Category: Uncategorized

This butterfly was flying around a patch of flowers nearby the mailroom as I went to get the mail. I put my observation on iNaturalist in the “Butterflies and Moths” category first, then I misnamed it the “Orange Sulphur.” Luckily someone helped me to get the proper ID of Phoebis sennae, or Cloudless Sulphur. This butterfly is widespread throughout the U.S., especially in the southern states, and can even be seen into Canada and South America, but it is very rarely seen in the northwestern states.

Males and females look slightly different. The male has a lemon yellow upper surface with no markings. Males are also seasonally dimorphic; their winter forms are larger and have darker markings ventrally. The female is yellow or white with irregular brown or black markings and the upper forewing has a dark spot in the cell. In both sexes, there are two silver spots in the lower surface of the hindwing. With these differences, I think the one I photographed was a female. Larvae are green with yellow lateral lines and transverse bands of blue spots or yellow with black transverse bands. Whether the larvae are green or yellow depends on what they feed on; if they eat green leaves, they will be green and if they eat yellow blooms they will be yellow. Caterpillar host plants are Cassia/Senna plants, of the pea family; these plants are considered weeds and are actually poisonous. Adults are attracted to purple, red, and orange flowers with long tubes.

When these butterflies are breeding, they can be found in disturbed open areas where they can find their host plants and nectar, such as parks, beaches, yards, gardens, road edges, and abandoned fields, but when migrating, they can be found in all kinds of habitats. They migrate south in the fall, to avoid frigid temperatures in the north in the winter, and then they fly back north in the spring.

My iNaturalist post can be found here.

Sources:

http://www.butterfliesandmoths.org/species/Phoebis-sennae

http://entnemdept.ufl.edu/creatures/bfly/bfly2/cloudless_sulphur.htm

http://www.butterfly-fun-facts.com/butterfly-species/butterflies-a-e/cloudless-sulphur-butterfly-phoebis-sennae/

 

This past Friday, my research group went out to Wild Basin to set out some more of our iButtons. We had to go off trail to get to Grid points 2, 5, & 8 and while on our way to the first grid point we heard something moving and making its way to us through the landscape. Meagen and I were scared it was a snake, but it turned out to be the Greater Roadrunner! They are a pretty fascinating species from what I have read. They have a very distinctive shape with long legs, a long neck and a long straight tail. Their body structure is what gives them their speed, leaning over parallel to the ground. They can easily out run any human but are weak fliers. They are found in hot shrubby regions and range from Southwestern United States to Mexico. They hunt lizards, small mammals and birds, but have been known to kill rattlesnakes. They kind of blend into the background of the pictures but it was an awesome observation!

My iNaturalist post can be found here.

In honor of Halloween, I’ve decided to write about creepy crawlies. Orb weaver’s webs are popular design that have been used for Halloween spider web decorations. There is a black-and-yellow garden spider (or yellow garden orb-weaver, golden orb-weaver) that made its home in the bush on the sidewalk leading to SEU. Since I couldn’t take a picture of head of spider, it is covered in short and silver hair. This spider is female because of it’s size; male is only half of the female’s size. Also, only female spiders that create web, male spiders usually don’t create webs and they always wander in search for female spider to mate with.

The web has zig-zag pattern on the web and I was not sure what that is for. It is called stabilimenta and the purpose of it is not determined yet. It had been assumed that it is for keeping birds from flying through the web, increase stability of the web, or capturing the prey (by camouflaging the bright spider). Other suspected that male spiders would make their own zig-zag pattern near or on outer part of the female spider’s web and court the female spider by making vibration with their zig-zag lines.

This spider is active during day and they will capture prey and eat during the day. The prey ranges from grasshoppers, moths, wasps, and mosquitoes. Larger orb weavers (not this species, but in same Argiope genus) had been observed eating small frogs or hummingbirds if they got caught in web. Orb weaver spiders also eat parts its own web and replace with new silk everyday, it is suspected that eating web because it probably have small insects.

My iNaturalist can be found here.

I took a video on other day of the spider eating its prey.

While walking the Lady Bird Trail, I came across quite a few of these Yaupon Holly Trees. They are native to central Texas among a few other places. They are often grown in residential landscapes and make great ornamental twigs around the holiday seasons. The leaves and twigs contain caffeine, which American Indians used to drink in homemade teas. You must have a male and female plant to have berries

 

Source: http://www.wildflower.org/plants/result.php?id_plant=ILVO

iNaturalist Observation: http://www.inaturalist.org/observations/4391724

A rescued evening bat was observed in the Cherrywood neighborhood in east Austin. Dianne Odegard and Lee Mackenzie rescue injured and orphaned bats in their home and backyard. Evening bats like to live inside trees, and this particular evening bat makes its home inside a log with quite a history. This piece of wood belonged to a tree which was cut down and run through a log splitter–when this particular piece was split, it was found to be hollow, with a completely unharmed evening bat (not the same bat as the one pictured) nestled inside! The bat was then brought to Dianne and Lee to be rehabbed, and the wood kept as a home for its current inhabitant. You can see where the split wood was hinged to create a come, and the bat is hungrily munching on a mealworm.

My iNaturalist observation can be found here.

