Growing With Science Blog

What are those white and dark bumps on the underside of the penstemon leaves?

Those are the life stages of the of insects called whiteflies.

The adult whitefly looks somewhat like a tiny moth, but whiteflies are actually in the Family Hemiptera. They are closely related to aphids and scales. In fact the nymphs look a lot like flat scales. They are the oval lumps on the leaf surface.

The adult whiteflies lay eggs on the undersides of the leaves. (The eggs are above the adult whitefly in this photograph.) The eggs hatch into tiny nymphs with legs, called “crawlers.” The crawlers find a place to feed, insert their mouthparts into the leaf, and suck juices from the plant. Usually there will be a number of nymphs feeding together on the underside of a leaf, giving it the appearance of sandpaper.

This particular species of whitefly has brown markings on its wings. It shows up only on penstemon plants in our yard and only in the spring. By summer it is gone. Another smaller species, the silverleaf whitefly, shows up later in the summer and fall on a wider variety of plants.

Whiteflies:  another sign spring is here!

Talk about the beauty and the beast…

This shiny green fly feeds on nectar from flowers.

The adult green bottle flies are actually visually interesting, perhaps even (dare I say it) attractive?

No one would ever call green bottle fly offspring, the fly larvae or maggots, even remotely attractive. They serve an important function, however, because they clean up dead animals and excrement. Think about what the earth might be like if decomposers and scavengers like green bottle flies weren’t around. Yuck!

If you have a really strong stomach, I mean really really strong, you can go see maggots at work. Warning:  not for the squeamish!

This group of flies are commonly called blow flies. They belong to the family Calliphoridae.

Have you seen any flies out yet where you live?

A few weeks ago, I reported a new (for me) species of milkweed bug.

Here are two photographs of the more familiar Large Milkweed Bug, Oncopeltus fasciatus, from the archives.

Most members of the group feed on seeds, and Large Milkweed Bugs prefer the seeds of milkweeds.

They also feed on the milkweed plant when there are no seeds available. The ones in the photographs are sitting on the flower buds of a butterfly milkweed.

As you might guess from the bright red and black warning coloration, milkweed bugs take up the same toxins from milkweeds as the monarch caterpillar does. Their colors say, “Don’t eat me!”

Surprisingly, Large Milkweed Bugs are commonly used for science experiments because they are fairly easy to take care of. If you don’t have milkweed seeds, they will feed on raw sunflower seeds as well as some nuts. They also need a good source of water.

Illinois.edu has more information and detailed rearing instructions.