Finding a place to spend the winter

Well, its that time of year again. The leaves are falling from the trees in the Northern hemisphere. Some of us are heading South for the winter and some of us are seeking shelter and preparing to hibernate.

Insects are getting ready for winter as well. Some insects overwinter in self-constructed shelters called cocoons.

This cocoon (above), contains a Green Lacewing pupa (Neuroptera: Chrysopidae). Pupa is the life stage between larva and adult during which some insects undergo complete metamorphosis. The Green Lacewing larva looks something like this:

They use those sickle shaped mouthparts to pierce the exoskeletons of their insect prey and suck their insides out. Once they are fully grown and ready to become adults they curl up into a tight ball and spin this cocoon.

The cocoon is made of silk, a material that is produced by most insects and serves a variety of purposes throughout their lives. Once the cocoon is complete, the larva transitions into the pupa stage. Since it is so late in the year, this lacewing will not emerge as an adult until next spring.
This is what a Green Lacewing adult looks like:

As you can see, they get their name from the lacy appearance of their wings.



These Brown Lacewings (Neuroptera: Hemerobiidae) are also getting ready for the winter.

They don't spin their cocoons nearly as densely as the Green Lacewings do so you can clearly see the pupa inside.

Brown lacewing larvae sometimes cover themselves in debris to camouflage themselves from predators. you can read more about this in my previous post, but here is what they look like:

Brown lacewing adults look pretty much like Green Lacewing adults except that they are brown and quite a bit smaller. 

Next spring as the temperatures start to warm, we'll start seeing both kinds of lacewing adults flying around as they search for places to lay their eggs. Hopefully enough of them will survive the winter to help us control those nasty aphids and scales in our gardens next year!

Familiar Jumpers!

I found this spider on our basement stairs last week.

She is a jumping spider (Salticidae), and a pretty large one. Here is a picture with my thumb to give you a sense of her size. My thumbnail is about a half of an inch (1.3 cm) long.

Jumping spiders don't build webs to trap prey like other spiders. They actively hunt prey and are capable of moving very quickly when necessary. Even though they don't spin webs, they still possess silk glands and they will trail a tiny thread of silk behind them as they hunt. This thread serves as a safety line should they lose their footing when pouncing on their prey.
Two of their eyes are very large and are oriented forward, which gives them better vision for hunting.

The two appendages under her eyes that look like a mustache are called palps. In females, they are mainly used for sensing the environment and manipulating food. Male spiders also use their palps for mating and courtship, so their palps are often larger and more noticeable. One of the clues that this spider is a female was that her palps are not enlarged at the tip. Also, the males of this species have an orange band of hairs underneath their eyes. Jumping spiders are one of the few spider families that possess color vision and the males will often have colorful markings on their faces that serve a purpose in courtship. This species is known as the Familiar Jumper (Platycryptus undatus).
Here is a link to a really great video of some other Familiar Jumpers.

Fruit fly trap

This is the best fruit fly trap that I've ever seen, and its easy to make at home.

The insects that most people call fruit flies are actually called vinegar flies, pomace flies, or just drosophila. Drosophila is the name of the scientific Genus that they are classified under. The most common fruit fly that we encounter in our homes is Drosophila melanogaster. However, another fruit fly has been showing up in North America, which is know as the Spotted Wing Drosophila (Drosophila suzukii). Spotted wing drosophila is a problem for fruit growers since it has the ability to attack fruit while its still on the plant! Most other drosophilas at least have the decency to wait until the fruit is in our kitchens.

The trap the I'm going to show you today is easy and inexpensive to make using these common household ingredients.

Sugar
Yeast (normal bread yeast)
Plastic wrap
Toothpicks
Dish soap
Water
Rubber bands

All you have to do is fill a small jar or similar container with a little bit of water. Then add some yeast.

And some sugar.

Stir it up.

Then, add just one drop of dish soap. This is important. If you put too much soap in it might repel the flies. You just need enough soap to break the surface tension of the water. One drop of soap should do it. After you put the soap in you can cover the jar with plastic wrap and poke holes in it with a toothpick. You might need a rubber band to hold the plastic wrap tight over the top.

Make sure the holes are big enough that the flies will be able to get in easily. Its better to make them a little too big than not big enough.
Then all you have to do is wait for the flies to start showing up!

