Hot Sheets Habitat

My garden is registered as both a National Wildlife Federation Backyard Wildlife Habitat and Xerces Society Pollinator Habitat. The insects have certainly gotten the message. During 2021, I've been able to document 14 different species of insects mating in my garden.

1. Acanthoscelidius acephalus, minute seed weevil
2. Epitrix fuscula
3. Harmonia axyridis, multi-colored lady beetle (introduced)
4. Eumerus
5. Orthonevra nitida, wavy mucksucker
6. Syritta pipiens, compost fly (introduced)
7. Toxomerus geminatus, Eastern calligrapher fly
8. Toxomerus marginatus, margined calligrapher fly
9. Xenox tigrinus, tiger bee fly
10. Jalysus, stilt bug
11. Lygaeus kalmii ssp. angustomarginatus, Eastern small milkweed bug
12. Hylaeus modestus, modest masked bee
13. Xylocopa virginica, large Eastern carpenter bee
14. Danaus plexxipus, monarch butterfly

Coccinella novemnotata, nine-spotted lady beetle, aka "C9"

New York State Gardeners: You can help re-introduce our state insect! See Links below.

A decade ago, shortly after I launched this blog, I wrote the following:

[Coccinella] novemnotata was once common. How did New York State get to have a once-native-but-no-longer-resident state insect?

Not just common; C. novemnotata, or C9 for short, was once the most common lady beetle in the eastern U.S.

Bombus fervidus, golden northern bumblebee, yellow bumblebee

Sunday, while cutting up edited plants into my compost tumbler, I caught sight of something unusual out of the corner of my eye. It turned out to be Bombus fervidus, golden northern bumblebee, or simply, the yellow bumblebee.


This is at least the 21st bee species I've found in my garden. And this brings to 20, or more, the number of new insect species I've identified in my garden this year alone.

Related Content

Flickr photo set
All my bee photo albums

Links

BugGuide: Bombus fervidus, Golden Northern Bumble Bee
Discover Life: Bombus fervidus
Encyclopedia of Life: Bombus fervidus

Garden Insect Species Records 2015

2015-09-19: Added Homeosoma, observed 10 days ago and just identified, bringing the total to 23.
2015-09-13: Two more Hymenoptera species identified from the last weekend in August: Bombus fervidus, golden northern bumblebee, and Gnamptopelta osidianator, an Ichneumon wasp. And a new Diptera species identified today: Hermetia illucens. That brings the number of species to 22.
2015-07-12: Added two I'd forgotten about: Orius insidiosus, and Anthrenus verbasci. That brings the number of species to 19.

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These are the insect species I've discovered or identified in my garden for the first time this year.

Hymenoptera - Bees

• Bombus fervidus, golden northern bumblebee, yellow bumblebee, 2015-08-30
• Ceratina calcarata, spurred ceratina, small carpenter bee
• Cerceris, two different species, not identified down to species.
• Nomada, cuckoo bee
• Osmia pumila, mason bee
• Stelis louisae, Megachilid bee, cleptoparasite of Megachile campanuelae and perhaps related bees
  
  

Synanthedon exitiosa, Peachtree Borer/Clearwing Moth

CORRECTION 2014-07-27: ID'd by William H. Taft on BugGuide as a male S. exitiosa, not S. fatifera, Arrowwood Borer, as I thought.

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A lifer for me. I never even knew such a thing existed.

Synanthedon exitiosa, Peachtree Borer/Clearwing Moth, male, on Pycnanthemum muticum, Clustered Mountain Mint, in my garden yesterday afternoon.


I was showing a visitor all the pollinator activity on the Pycnanthemum. I identified 8 different bee species in less than a minute. Then I saw ... THAT.



In my peripheral vision I thought it might be a wasp from the general shape and glossiness. Once I focussed on it, I recognized it as a moth.

How did I get "moth" from that?!

• Body shape: It doesn't have any narrowing along the body, which wasps and bees have.
• Eyes: Large round eyes on the sides of the head, unlike the "wraparounds" of bees and wasps.
• Antenna: They just looked "mothy" to me.

