Yellow-Collared Scape Moth

Note the feathery antennae of this Yellow-collared Scape Moth nectaring on Blue Mist Flower (Eupatorium spp.)

Yellow-collared Scape Moth nectaring on Blue Mist Flower (Eupatorium spp.)

I love learning!  This insect was new to me.  Have you seen it before?

If you spotted this fellow, who is clearly enjoying sweet nectar from the Blue Mist flowers, it would be completely understandable if you assumed he was a wasp.  Blue-black wings, tight shape, flying during the day – none of these features would make us think “moth,” yet that’s what he is!  Hiding in plain sight, this is the Yellow-collared Scape Moth, Cisseps fulvicollis .   I agree, he is poorly named, because clearly that collar is bright red.  He is a wasp-mimic.  Other creatures accept his disguise and let him sip nectar in peace. 

 

The Yellow-collared Scape Moth may look like a wasp, but he does have moth features.   Notice the feathery antennae, a bit of a fuzzy thorax, and  long, coiled proboscis.   Another day-flying moth, Virginia Ctenucha,  Ctenucha virginica, looks similar, but has a red head.  Our Yellow-Collared Scape Moth has a black head.

To understand and hopefully remember names, I try to learn what the root words mean.   My simple Latin dictionary shows that fulvus means reddish-yellow or tawny.  Collum means neck.  Therefore, fulvicollis  means tawny-necked. OK, we'll say yellow-collared.  

“Scape,” from the common name, is a botany term and refers to the stems eaten by the larvae.  Yellow-collared Scape Moth caterpillars feed on grasses, lichens, sedges and spike rushes (Eleocharis spp.)

Cloudless Sulphur

Cloudless Sulphur laying eggs on Senna, Cassia spp.

Early Instar of Cloudless Sulphur on Senna

Munching Senna leaf, Cloudless Sulphur caterpillar

Cloudless Sulphur sheltering in Senna leaf

Killed by Wasp:  Decapitated Cloudless Sulphur caterpillar on Senna leaf

Beautiful Cloudless Sulphur caterpillar, chewing Senna. "Frass" is the word for caterpillar droppings.

Did you see that yellow butterfly?   What kind was it? 

Those lemony flashes are Sulphur butterflies.  If you prefer, you may use the "f" word and spell it "Sulfur".  They are fast, flitty and rarely alight long enough for my little camera to focus. There are different types of Sulphurs and each has a specific larval host plant.  Larval hosts include:   legumes, partridge pea, senna, acacia, clovers and alfalfa.  Adults will enjoy nectaring at your flowers. 

I have a shrubby senna tree (Cassia spp.).  It froze to the ground during our cold snap, but has cheerfully re-grown from the roots.  During April, this made my garden very popular with female Cloudless Sulphurs, Phoebis sennae.  Notice that the larval host is part of its scientific name.  You have to look closely to spot these caterpillars which are the same shade of green as the senna leaves.  The senna also offers physical protection for the larvae;  in the evening, the leaves fold together like butterfly wings, forming a shelter over the caterpillar. 

I was worried that the short plant could never support all the caterpillars I was seeing.  I needn't have worried because the wasps obliterated the caterpillars.  One day there were scores of larvae, in various instars, covering the senna.  A few days later, despite camouflage and hiding, only two remained.  I hope they were able to survive to pupate.  Timing is important.  When the next female Sulphur lays her eggs, the senna will be larger and the wasps may not be nesting.

Monarchs in the Milkweed Patch!

Early instar of Monarch Caterpillar on Asclepias curassavica

Monarch Caterpillars on A. curassavica.  How many do you see?

Four Monarchs munching - they are running out of leaves.

When the leaves are gone, but you're still hungry, gnaw on the stem. Monarch Caterpillar on A. curassavica.

Ultimate Instar of Monarch Caterpillar, Ventral View

Finished Monarch Chrysalis &  another caterpillar in J-Stage, preparing to shed skin and form chrysalis.

Newly eclosed Monarch

     Yay!  Monarchs! They are the reason we plant milkweed (Asclepias spp.) They are having such difficulties that I am thrilled when they can rest, refuel and reproduce in my garden & my Milkweed Patch.  I am a registered Monarch Waystation; perhaps they see the sign?
          A nice brood developed in mid-December. It was probably too early for butterflies to be migrating north from Mexico, so I believe it was a year-round resident female monarch who visited.   Alas, the day several adults eclosed (hatched), we had unusual, record-breaking, freezing weather that lasted for days.
     By the end of March, another female monarch found my milkweed.  How do they find it, I wonder?  A nice bunch of caterpillars grew fat munching on the fresh milkweed. We counted eight jade-green chrysalides suspended from the soffits;  there were surely more in the shrubbery or on the flowers that we did not see.
     Safe journey north, little guys.