They should find their way inside and drown in the water. You may want to refresh the bait every few days or so. Good luck!

Eggplant parmesan

We found a beautiful eggplant at the grocery store yesterday, so we decided to make our version of this  traditional italian dish.

The recipe is very simple and it was easy, so I thought I'd share it.

Here are the ingredients we used:

1 Large or 2 Med Eggplants
3 T milk
1 C bread crumbs
1 t garlic powder
1 t dried oregano
2 t dried parsley
1 t dried basil
4 C pasta sauce
3 egg whites
2 C shredded mozzarella
Olive oil

First we peeled the eggplant with a vegetable peeler.

Then sliced it into 1/2 inch (~1 cm) slices. 

We mixed together the bread crumbs, parsley, basil, oregano, garlic powder, and parmesan to use as breading. 

Then, we removed the yolks from three eggs, added 3 tablespoons of milk and whisked it really well. This is the egg wash.

Next, we lined a cookie sheet with tin foil and coated it with olive oil.

We lined it all up on the counter.

And started the breading process, starting with the egg wash...

...followed by the bread crumb mixture.

Then we just placed the breaded eggplants on the oiled foil.

We baked the breaded eggplant slices at 400 degrees (Fahrenheit) for a total of 20 minutes, flipping them halfway through (ten minutes per side). 

 You can use just about whatever kind of pasta sauce you like in this recipe. We made our own sauce out of a couple of cans of tomato sauce with some added ingredients.

Such as: hot pepper flakes,

 fresh chopped basil,

 and italian sausage.

We chopped up the sausages and cooked them before adding them to the sauce.

Once the breaded eggplants were done baking in the oven, we were ready to assemble the final dish.

We used a 3 quart (2.8 L) glass baking dish, oiled up with a little bit of canola oil. 

We layered the ingredients, starting with the eggplants, 

then the sauce, 

and half of the shredded mozzarella.

Followed by a second layer of eggplant, 

and sauce, and cheese.

Then we baked the whole thing for 20 minutes at 350 degrees (Fahrenheit).

And it was delicious!

Sugar Fix

I noticed that this trumpet vine (Campsis radicans, Bignoniaceae) was covered with ants the other day. Ants are usually on plants for one reason and that is to get a sugar fix.

Often they are getting their fix from aphids or other herbivorous insects that produce honeydew (see a video here). Sometimes they are getting the sugar from the flowers of the plants in the form of nectar, just like bees, butterflies, and hummingbirds do. You can see clearly in this photo that they are entering the flower's corolla to access the nectar inside. There is, however, another way for ants and other insects to obtain nectar from flowers.

As you can see, the ants are also foraging on unopened flowers and flower buds. This is because trumpet vines, like a surprising number of other plants, produce nectar in special glands outside of the flowers. These glands are called extrafloral nectaries. They are the little circular structures seen here on the calyx of the flower.

Extrafloral nectaries produce nectar that is attractive to a variety of insects, most of which are beneficial to the plant by defending it from its enemies.
The next time you see ants on a plant in your garden don't just assume that they are harming it. A closer inspection may reveal that they are actually defending it. If you see them tending aphids though, there may be cause for concern!

Yikes!

Cute bug?

I saw this Pandorus sphinx caterpillar (Eumorpha pandorus) on a grape vine last weekend. 

These caterpillars belong to the Sphingid family (Lepidoptera: Sphingidae), which includes the infamous tomato and tobacco hornworms. Although the caterpillars are often referred to as hornworms because of the "horn" at the tip of their abdomen, the adult moths carry the more attractive names of Sphinx or Hawk Moth. This caterpillar doesn't have a horn though. Instead it has a thin curved hook and an eye-spot on the tip of its abdomen. As they get older they lose the hook altogether, leaving only the eye spot.

This caterpillar was an amazing dark red color, but I saw others that were a much lighter rusty-orange.

When they feel threatened Sphingid caterpillars often rear up and tuck their heads back, in a motion that is reminiscent of a serpent preparing to strike.

But let's face it. It just makes them look ridiculous and...kind of cute. In fact, I think they ought to be put in the running for cutest bug. Or at least be in the top 10.