Sometimes simply adding one plant to your yard can attract new insects. This week our Mexican hat or prairie coneflower (Ratibida columnifera) is flowering.
Look at all the bugs enjoying the blooms.
Of course you would expect to see bees visiting flowers.
This bee was collecting loads of pollen.
Also visiting the flowers were beetles,
lace bugs,
and a looper or geometrid caterpillar. Actually, there are two caterpillars in this photograph. Look down and to the left.
Maybe you can see it better in this photograph. It looks like a thread of white on the edge of the petal towards the bottom. It is a first instar or newly-hatched caterpillar.
Wherever there are bugs feeding on plants, there are predators like this crab spider ready to feed on the bugs.
I love my Mexican Hat plants, the red ones and yellow ones grow in my yard. The cutest little blue butterfly also likes them.
Lynne,
I’ve recently seen some of those blue butterflies, too.