Staufers Marsh

I stopped at Staufers Marsh last weekend to show a friend where it was and to tell her a little of what could be expected. The morning mist was still over the water enhancing the emptiness or so it seemed. We were looking for birds but instead we found insects.

This time of year Praying Mantis are full grown and ready to ensure their gene pool carries on. We found several eggs cases attached to the small trees just inside the fence, most of which had been hacked into and emptied of eggs. From the looks of them I think they are made by European Mantis (Mantis religiosa).

So when I spotted this mantis hanging on by one leg I concluded it too was a European Mantis. The morning was still cold and I think she was just hanging out until it warmed up. I did notice a little movement as I took photos but I didn’t want to disturb her. Later in the day we returned and she was gone. This one was tan but usually they are green. They were first introduced to our continent from southern Europe in 1899 on a shipment of nursery plants.

On the same small evergreen we spotted these sawflies. My friend recognized them right away because she has a dwarf evergreen collection in her yard and they are a big pest for her. I believe these are Neodiprion lecontei (Redheaded Pine Sawfly).

The best way to tell if they are sawflies and not moth or butterfly caterpillars is to look at the prolegs. The sawfly prolegs almost fill up the full length of the body because there are six or more pairs and butterflies and moths have five or fewer prolegs. I’m not sure what that bubble of liquid is at the tip of its mouth. They all had it but when we came back later in the afternoon the bubbles were gone.

Next we drove up to Sleepy Creek WMA to explore some more starting at the lake where I was last week. Most of the trees had turned yellow but some of the leaves at the lake were so red they almost didn’t look real.

My friend pointed out this nice clump of fruticose lichen. It is similar to British soldiers but the caps are pinkish tan instead. One of my fellow bloggers said that she finds these lichens in New York and that they are Pink Earth Lichen (Dibaeis baeomyces). She is an excellent naturalist and I'm confident she is correct.

The fungus of the day was a tiny tooth fungi called Irpex lacteus (Milk-white Toothed Polypore). At least that was our best guess. I don’t often see toothed fungi so I was grateful that my friend tramped through the weeds to get a sample.

The next odd thing we found was Wolf’s Milk Slime mold (Lycogala epidedrum). Often they are more pinkish but these had the more mature color of dark tan. We squeezed one open and it was a pinkish gray paste inside that will eventually turn to spores.

The last photo I took at Sleepy Creek was of this beautiful Common Buckeye butterfly (Junonia coenia). They have been very common this year but still I was pleased to see one so late in the season.

I was trying to take a photo of the dorsal (top) side and was slightly disappointed to get this one of the ventral (underside) side. Now I am glad I did because after reading more about them I discovered that they exhibit seasonal polyphenism; a new term for me. So in the summer they are light yellowish on the underside and that version is called “linea”. This fall morph has pink ventral wings and is called the “rosa” morph.

I just never know when I am going to learn another cool fact. Natural history is great isn’t it!

Shenandoah River Walk

I love to walk along the Shenandoah River this time of year. The leaves and reflection in the water are stunning.

Of course I am still looking for spiders and I found this one from the genus Tetragnatha. There are 25 species in North America to choose from I think this one is Tetragnatha straminea. Also notice how long the legs are; they are about ten times the length of the carapace.

It is a long-jawed orb weaver and you can see the large chelicerae in this photo. They have long, slender abdomens as well. They make orb webs but I didn’t see its web. They catch prey using the web in the traditional sense but they also capture flies and other insects without the aid of a web.

They often can be seen stretched out on a twig or leaf and are almost impossible to see. The egg sac is a tightly woven sac sparsely covered with threads of beadlike, greenish silk attached to twigs and other objects. I looked but didn’t see anything like this nearby.

The walk along the river was really nice. Spice bushes are always good places to search for insects and it smell so nice as I turn over leaves.

To my surprise I found this fun looking colorful caterpillar out in the open. It is a Spicebush caterpillar (Papilio troilus) pretending to look like a snake. I think Disney should make a movie about caterpillars. This one could be one of the main characters. When it is in the early stages of growth it looks like bird poop so there could be a lot of fun teasing about that in the movie.

I have this whole cast of caterpillar characters in my head and maybe later this winter I will do a blog featuring them. For now I just want to show this one.

Here is a photo of two adults taken at an earlier time.

When I turned around to go back to my car I spotted a Praying Mantis eating a couple of bees.

Hello, do you want to join me? I have two bees.

They are very yummy.

