Can you believe it?! Near the end of my run tonight I stepped into some weeds just off the sidewalk to let Nash do his thing. And...you guessed it! I didn't have the tools with me on my run and I think I would look odd walking through the manager's reception in the hotel lobby all sweaty, leading a dog, and carrying a dead baby raccoon...
I am not in the country. I'm in Yonkers, NY! I guess I'm just...lucky?
I guess this is as good a time as any to do a quick overview of some of the insects that made an appearance in May.
Beginning with the blow fly (aka green bottle fly). These flies lay their eggs on freshly dead things, like baby raccoons. The maggots eat the fresh carrion. If you find a bunch of them (blue or green and metallic looking) banging against the inside of a window, you probably had a dead mouse nearby. The maggots grew up eating it and what you've got is the resulting flies. Suck them up with a vacuum or open the window. They are really pretty little flies—
I've been meaning to catch some, dip them in some sort of clear coating, and make earrings. I know it would be weird, but...pretty! And I love the name Lucilia for a girl's name. A self-confident girl...this would be her namesake---->
Next we have the dobsonfly.
At least once a year I get a photo of one of these with an accompanying text message that says "What the f**** is this?" That's a direct quote. Usually the males' morphology brings out the profanity.
They've got some impressive mouthparts. They're pretty harmless though if you don't stick your finger right in a female's mouth. The male's long mandibles are used to help him do the dirty and are useless for biting. In fact, they're only adults for 7 days...and eating is not their focus during this time.
The larvae are known by fishermen as hellgrammites. I just wikipedia'd this for the spelling and saw this factoid: "South Texas tradition has it that the name comes from a child asking if the larvae will bite, the obvious answer, 'hell, it might.'" But I am suspicious of wikipedia...and this is the first time I have referenced it for this blog.
The mid-May heat brought out the carpenter bees in droves. Three people I know were altering their normal behavior to avoid these clumsy bugs. No need my friends, the big guys that are hovering and burrowing into wood are pretty harmless. The males (usually what you see) act tough, but can't sting. The ladies have stingers, but you've gotta go out of your way to piss them off.
They burrow into wood (about 1/2" diameter holes), lay an egg, and pack the egg a lunch. They will return from year to year, so it's best to plug up the holes and paint the boards. Or replace the board with pressure treated wood.
Bumble bees have hairy abdomens (back body part), carpenter bees' are shiny.
Rounding out the group is the june bug. I know it's not June yet, but I had my first sighting on May 30th...so that's pretty close! I'm not sure if they're out in NY yet.
I was in Maine this weekend and as I worked out on the porch these guys started dive bombing me (the light near me). They are clumsy—flying at full speed into inanimate objects and literally bouncing the the ground. They can be clumsy I suppose. Their elytra are HARD. In fact, if I rode motorcycles I would get a face mask simply because of this bug. (All beetles' front pair of wings have evolved into hard wings called elytra. They are used for protection, like a suit of armor. The cellophane-like wings they fly with are neatly folded underneath.)
I find june bugs to be quite charismatic. Even in their destructive larval ("grub") stage when they're snipping roots underground. I'm not sure my mom agrees.
I saw lots of other bugs that held my attention too, but I thought I'd pick the big ones that people ask me about for this blog. If I posted about every bug that distracted me I'd never catch up!
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