My favorite detail is the ringed antennae, alternately black and white. Pretty! Also note that it has a small thin “tail” on each hindwing; when perched the butterfly typically moves its hind wings and the tails move up and down. The butterfly also sports three orange dots on the lower surface of the hindwing. Eastern […]
Tag: caterpillars
A Four-toothed Mason Wasp
This lovely wasp can be found drinking nectar at flowers throughout the eastern United States right now. It is a good wasp to have around the garden because the females round up leaf-rolling caterpillars — the kinds that eat your plants — to provision their nests. When it is time to reproduce, the female wasp […]
Tent Caterpillars
I am in the New Jersey pine barrens taking photos. Here’s an eastern tent caterpillar.
Halloween in the Amazon: baby bird dresses up like killer caterpillar
“Mama, I wanna be a toxic caterpillar,” says the little bird. “Okay,” mamma answers, “but first you gotta study your Batesian mimicry.” Meet the cinereous mourner (Laniocera hypopyrra), an ash-colored, Amazonian bird that looks rather hum-drum compared to many other birds found in the region (hence it’s name ‘cinereous’ which comes from the Latin meaning […]
Amazonian bird chick mimics toxic caterpillar to avoid being eaten
In a study published in the January 2015 issue of The American Naturalist, Gustavo A. Londoño, Duván Garcia, and Manuel Sánchez MartÃnez report a novel nesting strategy observed in a tropical lowland bird that inhabits an area with very high losses to nest predators. How can tropical birds cope with the high rates of nest […]
Flower Hill Farm Spring Butterflies ~ Part Two
Spring precipitates into summer and we can easily recognize the longest day of the year by how we measure time in our hurried lives. Spring or Summer Azure Celastrina ladon, Form violacea (and others)is another matter . . . as the butterflies are difficult to identify. The more experienced butterfly watchers of the invaluableMassachusetts Butterfly […]
Pangbourne sprays to kill oak processionary caterpillar ‘dangerous’
Wildlife in a Berkshire woodland was endangered by a “sledgehammer-to-crack-a-nut” approach to killing a toxic caterpillar, experts have said. Birds, bats and rare insects were affected by Forestry Commission aerial sprays to kill a moth larvae, Butterfly Conservation and Buglife claimed. It was unclear if oak processionary caterpillar larvae were even present in the Pangbourne […]
Monarch Butterfly Metamorphosis: Part One ~ Changing Casings
The Monarch Butterfly’s metamorphosis is a journey through clear casings beginning with an egg. A tiny caterpillar carves a hole in a clear intricately etched dome capsule and exits while entering the hairy leafy landscape of its host plant Milkweed. The teeny caterpillar then makes a meal of the nutritious casing and begins chewing its […]
