The stunning Polka Dot Wasp Moth is the adult stage of the Oleander Caterpillar, here pollinating our Backyard Loquat Trees. It is rare to see and get film of these elusive beauties which flutter around slowly in the daytime (Syntomeida epilais Walker). Its dangerous wasp-like appearance and unusual color patterns say to potential predators like birds - stay away - thus they are perfectly safe to feed on pollen in the daytime alongside the bees and other pollinators. Their caterpillars are only destructive to Oleander Trees which are highly poisonous. Oddly another similar wasp moth with bright red wings is actually called the Spotted Oleander Wasp Moth - it can be seen in this video:
The adult stage of the oleander caterpillar is sometimes called the polka-dot wasp moth. Wasp moth is the common name given to the subfamily of arctiid moths to which this species belongs (the ctenuchines) because of their resemblance to wasps such as the sphecids and pompilids. The moth's body and wings are a beautiful iridescent blue/green. Small white dots are found on the body, wings, legs and antennae, and the tip of the abdomen is red/orange. Male and female moths are quite similar in appearance, and have a wing span of 45 to 51 mm. These moths are slow-flying and active during daylight hours, which contrasts them with other moth species which are usually nocturnal.
Beautiful Gulf Fritillary or "Passion" Butterfly - bright orange catches your eye and the 3 little white dots on each fore-wing are the clincher. Watch for a guest appearance by a spider!
The Gulf Fritillary, Agraulis vanillae (Linnaeus), is a brightly colored butterfly common across extreme southern portions of the United States. At home in most open, sunny habitats, it frequents roadsides, disturbed sites, fields, open woodlands, pastures, yards, and parks. It is a regular in most butterfly gardens, including those in more urban settings.
The Gulf fritillary occurs throughout the southern United States southward through Mexico, Central America and the West Indies to South America. In Florida, it can be found in all 67 counties. The butterfly undergoes distinct seasonal movements each year. Adults move northward in spring and form temporarily breeding colonies throughout the southeast. Individual vagrants may occasionally reach into the central U.S., but rarely into the Midwest. Starting in late summer and continuing through fall, huge numbers of adults migrate southward into peninsular Florida. Adults overwinter in frost-free portions of their range.
Adult: The Gulf fritillary is a medium-sized butterfly with elongated forewings. Adults have a wingspan range of 65 to 95 mm. Females are generally larger than males. The sexes are dimorphic. The upper surface of the wings is bright orange with black markings. Females are somewhat darker and more extensively marked. The forewing cell contains three black-rimmed white spots. The undersides of the wings are brown with elongated silvery-white spots.
http://entnemdept.ufl.edu/creatures/bfly/gulf_fritillary.htm
Large Bald Faced Hornet nest in a tree with some nice bird calls in the background. These are dangerous hornets and they typically build their nests in trees in the wild and near houses so if one accidentally disturbs them while mowing or trimming trees you won't outrun them. The worker hornets here are diligently making the nest even bigger. When found away from any human habitation like this nest its best just to leave them alone as they are in fact quite beneficial by preying on other harmful insects - all in the balance of Nature. Interestingly, if you are quiet you can film them quite closely as here with a cell phone - they have guard hornets posted who are always on the lookout for anything threatening so best to give these nest a wide berth.
Dolichovespula maculata is a eusocial wasp of the cosmopolitan family Vespidae. Its colloquial names include the bald-faced hornet, bald hornet, white-faced hornet, white-tailed hornet, blackjacket, and bull wasp. This species is a yellowjacket wasp, not a true hornet (genus Vespa). Colonies contain 400 to 700 workers, the largest recorded colony size in its genus, Dolichovespula. It builds a characteristic hanging paper nest. Workers aggressively defend their nest by repeatedly stinging invaders.
Dolichovespula maculata is distributed throughout the United States and Southern Canada, but is most common in the southeastern United States. Males in this species are haploid and females are diploid. Worker females can therefore lay eggs which develop into males. Matricide might occur after sufficient workers have been raised and queen-destined eggs have been laid, in order to give workers a reproductive advantage. The sting hurts intensely when first stung and will get a bump but in a couple hours it will not be there.
Baldfaced hornets are distinguished from other yellowjackets by their white and black coloring. It has a white or "baldfaced" head, which is the source of its colloquial namesake. These wasps also have three white stripes at the end of their bodies. They are notably larger than other species of Dolichovespula, as adults average about 19 millimetres (0.75 in) in length. Queen and worker wasps have similar morphologies. However, workers are covered by small hairs while the queen remains hairless. Queens are always larger than workers in their colonies, though size distributions can vary in different nests and workers in one colony might be as large as a queen in a different one.
