Readers’ wildlife photos

Today’s photos are from regular Mark Sturtevant, whose narrative and captions are indented.

These are photographs of insects taken from a couple summers ago. The first two pictures are of caterpillars, beginning with the variable oakleaf caterpillar (Lochmaeus manteo). This is a member of a large family called the ‘prominent moths’. It was not easy to identify this one! The link with the picture shows that the caterpillars are indeed variable.

The next caterpillar is a small inchworm (Melanolophia sp.). Although not remarkable, it was rather impressive that this larva was able to firmly hold this ‘planking’ position for several minutes while I took pictures.

The next picture is of a Northern pearly-eye butterfly, Enodia anthedon. I frequently see these near the edges of forest trails. They’re always alert, but this one was willing to let me get close enough.

The mourning cloak butterfly (Nymphalis antiopa) shown in the next picture is by no means uncommon, but they have been difficult to photograph. I will often see them zipping quickly through the woods, and I can only gaze forlornly at their passing. A further complication is that they are not into visiting flowers, but instead do most of their feeding on sap flows high up on tree trunks. So I was very pleased to see this one sunning itself on an old dead tree. Mourning cloaks spend the winter as adults, and it may even be seen flying through woods in the later days of winter while there is still snow on the ground.

I close this posting with pictures of mantidflies, which are rather strange insects.  Mantidflies belong to the order Neuroptera, and so are related to lacewings and antlions. Like other Neuropterans, mantidflies are predators. However, these insects show convergent evolution to praying mantises, and the resemblance is rather startling even though they are very far from being related.

The first pictures show the largest mantidfly in my area (Climaciella brunnea). This individual is clearly a Batesian mimic of a local species of paper wasp, and apparently there are variations among them that mimic different wasp species. Some examples can be seen in the link to this picture. Mantidflies have a difficult upbringing since their larvae are parasitoids on the egg sacs of wandering spiders. The tiny larva must first search for a female spider and hitch a ride on it, hanging on until she makes an egg sac. As the spider does this, they crawl inside and while the mama spider is guarding her eggs, the mantidfly larva is meanwhile eating them! The host of this large mantidly will be a large wandering spider like a wolf spider or nursery web spider.]

The last pictures are of a second species of mantidfly (Dicromantispa sayi) that I found on my shed. These are staged pictures of this smaller species, and they were taken indoors against a large window since this one wanted to fly. This species is known to favor the egg sacs of jumping spiders, and that is suspicious since this is the second  Dicromantispa that I found on my shed, and there is always a good population of jumping spiders on it. So, hmmmm!