A few cool bugs, featuring Northern metalmark

A little while back, on a bright hot sunny day, I made a short foray to a local meadow in search of the Northern metalmark, a rather hard to find butterfly. This site is full of native plants, and in addition to the metalmarks there is a rich insect fauna. Following are a few photos of various bugs that I encountered.

A dun skipper, Euphyes vestris, tees up rather boldly. A plain jane of the butterfly world, duns do have their charms. Sneak into close proximity of one, and be dazzled when it roars off - they make a loud wing buzz reminiscent of a large wasp.

I was pleased  to see this one, a Delaware skipper, Anatrytone logan, a butterfly I don't see all that often. It has beautiful cinnamon-yellow underwings when seen with wings folded overhead.

Watch for a bit, and the Delaware skipper is apt to splay its wings out like so, revealing a stunning orange and black pattern.

A gorgeous female widow skimmer, Libellula luctuosa, suns itself. This specimen is very fresh, and was probably still in the larval (nymph) stage a day or two before I photographed her. Newly emerged dragonflies, and females that have mated, often retreat to meadows away from water to avoid hyper-aggressive adult males, which tend to remain in the wetlands.

Tiny but fierce, a gnat-ogre, Holcocephala fusca, commandeers a conspicuous perch. Such a collection of gnat-ogres I had never seen - there were dozens throughout the meadow. Gnat-ogres are miniscule robber flies, but are every bit as ferocious as their larger more easily seen counterparts. The proboscis, by which the fly dispatches its victims, can be seen in this photo. It is the little black syringe projecting downward between the eyes. Twenty-five of these flies could probably fit on your thumbnail.

I was somewhat surprised to see several individuals of this rather intimidating looking bee, but perhaps I shouldn't have been. It is the giant resin bee, Megachile sculpturalis, and these were the first that I've seen in Ohio. The giant resin bee is indigenous to Asia, and has been rapidly colonizing eastern North America. The first U.S. record came from North Carolina in 1994, and they've spread far and wide since. Resin bees appropriate carpenter bee burrows for nesting sites. This is one to watch for.

Finally, after wandering through the lea for a bit, a flash of brown shot by and lit on a black-eyed susan - Northern metalmark, Calephelis borealis!

There seems to be two vital botanical ingredients necessary for metalmark production: round-leaved ragwort, Packera obovata, and black-eyed susans, Rudbeckia hirta. The butterflies lay eggs on the former, and it serves as the host plant for their caterpillars. The adults are drawn to the latter as a nectar source.

The metalmark's underwings are a beautiful shade of soft orange, stippled with black dashes. It was a real treat to once again share company with these showy little butterflies, and most of their six-legged companions weren't so bad, either.

Giant Resin Bee

While in West Virginia recently, I was photographing Pipevine Swallowtails nectaring on Common Milkweed plants, Asclepias syriaca, when this robust bee flew in. Not recalling having seen such a thing before, I did my best to snap some photos as it busily rushed about consuming nectar.

I was just going through some unidentified stuff in photos, and pulled out an insect guide to try and pin a name on this one. Didn't take long: Giant Resin Bee, Megachile sculpturalis. Ironically, Marty Lesher had sent along a photo and description of this bee from Ohio a few days prior, and I didn't know what it was at that time.

Giant Resin Bees are native to Asia, and were first detected in the U.S. in North Carolina in 1994. It is thought that they likely came over as an incidental on a ship. Since that time, they've spread rapidly, turning up as far north as Ontario, Canada, and west to Kansas.

The females often utilize Carpenter Bee holes for nests, and these holes are often drilled into decks and the wood siding of houses and other structures. So, it's in these sort of places that people usually notice the resin bees. Although, the one in the photos above was photographed in a remote part of the West Virginia mountains, not very near any human inhabitations or buildings.

I have no idea as to how abundant these bees have become, but I'm not noticing them if they are around. So far, they don't seem to be causing any demonstrable damage to native insects. Anyway, if you've seen these odd bees around, I'd be curious to know about it.