D. maculata create egg-shaped, paper nests up to 360 millimetres (14 in) in diameter and 580 millimetres (23 in) in length. Nests are layered hexagonal combs covered by a mottled gray paper envelope. Bald-Faced Hornets create this paper envelope by collecting and chewing naturally occurring fibers. The wood fiber mixes with their saliva to become a pulpy substance that they can then form into place.
Making friends with a Praying Mantis hunting insects on the porch! These fascinating insects have personalities and unlike most insects seem to relate to humans and humans seem to instinctively sense their awareness and do not harm them! They of course, are extremely beneficial to have around.
A Large loud female Carpenter Bee is looking for a place to start a nest in wood. They generally avoid treated deck lumber as in this case, but they spend considerable amount of time looking. She does a nice little dance in the process. Only the female can sting, but generally they are very "friendly" bees and tolerate me taking video just a few inches away and often hover near people with no ill will intended, just curious. The problem is they make nests by tunneling into wood, however I have never had them do any damage to houses etc. as their numbers appear small. Often people trap and kill them, but another option is to make or buy houses for them and see if they will adopt them, they are after all native bees and are by nature excellent pollinators.
In America north of Mexico, the subfamily Xylocopinae is composed of two genera, Ceratina (small carpenter bees) and Xylocopa (large carpenter bees). These bees get their common name from their nesting habits: small carpenter bees excavate tunnels in pithy stems of various bushes; large carpenter bees chew nesting galleries in solid wood or in stumps, logs, or dead branches of trees (Hurd and Moure 1963). The large carpenter bees may become economic pests if nesting takes place in structural timbers, fence posts, wooden water tanks, or the like.
Eastern Tent Caterpillars invade an Apple Tree. This "tent" of caterpillars is easily spot treated with insecticide on this small tree limiting their damage to the foliage.
The eastern tent caterpillar (Malacosoma) is a species of moth in the family Lasiocampidae, the tent caterpillars or lappet moths. It is univoltine, producing one generation per year. It is a tent caterpillar, a social species that forms communal nests in the branches of trees. It is sometimes confused with the gypsy moth and the fall webworm, and may be erroneously referred to as a bagworm, which is the common name applied to unrelated caterpillars in the family Psychidae. The moths oviposit almost exclusively on trees in the plant family Rosaceae, particularly cherry (Prunus) and apple (Malus). The caterpillars are hairy with areas of blue, white, black and orange. The blue and white colors are structural colors created by the selective filtering of light by microtubules that arise on the cuticle.
Tent caterpillars are among the most social of larvae. The adult moth lays her eggs in a single batch in late spring or early summer. An egg mass contains about 200 to 300 eggs. Embryogenesis proceeds rapidly, and within three weeks, fully formed caterpillars can be found within the eggs. The small caterpillars lie quiescent until the following spring, they start to chew their way out of the eggs just as the buds of the host tree begin to develop.
The newly hatched caterpillars initiate the construction of a silk tent soon after emerging. They typically aggregate at the tent site throughout their larval stage, expanding the tent each day to accommodate their increasing size. Under field conditions, the caterpillars feed three times each day, just before dawn, at midafternoon, and in the evening after sunset. During each bout of feeding, the caterpillars emerge from the tent, add silk to the structure, move to distant feeding sites en masse, feed, and then return immediately to the tent where they rest until the next activity period. The exception to this feeding pattern occurs in the last instar, when the caterpillars feed only at night. The insect has six larval instars. At the last stage, the caterpillars disperse and each constructs a cocoon in a protected place. The adult moths, or imagoes, emerge about two weeks later. They are strictly nocturnal and start flying after nightfall, coming to rest within a few hours of dawn.[1] Mating and oviposition typically occur on the day the moths emerge from their cocoons; the females die soon thereafter.
Tent caterpillars, like many other species of social caterpillars, vigorously thrash the anterior part of their bodies when they detect predators and parasitoids. Such bouts of thrashing, which may be initiated by a single caterpillar, radiate rapidly through the colony and may result in group displays involving dozens of caterpillars. Such displays create a moving target for tachinid flies, wasps, and other small parasitoids that would lay eggs on or in the body of the caterpillar. They also clearly deter stink bugs and other timid predators. Groups of caterpillars resting on the surface of the tent constitute aposematic displays. Few birds other than cuckoos find the hairy caterpillars palatable. Cherry leaves are cyanogenic and the caterpillars regurgitate cyanide-laden juices when disturbed.
