A matter of time, part 2

Larger, more colorful, and stronger hoppers than earlier,
late-stage Spotted Lanternfly nymphs are nearing adult flight.

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flea beetle

The rhythm of their lights still freshly impressing the mind, I thought
I’d discovered a late season firefly. But its sudden spring from sight left
a more telling impression: Disonycha glabrata, the pigweed flea beetle.

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Leaf eater

Commonly named for eating Asclepias incarnata (not  pictured),

a Swamp milkweed leaf beetle (Labidomera clivicollis)

makes do in our patch of Common milkweed (Asclepias syriaca).

 

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Why plant milkweed?

One

more

monarch

headed

in due time

for

Mexico

 

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Sown here

Sown here last year for the monarch and her brood
milkweed has grown to host a new visitor —
like this banded net-winged beetle
(calopteron discrepans, I think) —
on nearly every leaf turned

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proves the point

Feeding among clusters of pending white snakeroot blooms,

an orange assassin bug (Pselliopus barberi) proves the point of its name.

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Rude awakening for a weary traveler

First observed on our North American continent in Nova Scotia in 1979, Europe’s large yellow underwing moth (Noctua pronuba) has sure come a long way to one day be roused from its cover of soft brown forewings and awkwardly rise in surprising orange flutter before an approaching mower here in southeastern Pennsylvania.

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