I should have posted these photographs of aphids in honor of Mother’s Day.
They were on a pink hollyhock flower.
Yes, even aphids are moms.
Page 110 of 561
After doing Bug of the Week for so many years, it can be difficult to find something new. This week I was lucky.
Although it looks quite a bit like a sand wasp, this is a new kind of cuckoo bee. It might be Triepeolus sp. (like this one).
Look at the tongue (proboscis) that it using to suck up nectar.
We have seen another cuckoo bee in our yard before, Xeromelecta californica (previous post).
Named after cuckoo birds, cuckoo bees lay their eggs in the nests of other kinds of bees or sometimes wasps, depending on the species. They don’t build their own nests and lack pollen baskets for collecting pollen. It’s not a warm and fuzzy lifestyle, but that’s nature for you.
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.
For more information, see Roberta Gibson Writes.