae, larva, leaf beetle, Lema, nightshade, Physalis, Solanaceae
10 Comments
Acorn Plum Galls (and friends)
Hey, this blog now has over 1000 subscribers! Thanks everyone for your continued interest in my esoteric natural history investigations. I’m still slowly working my way through the photos I took last summer, during which one of my several jobs … Continue reading
Posted in Unsolved Mysteries
Tagged acorn, ambush bug, Amphibolips, Amphibolips quercusjuglans, Ceroptres, Crabronidae, Crossocerus, Cynipidae, Fagaceae, gall, gall wasp, Hymenoptera, ichneumon wasp, Ichneumonidae, inquiline, larva, Lepidoptera, moth, oak, oak plum, parasitism, parasitoid, Phymata, predation, Quercus, Quercus ilicifolia, Reduviidae, scrub oak, wasp
6 Comments
BugTracks 