Luna Moth

Turn off outside lights at night.  This Luna Moth damaged a wing while fluttering in confusion against a floodlight.

Whenever a Luna Moth is glimpsed, it is a blessing. This one appeared in Clay County, Florida, February 2011

    

     You remember your first.  I was a swimming instructor at a North Carolina 4-H camp.  Beneath a canopy of trees, in the sultry summer night, I gazed at the glow of the Staff Cabin’s porch light.  I was transfixed, enthralled by the sight of a wild being too beautiful to exist.  I was afraid to move lest I break the spell and cause the creature to vanish.   I widened my eyes and expanded my awareness, trying to imprint the moment on my brain.  When I became confident that the animal would linger, I ran to summon another camp staff member.  He identified the object of my amazement - a Luna Moth.  Vivid, lime green with an improbably long, decorative tail, this moth seemed more like an artistic paper sculpture than an insect.

     My reaction to the Luna Moth is not unique.  In Discovering Moths:  Nighttime Jewels in Your Own Backyard, John Himmelman writes,  “The Luna Moth does something to me.  It hits me deep down in a place where I accept the existence of magical things.”   I totally agree.

     The Luna Moth, Actias luna , is in the family of Giant Silkworm Moths.  In the southeastern U.S., the Luna Moth has two generations.  Adults that emerge in the spring will have purple, pink or brownish wing margins.  (The one I photographed emerged in February and clearly has purple margins.)  Those emerging in the summertime will have yellow wing margins.  Luna moths don’t eat or drink and survive only for a week or two.  They live to mate and lay eggs on leaves of host plants:  sweetgum, blackgum, pecan, persimmon, walnut, hickory, birch & oak.   Bright green caterpillars form silk cocoons in leaf litter on the ground.  Pupa will twitch inside the cocoon if disturbed.   The caterpillars do not sting, they are not agricultural pests and the adults are harmless.  Love the Luna!

Frost Flowers

Frost Flower wrapping around a Pentas stem

Frost Flowers on Pentas

Frost Flowers on Pentas

Frost Flowers spread like wings from Pentas

Candy floss, cotton candy, spun glass, ribbon candy, wool roving, spun sugar, spun cotton:  all are ways to describe the delicate, crystal structures called Frost Flowers. 

A cool, rainy day followed by a freezing night provided the conditions needed for Frost Flowers to occur in my garden.  The soil was moist and not frozen.  The plants had viable roots which could conduct water from the warmer, wet soil into the stems.  When the air temperature plummeted to below freezing, the water in the stems expanded and the plants extruded the water.  Countless, tiny threads of ice were pushed out of the plant stem, starting near the base of the plant.  Variations in air temperature caused the waves of ice to bend, curl and twist forming fantastic shapes.  

If you touch a Frost Flower you will feel that it’s not solid like an icicle.  It’s frothy and fragile.  The ice of a Frost Flower will sublimate as the air warms.  Sublimation means that this ice does not bother with melting into a liquid.  From a solid state it will change directly into a vapor.  The magical Frost Flower will literally vanish into thin air.

In Texas, Frostweed, Verbesinia virginica, is known for making Frost Flowers. The common name is a clue!  In my garden, the Pentas produced the biggest Frost Flowers, but I noticed Frost Flowers on Salvia Indigo Spires,  Russelia and Plumbago.  We have had this phenomenon for three mornings in a row.  I noticed today that the white ice crystals began to appear around 0500 hours.  By 0800 hours, my husband and I were taking photos of the curling formations.  By 10:00 o’clock that morning, the ephemeral Frost Flowers had disappeared.

Frost Flowers on Salvia, Indigo Spires

Frost Flowers on Pentas

 

Frost Flowers on Pentas

My husband captured this image of Frost Flower on Indigo Spires

Fox Squirrel

Sciurus niger, the Fox Squirrel

Mama Fox Squirrel has a short tail. The brown glob on the tree is peanut butter.

Mama Fox Squirrel sitting to enjoy her chunky peanut butter.

