Insect Allies
May 30, 2020
You are never alone in the garden. Not really. There are allies, friends and sources of inspiration all around you. It just takes a moment, a deep breath, a deepening of awareness to see them. Here are some of my favorites.
The Harvester Butterfly: This lovely little bronze- orange butterfly has a secret: their caterpillars are carnivorous! WHAT?!? As in they DON'T eat leaves? Correct. Instead of eating plants as nearly all caterpillars do, these ferocious little predators eat at least four genera of woolly aphids! So if you see a peaceful Harvester butterfly standing perch on a leaf, don't be fooled! Look it squarely in the eyes and give it a nod of thanks for keeping one local pest population in check.
Harvester Butterfly
Six-Spotted Tiger Beetles: This beetle is like a jewel flashing metallic blue-green or yellow-green depending on how the light hits it. It patrols pathways, hiking trails and open woodland and meadow areas searching various bugs like ants, caterpillars and spiders. Their mandibles make them look ferocious, but really, they are quite shy. If you are very lucky, you might be able to quietly move close enough to get a glimpse of the 6 tiny white or yellow spots around the edge of their brilliant green shell.
Six-Spotted Tiger Beetle
Eyed Click Beetles: Click beetles are amazing! If you happen to flip them over on their backs (by accident, of course... right?) they use powerful muscles to "click" and thrown themselves into the air to turn themselves over. This incredible trait can keep young kids entertained for hours... and thoroughly exhaust the "click-y-ness" out of the local click beetle population. The Eyed Click Beetle is one of the largest click beetles I've ever encountered. They have a striking black and white patterning and are also predators of many wood-boring beetle larvae. They can often be found on or under the bark of stumps, logs or dying trees.
Eyed Click Beetle with Explorer Naturalist Dinosaur staring on in amazement!
Cellophane Bees: One of my favorite bees in the spring! This shy little ground-nesting bee comes out when soil temperatures warm up to pollinate early spring plants. They are non-aggressive and solitary with a single bee digging out and then tending a rounded hole or abode (like hobbits?), but they tend to nest near others so you often see many holes together in the same area. I like to sit beside their nesting sites in spring and wait for them to peek out. If I move a muscle they quickly duck back inside. Cellophane bees have the unique ability to line their tiny but surprisingly deep tunnels with a substance that is somewhat waterproof like cellophane (hence the name) to keep out the moisture. This trick allows them to nest in rather wet soils that would deter other ground bees. The only time they lose their endearing shyness is in spring when the sun is hot and warm and they are flying around looking for a mate, oblivious to all else. If you are very lucky you might just stumble across some of their tunnels on slopes along a woodland path, a farm, or on small patches of open ground.
Ladybugs: Perhaps one of the most well-known and adored insects, the ladybug is also an excellent ally keeping pests in check in the garden! They are excelleny aphid eaters, as most of you probably know. You likely easily could recognize the distinct colors of the adult, but fewer amongst us know the black and orange alligator-like larvae which are even more voracious (and equally AWESOME!) than the adults!
Alligator-like ladybug larvae!
Pollinators in all shapes and sizes and colors: When many of us hear the word "pollinator" we often think of bees. Some of us specifically think of honeybees. It's understandable. But did you know many MANY insects are in fact pollinators! Beetles, wasps, butterflies, flies, native bees... any big or small animal that carries pollen from one flower to the next to support seed creation is, in fact, a pollinators! Bats, humans sniffing multiple flowers repeatedly so closely that they get pollen on their noses... Bees are so good at it that they often get signaled out as our only pollinators, but many insects play this important role in helping to build abundance and diversity in our local seed supply. Some meadow plants like "Mountain Mint" are pollinator magnets and attract all sorts of amazing species. Interested in backyard bugwatching ('cause I know you are!)? Or just getting more predators and epic pest control support in the garden? Despite its rather uninspiring small green and white flower heads, mountain mint (and other species like it!) might be one flower to help you do just that!
American Copper Butterfly
Four-Banded Stink Bug Wasp : Guess what it loves to eat? Stinkbugs!!
Our native Squash Bees all cuddly and cozy in a squash blossom
Common Eastern Bumblebee pollinating a tomato. Did you know that pollination increases tomato fruit size?
Long-horned bees: small, shy, epically LONG antennae and bright green eyes.
The gentle and benign Giant Golden Digger Wasp is not aggressive (despite the coloration) and her she is carefully digging a hole one small pebble at a time.
Red Admiral Butterfly
Monarch Butterfly: "We are pollinators, too!"
Know the plant, know the bug! Did you know that many plants have very specific relationships with the insects that have adapted to eat them? So much so that if you know the plant, you can often ID the bug! Or you can plant the species to attract the super cool bug. Plant it, and they will come. It's a powerful tool! Prairie Dropseed, for instance, is a native grass often under-represented in the landscape, and did you know it is also a host plant for endangered Skipper butterflies? Native grasses like Prairie dropseed are also excellent habitat for beneficial beetles and native ground nesting bees. It is an opportunity to literally plant ecological resilience in your landscape.
Leafminers are really cool to find (ID them by their leaves and the patterns they make!) and are not one species, but many: moths, beetles, flies, and weevils, oh my! They are an important protein source for songbirds like chickadees in winter!
Dogbane Leaf Beetle, aka: what I call "the Rainbow Beetle" changes color depending on what angle you view it from and is found only on dogbane.
The epic Cecropia Moth Caterpillar is the largest moth in North America. Amazingly it has adapted to now be able to eat the invasive buckthorn shrub!
Pine is a host plant to a surprising number of insects including a wide number of caterpillars that are surprisingly difficult to spot due to their pine-like colors and stripes!
Pine Sphinx caterpillar
An Elfin Butterfly laying eggs on pine
Bugs are the recyclers, protectors, pollinators, defenders, food makers, and soil builders working quietly all around us. We hardly notice these little lives from day to day, yet they fuel the ecosystems we live in. Insects and arthropods surrounding us in the garden are essential. They are foundational to backyard resilience. Most of our unpleasant experiences with insects and their kin come from the tiny fraction of species that we consider pests: mosquitoes, houseflies, ticks and cabbageworms. But the great majority of insects in our gardens are humbly and tirelessly working unseen and unrecognized to keep balance, support abundance and reinvest resources in our landscapes. These little lives make the world run. They are essential. We and so many other animals depend on them. We can start by noticing them, by getting to know their names and learning their plant preferences. It's like getting a personal invitation to their world. In today's uncertain times they now need us as much as we need them. Perhaps it's time for us to bend down close, watch and listen for these tiny guardians to show us how to build backyard resilience one layer at a time.
A tiny (and adorable) springtail walking across a sign in a park.
Resources:
Become a citizen scientist with the iNaturalist App! One of the best, free, awesome plant and bug and animal ID app I've found that also lets you contribute to citizen science data about the range and type of species in your neighborhood. https://www.inaturalist.org/
City Nature Challenge: Every year cities around the world compete to see how many species we can find in our cities. It's an awesome way to contribute to citizen science data and meet other awesome and nerdy naturalists in your own neighborhood. https://citynaturechallenge.org/
Charley Eiseman's blog "Bug Tracks": "Bringing glory to Earth's small and neglected creatures", https://bugtracks.wordpress.com/
Tracks & Sign of Insects and Other Invertebrates: A Guide to North American Species by Charley Eiseman and Noah Charney