During a hike on the greenbelt this weekend, I saw some pretty yellow flowers that I thought would be great for the biodiversity post this week. Then, I saw bees surrounding the flowers so naturally I tried to get photos of them instead. Of course it wasn’t pleasant standing in the middle of a swarm of bees but I did it for the blog! After spending most of this morning looking at bee identification websites, I have come to the conclusion that these were honeybees (could be wrong), scientifically known as Apis mellifera.  

Honeybees are generally divided into three types: workers, the queen, and male bees which are called drones. Workers are the only bees most people ever see. Like ants, they are females that are not sexually developed. They have many jobs which include foraging for food, such as nectar and pollen from flowers as seen in the photo, building and protecting the hive, cleaning, circulating the air by beating their wings, and many other social functions. The queen’s only job is to have babies, but she also regulates the activities of the hive by producing chemical to guide behavior. There is only one queen per hive, and when she dies, a worker female in the colony is fed a special elixir which allows her to be a fertile queen. Males, or drones, live in the hive during the spring and summer but are expelled during winter months while the hive goes into lean survival mode. During this time, the hive lives on stored honey and pollen and cluster into a ball to conserve warmth. Honeybee hives have been providing humans with honey and beeswax for many years, spawning a large beekeeping industry, but many still exist in the wild.

You can find my iNaturalist post here.

References

http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/bugs/honeybee/

 

These glossy privets (Ligustrum lucidum) are planted all along the edge of the apartment complex I live at, as well as along the length of fence separating my complex and the neighboring one. At first, I was sure they were Japanese privet but, after researching the differences between the two species, my educated guess would be to say these are glossy privets. Generally, glossy privets have longer leaves than its relative, Japanese privet. The leaf apex of Ligustrum lucidum is long acuminate, meaning that it stretches out to a longer point. Young glossy privets are usually mis-identified as Japanese privet because the leaves haven’t grown to their longer length. However, because these privets around my complex are mature and vary in height from 10ft – 40ft, their leaves are noticeably longer than the Japanese privet leaves that I have come to be so familiar with. Because the neighboring apartment complex is older and the glossy privets are much taller (above picture), it’s likely these privets were planted around the time the building was developed and used by the landscaper as a bordering plant. Glossy privet are just as hardy as Japanese privet when it comes to invading an area and are even more troublesome than Japanese privet in some areas of Texas (ex: Harris county).

iNaturalist post.

Glossy Privet info.

 

Earlier this week, my research group and I assisted the Wild Basin in carrying out a white-tailed deer driving survey.  On our last stretch, we came across two beautiful bucks.  It’s pretty interesting how there are so many in the middle of town. The Wild basin is part of a preserve that is right in the middle of an urbanized area.  The driving survey was conducted in the neighborhoods adjacent to the Wild Basin.  White-tailed deer, Odocoileus virginianus, are native to North and South America.  They have a broad range because they are generalists.  They get their name because the underside of their body and tail are white.  When I was young I learned that male deer or bucks shed there antlers every year after breeding season.  I thought this was pretty cool, and I still do.  The picture below was taken from the road in a truck.  The buck was no further than ten yards away.

My iNaturalist post can be found here.

This is the Io moth caterpillar, I discovered it this weekend in Mart, TX while visiting family. My boyfriend doing some yard work for his grandparents this weekend and while climbing a ladder, his hand smashed one of these guys and his hand stung quite a bit. His grandmother said they are new to Mart this year and have been on the news because of that and their peculiar sting. They are native to North America and are part of the Saturniidae family. The spikes that cover it are connected to poison glands. The sensation is similar to a bee or wasp sting and the pain can last several hours. To treat this sting, you place tape over the affected area and strip off over and over, to remove the spines and poison. Adults have a wing span of about two to three inches, with females being a dark brown-purple color and males a distinct yellow color.

my iNaturalist post can be found here.

This moth greeted me as I left my apartment a few days ago. I put the observation on iNaturalist right away under the “Butterflies and moths” category, hoping to properly identify it later. As I checked back a few hours later, someone had identified the genus for me; he placed this moth in the Zale genus. I further identified it as Zale lunata, but nobody has confirmed that ID yet.

Zale lunata, or lunate zale moths, are large moths in the Noctuidae family. They are very widespread across North America. Moths in this family are mostly nocturnal and attracted to lights at nighttime. Lunate zale moth adults have bodies that are varying shades of brown with wavy striations and bands of color across their wings. They also could have yellow, reddish brown, and black colors on their wings with grey or silver patches as well. Their appearances make is easy for them to blend in with the bark on trees and avoid predation. The caterpillars of this species feed on a variety of trees such as apple, plum, maple, and willow trees. Adults can be found in areas where these trees grow, such as in woodlands, orchards, and forests, as well as in yards and parks and by creeks and streams. Adults have a long flight season and have been seen throughout the year, but they are most common in the spring. An interesting fact about them is that the name lunata comes from the Latin name for moon; this was likely referring to the crescent shaped marks on the wings.

My iNaturalist post can be found here.

Sources:

http://www.insectidentification.org/insect-description.asp?identification=Lunate-Zale-Moth

http://sites.biology.duke.edu/dukeinsects/Zale_lunata.php

http://bugguide.net/node/view/4197

http://pnwmoths.biol.wwu.edu/browse/family-erebidae/subfamily-erebinae/tribe-omopterini/zale/zale-lunata/