Fox Squirrel in Burr Oak

I love watching the squirrels at the bird feeders.  We have the russet, amicable fox squirrels as well as smaller, rowdy gray squirrels.   I hung a simple seed feeder from a low branch of a young Nuttall Oak tree which my husband had planted. The branches were about as big around as my finger – just stout enough to support a feeder.

As it turned out, the bird feeder hung opposite one of the other thin branches.  A mama fox squirrel quickly noticed this convenient arrangement.  She regularly came to have breakfast in my garden.  Oh, I knew it was the same fox squirrel because of her unique, acrobatic eating style. 

          Although the feeder was on her branch’s level, it was still about a squirrel’s length away.  She found that she could stretch to reach the feeder with her front paws, while still clinging to the branch with her back paws.  She wrapped her long, bushy tail around the branch for stabilization.  After she grabbed the feeder, she snatched a mouth-full of seeds then swung down and around, 360 degrees, coming  up behind the branch, as though she were a gymnast swinging on the high bar (by her feet).  Back in an upright position, she’d sit comfortably to eat her food.  It was something to watch her do this over and over.  I wondered that she did not get dizzy.

One spring morning the dew was heavy.  The grass was sodden and the tree branches were glistening with moisture.  I saw Mama Squirrel out having her usual breakfast at the bird feeder, swinging circles around the thin branch.

          Later that day I glanced toward the feeder and was disturbed to see a clump of reddish brown fur at the tree branch.  I ran outside to find part of the squirrel’s tail twisted on the branch.  It seemed that with the wet conditions of that morning, something bad had happened.  As she circled the branch, her luxurious tail wrapped around the branch and became wet and tangled.  (Any person who has experienced the misfortune of twirling and tangling a brush in his or her long hair can understand the hopelessness of the situation.)   I do not know, but I think the poor squirrel must have snipped her own tail in the panic to free herself.   I unspun the tail from the branch.  There were seven inches of thick, reddish sable, but beneath the beautiful  hair I could feel  2 inches of boney tail segment.    

Immediately,  I moved the feeder to a better location where squirrels could reach it without gymnastics or injury.  Squirrels use their tails for so many things:  shade, warmth, balance, communication.  Their Genus, Sciurus, means “shade –tail”.  I felt just awful that she had been hurt in my garden.

This distressing episode happened about four years ago.  I am glad to report that Mama Squirrel still comes to my garden to drink from the bird bath and to eat bird seed.  Her bobbed tail is disguised a bit by a growth of longer hair.   Of course, she is still easy to identify. 

Red Admiral

Red Admiral basking on Oak Tree

Red Admiral, Vanessa atalanta,  nectaring at Salvia, Indigo Spires

The Red Admiral's bold markings are distinctive, even at a distance.

The water in the birdbaths had frozen solid overnight and was slowly melting in the late morning sun.   This had been a cold January by Galveston County standards, so I was surprised to see a butterfly nectaring at the blossoms of the indigo spires salvia.  Of course I had to go see who it was, but the critter startled easily and flew away fast.  I dismayed of ever getting a photo.  Fortunately, it settled comfortably on the sunny side of our Nutall Oak Tree.  Spreading its wings wide, with its head toward the ground,  it basked in the winter sunlight and soaked up some rays.  This battered butterfly needed a sip of nectar and a solar recharge.  After a while, the Red Admiral was flying again.   

For that’s what is was - a Red Admiral, Vanessa atalanta,  quite easy to identify once it sat still.  Red Admirals are among the family Nymphalidae, the Brush-Footed Butterflies.   Brush-footed butterflies have tiny, vestigial forelegs.  This is not visible in my Red Admiral photos, but if you look back to my “Fritillary Euthanasia” entry, you may see the reduced front legs.  Another characteristic which you can see are the prominent knobs on the antennae. This species has a huge range - nearly all of North America and parts of Central America. Masses of Red Admirals have been known to migrate south, but adult Red Admirals can hibernate during the winter, as can the pupae.  I am sure in our southern county the temperatures are confusing. Their larval host plants include nettles, Urticaceae,  and other plants in that family.  

Several of my books mention that if you have a Red Admiral in your summer garden, it may regularly rest on your arm or shoulder.  Is this territorial butterfly trying to scare you away from its food source?  Are you a convenient basking spot or it is sipping salt and minerals from your skin?   Either way, how delightful to have a butterfly rest upon you!