 Most of the flowers were gone and I didn’t see any mushrooms but these three insects were great finds on such a beautiful day.

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Neoscona crucifera

Neoscona crucifera is a member of the Araneidea family. She is an orb webweaver and likes to sit head down in the middle of her web waiting for prey.

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Ringneck Snake

While stacking wood for the winter I noticed this little Ringneck snake trying to sneak into the garage. It was all kinked up for some reason. Monday was a warm day so maybe it was coming out of an early hibernation to catch a bite before the real cold sets in.

Northern Ringneck snakes like this Diadophis punctatus are fairly common in West Virginia. According the Dr. Pauley in “Amphibians and Reptiles in West Virginia”, they are usually found in woodland habitats near water. I have a small creek at the edge of my property so that fits. He also says they can be found under the cover of rocks, bark, logs, leaves, or other debris. That fits too because this one crawled out from my last year’s wood pile.

I had been taking some of the old wood from the stack to bring into the garage when I spotted a redback salamander that skittered away. I hope this snake doesn’t eat it, even though it is one of their preferred foods. You can see how tiny the snake is compared to the oak leaf.

They are very docile but they will secrete a foul smelling musk when roughly handled. I used a stick to encourage it to go back into the old wood pile so I wouldn’t get musked. Dr. Pauley mentioned that “a single female may lay from 1 to 7 eggs, and a dozen or more females may use the same nest.” Now that is a good use of resources and labor saving as well.

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Full Moon

Larinioides cornutus (Furrow Orbweaver)

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Outdoors at Sleepy Creek

Sleepy Creek WMA is one of my favorite places to visit in the fall. It is just a little higher up and fall comes a few days earlier than it does at my house. As I drove into the area I was greeted with a scene full of changing leaves. Most of the flowers were spent and only a few insects were flying. I drove on and stopped to hike a birding trail I had not taken for years. I thought that I might find more interesting mushrooms but no such luck. But I did find this wonderful orb web weaver called, Araneus marmoreus, Marbled Orb Weaver Spider. I saw the web first and traced one of the silk threads to a couple of folded leaves in the upper right corner. Opening it up a tad I discovered this beautiful spider. The adult spiders build hide-a-ways like this one but the immature make retreats of silk only. Marbled spiders are polymorphic, meaning it has many color variations. This one is bright yellow but some are pale tan or pale yellow.

The habit of the Marbled Orb Weaver Spider is to hide and keep one foot on a “signal” line to the main web. When a flying insect is caught, it races out and grabs the victim. I took that photo using a flash and I think it scared her and she dashed out and ran to the center of the web and just hung there without moving. I hated flushing her but I was glad she was out in the open and I could get a better look.

Leaving her in peace I drove down to the lake and found this Eastern Box turtle in the road. My second one this week! The pattern on the back reminded me a little of the spider.

I love to take photos of critters faces to catch their expressions and anthropomorphize a little. Doesn’t it look like it was eating ice cream with chocolate dripping down the front of its chin? Well, maybe not. Anyway I picked it up and moved it off the road and we both went on our way.

The lake was beautiful as you can see.

There were lots of Odonata (Dragonflies) flying around, adding to the fall colors and activity of the day. Autumn Meadowhawk, Sympetrum vicinum, is in the family Libellulidae and very common this time of year, as the name suggests. The females lay their eggs by dipping the tips of their abdomens on the surface of the water. There were lots of males around defending their territory.

As I was taking this photo of a male I noticed some movement in the background and investigated. What I saw was a Walking Stick just lumbering along. They are really not very graceful as they walk. I believe this one is a Northern Walking Stick, Diapheromera femorata in the family Phasmidae. The ancient Greek phasma means apparition or phantom and refers to the resemblance to sticks or leaves. They are certainly the masters of disappearing before your eyes. They feed at night on the leaves of deciduous trees and shrubs such as oaks and hazelnuts. This one is heading down the trunk of this small tree.

After finding that walking stick, because of its movement, I now had a search image in my mind so when I walked by a bush, a few feet down the trail I noticed this.

Had I not seen the first one I doubt I would have seen these. And even as I looked at them it was hard to distinguish the female. She is missing one of her front legs and it looks just like part of a twig. It is amazing how she blends in, her head is at the top and she is much longer than the male. The antenna is almost at the top edge of the photo. Her eye is almost in the middle of the photo where the top leaf is attached to the stem. The male is about 3 inches and the female below is 3 ¾ inches.