It was nectaring on Pycnanthemum muticum, Clustered Mountain Mint, in my garden. This patch of Pycnanthemum is just a few feet from the large Viburnum dentatum, Arrowwood, in my garden.

I've seen other Clearwing Moths, Sesiidae, so that gave me something to search on. The slender body was something I'd never seen before. Comparing with other images of Clearwing Moths, I was able to narrow it down to the genus Synanthedon. Then I used BugGuide and other authoritative sources to compare the coloration of the body and legs, and the markings on the wings, to key it out to species.

2014-07-24: But my original specific identification was incorrect! William H. Taft commented on one of my photos (the first in this blog post) on BugGuide that the amber color of the wings is a key to distinguishing S. exitiosa from S. fatifera. The BugGuide species page notes the yellow bands of "hairs" at the joints between the body segments. But the comparison species are other Peachtree Borers, not Arrowwood Borer, so I missed the comparison.

Looking at other photos of male Peachtree Borers, they look more like my find than Arrowwood Borer. Markings on the wings appear to be variable, not as diagnostic as I'd assumed. This is a lesson for me to be more conservative in my identification, and rely more on diagnostic keys than naive visual comparisons.

Oblique shot, showing the wing markings and venation.


Another common name for this species is Arrowwood Borer. It seems likely that this adult either just emerged from my shrub, or was attracted to it. I'll look to see if I can find any borers still in the shrub.

Related Content

Flickr photo set

Links

BugGuide species page

List of online guides to Moth and Butterfly identification, BAMONA

Bzzz, Bzzz, Bzzz! (About Bees)

I Am Not a Honeybee


Earlier this evening, I was interviewed on Sex and Politics Radio, a program broadcast on Brooklyn College Radio. If you missed it, the podcast will be published sometime next week.

Physocephala tibialis, Thick-Headed Fly

2013-12-29: Identified as Physocephala tibialis by Aaron Schusteff, Contributing Editor of BugGuide.

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A few weeks ago, I tweeted:

2013-06-11 19:57: Found - or rather one of our cats did - an incredible wasp-mimic fly. Chilling in refrigerator for later identification.

2013-06-11 20:01: The fly looks very similar to /Physocephala/
http://bugguide.net/node/view/7190/bgimage except all-black at first glance. Will examine more closely later.

This is what she found:


Yes, that is a fly, not a wasp. You can tell it's a fly from the antennae in the center of the face, instead of the top of the head, the large, rounded eyes that cover both sides of the face, instead of being restricted to the upper part of the head, and the "forked" feet.

Amphion floridensis, Nessus Sphinx Moth

Amphion floridensis, Nessus Sphinx Moth, on Rhododendron viscosum, Swamp Azalea, in my urban backyard native plant garden and wildlife habitat. The two bright yellow bands are a key for this species.


Another lifer moth for me, I saw this in my backyard a few weeks ago. Fortunately, I had my camera with me. Unfortunately, I didn't have time to break out the flash, or the tripod. This was a fast-moving moth.

Gardening with the Hymenoptera (and yet not)

Contents

• Bees
• Wasps
• Mimics
• Photographing Insect Activity
• Related Content
• Recommended Reading
• Links

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One of the great pleasures of gardening is observing the activity the garden invites. I can lay out the welcome mat, and set the table, but the guests decide whether or not the invitation is enticing enough to stop by for a drink, a meal, or to raise a family. While charismatic megafauna such as birds and mammals are entertaining, the most common and endlessly diverse visitors are insects.

The Hymenoptera includes bees, wasps, and ants. Although my garden also provides amply for ants, we'll stick with the bees and wasps today. Following are some of the few portaits I've been able to capture of the many visitors to my gardens. The pollinator magnet, Pycnanthemum, Mountain-mint, in the Lamiaceae, provides the stage for many of these photos. I'm always amazed at the variety and abundance of insect activity it attracts when blooming.

Multiple pollinators on Pycnanthemum

Bees

There are over 250 species of bees native to New York City alone. I'm still learning to identify just a handful of the dozens of species that frequent my garden.

My current favorite is the bejeweled Agapostemon, Jade Bee