{"id":975,"date":"2013-08-23T20:27:40","date_gmt":"2013-08-24T00:27:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sicloot.com\/blog\/?p=975"},"modified":"2014-04-07T01:14:17","modified_gmt":"2014-04-07T05:14:17","slug":"arboretum-summersweet-butterflies-and-wasps","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/sicloot.com\/blog\/2013\/08\/arboretum-summersweet-butterflies-and-wasps\/","title":{"rendered":"Arboretum: Summersweet Butterflies and Wasps"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Tuesday, I walked from the Arboretum’s main gate to the shrub garden. I saw a couple of butterflies for the first time, among them a common sootywing<\/a> (Pholisora catullus<\/i>), a dark brown butterfly with white spots.<\/p>\n

\"Common
Common sootywing<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\n<\/p>\n

I had seen a pearl crescent<\/a> (Phyciodes tharos<\/i>) earlier in the year on white clover (Trifolium repens<\/i>). Well, deja vu!<\/p>\n

\"Pearl
Pearl crescent on white clover<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A long dash skipper<\/a> (Polites mystic<\/i>) rests with its light yellow spots visible, a first for me.<\/p>\n

\"Long
Long dash butterfly<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I also saw a zabulon skipper (Poanes zabulon<\/i>) for the first time. My Peterson’s Field Guide<\/i> tells me that Boston is out of this butterfly’s range, but apparently it is increasingly being sighted here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Zabulon
Zabulon skipper<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Passing an American elm, I spotted a weevil on one of its leaves.<\/p>\n

\"Weevil
Weevil on American elm<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Summersweet continues to bloom. A specimen in the shrub garden, Clethra alnifolia<\/i> ‘Hummingbird’ x ‘Anne Bidwell’ (accession 326-2006*A), was swamped by pollinators. This plant is also known as a pepperbush; its dry fruit look like peppercorns (see top left of photo below).<\/p>\n

\"Summersweet
Summersweet fruit and flowers<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

One of the insects drawn to the summersweet was this great black wasp<\/a> (Sphex pensylvanicus<\/i>), which feeds its larvae paralyzed katydids. This wasp and the following one earn the “great” in their name; their size impressed me.<\/p>\n

\"Great
Great black wasp<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Another katydid-hunter, a great golden digger wasp<\/a> (Sphex ichneumoneus<\/i>) also flocked to the summersweet flowers. Their half-golden abdomen and golden legs glow in the sun.<\/p>\n

\"Great
Great golden digger wasp<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A tattered spring azure butterfly<\/a> (Celastrina ladon<\/i>) tried to hold its own amidst all the activity. Its wings look like they have seen better days.<\/p>\n

\"Spring
Spring azure butterfly<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I spotted a meadowhawk dragonfly on a nearby shrub.<\/p>\n

\"Meadowhawk
Meadowhawk dragonfly<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I thought I saw another butterfly landing in the grass. When I inched up close to check it out, it turned out to be a grasshopper. David Ferguson identified it for me on BugGuide as the Carolina grasshopper<\/a> (Dissosteira carolina<\/i>). It has some yellow near the tip of its wings, and a crest on its shoulder pads that has an elevated line running right through the middle. As you might expect, this grasshopper feeds on various grasses.<\/p>\n

\"Carolina
Carolina grasshopper<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Tuesday, I walked from the Arboretum’s main gate to the shrub garden. I saw a couple of butterflies for the first time, among them a common sootywing (Pholisora catullus), a dark brown butterfly with white spots.<\/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":[7,279,190,234,381,382,405,406,86,402,493,327,387,6,404,198,305,391,403],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/sicloot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/975"}],"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=975"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/sicloot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/975\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1424,"href":"http:\/\/sicloot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/975\/revisions\/1424"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/sicloot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=975"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sicloot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=975"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sicloot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=975"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}