And look at the end where all the mating is going on. He is using the claspers to hang onto her. They can stay like this for hours and days. I thought seeing the spider was thrilling but this really made my day. The female drops her eggs singly onto the ground where they overwinter in the leaf litter and hatch in the spring. The eggs resemble tiny seeds that have a structure called an operculum at one end that pops open like a lid when the nymph is ready to emerge. Wouldn’t that be cool to see?

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Colorful and odd shaped Mushrooms

Last weekend my friend Jane came up from DC to explore and look for mushrooms. When we started out it began to drizzle rain but we went ahead with our plan. What’s a little rain to stop naturalist! I must admit I was a little concerned for my camera but off we went.

Our first good find was a colony of Clavaria pyxidata, Crown-tipped Coral mushrooms or they could be Ramaria stricta, I just can’t decide. There must have been 30 or more in very large clumps. Roody in Mushrooms of West Virginia writes that they are edible but I’m just not ready to taste these just yet. He claims they taste mild to peppery. I think they are pretty and that’s enough for me.

I was thrilled when Jane pointed out these earth stars. I believe they are Geastrum fimbriatum. The rain has made them glossy looking and they almost sparkle don’t they. I asked Jane to squeeze one so I could get a photo of the spores coming out but I didn’t get the photo and she got a face full of spores. I don’t think she will do that again even if I begged.

We saw many other mushrooms that we didn’t identify before the rain began to really come down and we had to leave.

Then last Friday after work I drove back up to see if I could find more and I was blessed with these two bright orange ones. I believe they are Hygrocybe cuspidate, Candy-apply Waxy Caps. With that red color you would think they were poisonous but they are not.

There were plenty of regular shaped mushrooms all about but I was going for the more exotic looking ones such as this Clavulinopsis aurantio-cinnabarina. That’s a mouth full isn’t it? The common name is Orange Spindle Coral. I found some twice the size of this one but I’m showing you this because I have my hand there for scale. They can get up to 5 inches, but I think I only saw some up to 4 inches. At first it seemed like there was only one but once I started looking I could see them all around.

I was also going for the colorful when I photographed these Lemon Drops, Bisporella citrine. They are one of the most common cup fungi in my area. This log was covered with them.

I walked on up the hill to find the earth stars again but found this box turtle instead. He seems to have all the fall colors of the mushrooms in his face. He doesn’t look too happy but I suspect he has inner peace if not a joyful face.

I didn’t find the earth stars but I did find this Pestle-shaped coral, Clavariadelphus pistillaris. If you look closely on the left side you can see the teeth marks of something that ate its way along. I think it was a tiny snail.

As I was getting back into my car I saw some movement and followed a chipmunk to its hideout. I guess it thought I couldn’t see it and was very still and watchful. I was rather surprised because there are so many squirrels about that I rarely see a chipmunk at this end of the mountain.

It was getting late so I took this parting shot before I drove home. It was truly a perfect and colorful day.

Caterpillars – Common Pug and Snowberry Clearwing

Spiders aren’t the only thing I have been seeing lately. When I found the Garden Spider Egg case I also found two interesting caterpillars nearby. The first one is a Hermaris diffinis, commonly called Snowberry Clearwing moth.

 Hermaris diffinis larva

Snowberry Clearwing moth adult

This is the less common brown form and I found it where I had seen adults earlier this year. It likes fields, woodland and forest edges. This one was on a fence row next to a field for cattle.

Hermaris diffinis larva

Isn't that horn at the end interesting? I suspect some of it's enemies are taken aback when they see this. I suppose I would be too if I sat down next to someone on the subway with a large horn.

The other one I found was a Eupithecia miserulata known as a Common Pug. The moth is really not much to look at and hard to identify from other Pugs but this caterpillar is pretty darn cool.

This is the adult Pug found at my porch light in early March.

Wagner in his book Caterpillars of Eastern North America says, “It’s coloration frequently blends with that of its foodplant --how the caterpillars come to match their background in coloration is deserving of study”. Is that amazing or what! It took me a while to find it in the book because mine was a bright yellow to match the yellow flower. Finally I just focused on the herringbone pattern and found it. The one in the book is brown.

Eupithecia miserulata larva (Common Pug)

You can see how it has been eating the petals of the flower.

Eupithecia miserulata larva (Common Pug)

When it was first spotted it was near the center of the flower and blended in but as I began to take photos it moved out and eventually took the position of standing up straight and stiff. I guess this normally works to ward off preditors but for me I was gratefull that it finally stood still so I could get a good photo.