Tent caterpillars secrete silk from a spinneret wherever they go, and frequently-used pathways soon bear conspicuous silk trails. As the caterpillars move about the tree, they largely confine their movements to these trails. They lay down pheromones along the trails by dragging their abdomens. Caterpillars that find food may overmark the exploratory trails they follow back to the tent, creating recruitment trails. Recruitment trails are much more attractive to its brethren than exploratory trails, and serve to lead the group directly to the newest food source. A single successful forager can recruit the entire colony to its food find.
The exact identity of the trail pheromone of the eastern tent caterpillar has not yet been determined, but the chemical 5β-cholestane-3-one has been shown to be fully competitive with it. Caterpillars readily follow trails of this chemical, even abandoning their own trails in favor of artificial trails prepared with the compound.
source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_tent_caterpillar
Male Queen Butterfly (Danaus gilippus) with the two dark upper wing spots - or pheromone scales. Queen butterflies are cousins of Monarch butterflies and similar to Soldier Butterflies. The Queen's are year-round residents of Florida, but my experience has been they are not that common to see and equally as beautiful as the Monarchs. Both use milkweed (Asclepias species) as host plants.
Queen butterflies are not like ants and termites, the ones that lay the eggs. ‘Queen’ is simply the name of this species of butterfly. There are both male and female Queen butterflies. Like Monarchs, male Queens have a black spot on each hindwing. These black dots are pheromone scales. Although Monarch butterflies do not use pheromones during courtship and mating, Queen butterflies do use pheromones.
Relaxing, soothing, and healing feast for the eyes and ears - Monarch Butterflies feeding on purple thistle on their annual migration to Mexico set to ambient music. No loops, static images or repeats - this is 20+ minutes of original migrating Monarch Butterfly videos set to an outstanding ambient soundtrack. Filmed on October 20th, 2015 at 3,500 feet in the Great Smoky Mountains of North Carolina this is very late for Monarchs to be passing through - and they are hungry. I noticed a patch of thistle on the roadside with just a few blooms left, all other fall wildflowers were dead, this became a migrating Monarch Butterfly magnet! Enjoy, relax and contemplate the healing power of the Monarch of Butterflies.......
The outstanding soundtrack is credited to:
Ambiment - The Ambient by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
He is doing better and should fully recover with plenty of water and food - his activity level and overall appearance is good. A few other squirrels have two or three bot fly "warbles" and are also hanging in there. See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=orx-xLZrry0
Gray squirrels are often infested by one or a few larvae. The large, fluid-draining warbles are often surrounded by patches of bare skin, and appear rather gross. However, an otherwise healthy adult host with access to adequate food and water probably can tolerate at least four to five of these insects with little obvious effect on its behavior other than stimulating efforts to scratch the warbles. But, at higher infestation levels (squirrels with 10 or more larvae have been observed) and in situations where there is a scarcity of food or water, or if the host is an infant, pregnant or nursing infants, these parasites can be harmful. For example, a heavily infested squirrel may become weakened and more vulnerable to predation, a fatal bacterial infection may set in, or a mother squirrel may experience a diminished milk supply leading to the death of her nursing offspring. With gray squirrels, the larvae often are found in the upper torso, although they may occur on the head, limbs and most other areas of the body except the tail.
Ruby Throated Hummingbirds versus Yellow Jacket hornets at the nectar feeder. Besides fighting each other the hummingbirds have to contend with a few hornets who have claimed the nectar feeder and are vigorously - and quite successfully - defending it. When you watch the actions of the hornets it certainly gives the impression of intelligence and strategy. Sad to say the hummingbirds - which are birds with attitude after all - have been dominated by Bumblebees and Butterflies in the past so the hornets running them off is not too surprising. But despite all the battle they manage to get a drink of nectar in now and then. See also Hummingbird versus bee:
Flesh Flies (Sarcophaga haemorrhoidalis) mating. Much larger and striking in appearance compared to the common housefly. Generally beneficial in nature the Red-tailed flesh flies are considered opportunistic feeders on carrion and human and animal waste. They are also a high protein food source for birds - especially the Great Crested Flycatchers. They play an important role in decomposition and are rarely a problem around humans if proper sanitation is practiced. They occur everywhere in the wild even in the remotest areas. Near wild areas like where this video was taken they usually occur in very low densities and are rarely seen and have little impact on humans and pets, but will find all animal carcasses and begin the process of decomposition. Sarcophaga haemorrhoidalis is particularly important to forensic entomology as it can be the first, or one of the first, arthropods to arrive at a corpse. The species is a strong flyer and has the ability to fly in inclement weather when other arthropod species are unable to fly. Sarcophaga haemorrhoidalis is most often associated with corpses found inside buildings, especially in the summer months in southeastern United States.
