{"id":1053,"date":"2013-09-17T17:03:25","date_gmt":"2013-09-17T21:03:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sicloot.com\/blog\/?p=1053"},"modified":"2014-04-07T01:17:06","modified_gmt":"2014-04-07T05:17:06","slug":"arboretum-eastern-comma-and-pigeon-tremex","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/sicloot.com\/blog\/2013\/09\/arboretum-eastern-comma-and-pigeon-tremex\/","title":{"rendered":"Arboretum: Eastern Comma and Pigeon Tremex"},"content":{"rendered":"

I saw a few moths, butterflies, and wasps at the Arboretum last week. An eastern comma butterfly<\/a> (Polygonia comma<\/i>) rested on a leaf in the shrub and vine garden. It is named for the bright white comma, swollen at both ends, on its wing. I think it looks more like a crescent moon than a comma.<\/p>\n

\"Eastern
Eastern comma butterfly<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The wings look drab until they open, revealing a rich orange with black spots. This is the winter form of this butterfly, with its hind wings more orange than black.<\/p>\n

\"Eastern
Eastern comma butterfly<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\n<\/p>\n

An armyworm moth<\/a> (Mythimna unipuncta<\/i>) wasn’t succesful at hiding itself in tall, green grass. In addition to a furry top, they have a bright white spot on each wing that has two black dots on either side of it. It is also known as the white-speck. Thanks to Maury Heiman<\/a> on BugGuide for the ID.<\/p>\n

\"Armyworm
Armyworm moth<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Here’s the moth staring straight up at me. It appears to have a purple stain on its mouthparts.<\/p>\n

\"Armyworm
Armyworm moth<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I found two more moths, neither of which I could identify to species. One is a grass veneer moth and the other I found on the trunk of a maple tree.<\/p>\n

\"Grass
Grass veneer moth<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Moth
Moth on maple trunk<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I saw a crane fly. Every time I post one of these creatures to BugGuide, they are immediately moved for expert attention. Must be difficult to identify them to species.<\/p>\n

\"Crane
Crane fly<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I found an ichneumon wasp loitering in the grass. It had a black head, black and yellow legs, and smoky wings. Ross Hill on BugGuide identified it to the genus Therion<\/i>.<\/p>\n

\"Therion
Therion wasp<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It had a thin red abdomen that ended in a thick black ovipositor that reminded me of a muffler.<\/p>\n

\"Therion
Therion wasp<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As I was walking by the zelkova collection, I saw a horntail wasp trying to lay its eggs in a zelkova tree. It was too high up for me to get a good look, but I believe it is a pigeon tremex<\/a> (Tremex columba<\/i>).<\/p>\n

That stub you see sticking out its behind is why it is called a horntail wasp. But that’s not what it uses to lay its eggs. See the black needle emerging from the middle of its abdomen? That’s the ovipositor.<\/p>\n

Along with eggs, the wasp deposits a wood-rotting fungus in the tree. The larvae eat both the fungus and the wood digested by it.<\/p>\n

\"Pigeon
Pigeon tremex wasp<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Wasps are fascinating!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I saw a few moths, butterflies, and wasps at the Arboretum last week. An eastern comma butterfly (Polygonia comma) rested on a leaf in the shrub and vine garden. It is named for the bright white comma, swollen at both … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[415,7,190,234,140,414,86,493,266,305,38],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/sicloot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1053"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/sicloot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/sicloot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sicloot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sicloot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1053"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/sicloot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1053\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1432,"href":"http:\/\/sicloot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1053\/revisions\/1432"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/sicloot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1053"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sicloot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1053"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sicloot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1053"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}