A new Backyard Squirrel has a nasty Bot Fly "warble" on the back of his neck. Many squirrels are suffering from this parasite in mid-summer - a little help from humans will improve their chances. Although painful to see them suffer they will all likely survive this seasonal malady. I discuss some ways to help them through this. See my previous mini-documentary on Squirrel Bot Flies at:
Fascinating, relaxing Nature Meditation. A Colony of Red Fire Ants is expanding - an army of ants is on the move. Contemplate over 30 minutes of approximately 40-50 thousand ants moving both ways across your screen in HD. Watch mathematical patterns and social roles unfold before your eyes, try and make sense of their complex society or just relax and watch their intricate interactions. Why do only a few out of thousands actually pick up and carry the poison bait? What are the ants up to - what are they talking about - will they take over the earth? Seriously though, they are fascinating - and dangerous to humans and animals. Red imported fire ants have been reported to reduce ground-nesting populations of rodents and birds. In certain instances, the RIFA may completely eliminate ground-nesting species from a given area. Because there is a 10 to 20 year lapse before reductions in bird populations are observed, it has been suggested that actual effects of the RIFA on animal populations may be underestimated.
Gray Squirrels in the Backyard are again afflicted with the larvae of the naturally occurring parasitic Bot Fly. Often mistaken for tumors or squirrel pox it is instead the large "warbles" caused by the Bot Fly and for the last two years it has become a summer phenomena in the Florida Backyard. There are approximately eight Backyard squirrels at any given time and nearly all will get at least a few larvae. Although painful to see them suffer they will all likely survive this seasonal malady. Give them plenty of food and water and moral support! Detailed information can be found at:
Yellow Jackets building a Nest. Big Yellow Jacket gets upset with one of the smaller workers building the nest and dispenses some punishment which sets all of the Yellow Jackets swarming. I noticed the Yellow Jackets building a new nest just 4 feet off the ground under a tree branch and left the camera running for 30 minutes so these Yellow Jackets managed to get upset all by themselves. Does not take much to set them off. This particular kind of nest is quite dangerous because its in a place where one would bump into it mowing around the trees. I planned to leave it in place for a few days to film its rapid growth, but a Black Bear ate it the next night. A nice little snack for them. Filmed in the Great Smoky Mountains.
Male Ebony Jewelwing Damselfly (Calopteryx maculata) closely related to Dragonflies it was filmed over a small stream in the Great Smoky Mountains - its typical riparian environment. This was filmed hand-held with the Canon SX60 HS at full 1365 mm optical zoom - no excuses, but a bit shaky at times.
This Orb Weaver Spider is relatively common in Florida and looks like it has red lights glowing on it for defensive purposes, Despite the appearance of two bright red triangles on its abdomen that look like at first glance like an hourglass it is not poisonous like the Black Widow - its "teeth" would have trouble penetrating human skin in any case, but it is very beneficial feasting mostly on mosquitoes and small flies.
These colorful, delicate spiders make circular webs that are usually positioned horizontally or at an angle to the ground, and they typically hang in the middle of their webs. The carapace appears yellow-green, darker on the sides. The abdomen is somewhat elongated and can be variably colored with silver, greens, yellows, reds and some blues. The legs are slender and long.
Banded Tussock Moth Caterpillar Halysidota tessellaris comes in a variety of colors - this is the yellow variety. Called "Tussock moth" for the tufts of hair on the caterpillar. (tussock = a tuft or clump of green grass or similar verdure, forming a small hillock--Wiktionary.)
The long black and white "lashes" front and reare shout out - danger! "don't touch me". Indeed they are akin to extremely small sharp needles. A skin irritation and sometimes a severe allergic reaction can occur when contacting the sharp spines which are said to have a feel like rubbing raw fiberglass threads into your skin. This one is in a rush to cocoon up for the winter! The wildest looking variety of Tussock Moth Caterpillar the White-Marked can be seen at:
Eastern Pondhawk Dragonfly in Florida. Gets its name due its voracious appetite for other insects caught on the wing after launching from hunting perches.
A Zebra Longwing Butterfly - the State Butterfly of Florida - makes a rare appearance in the backyard. It is aptly named as it has distinct Zebra stripes and extra long "wing extensions" beyond what would normally be symmetrical for a butterfly. It also has notably red accents. It is more common in south Florida and especially the Everglades.Sitting on a leaf of the invasive Brazilian Pepper Tree it is warming up and getting ready to start its day. Our resident nesting Great Crowned Flycatchers are likely to make a quick meal of this beauty.
