Interesting Flies

Here are some flies to look at. Shiny, hairy, big and little. I think they can be quite beautiful, too. You'll notice a lot of noncommittal phrasing, because I'm not awesome at identifying flies.

Probably Calliphorid flies, such as the common 'blue bottle fly'.

This is likely a fly in the family Sarcophagidae, known as 'flesh flies'. They are oviviparous, meaning instead of laying eggs, they lay larvae, born ready to feast on decaying flesh. 

This looks like a fly in the family Musicdae, a common house fly.

These delicate flies belong to the family Dolichopidae, the long-legged flies

Two hover flies mating. Family Syrphidae.

More Syrphidae.

Some flies have beautiful patterns on their wings.

This is a tiny robber fly, family Asilidae, with a thrips in its mouth.

This bristle-covered guy is called a Tachinid fly. It is a parasite of caterpillars.

The following flies have what's called a "holoptic" head - meaning their head is mostly eyes.

Let's talk about Lone Star ticks.

It's been a wonderful summer, but now one of my least favorite invertebrates has spurred me back to the blog: TICKS. In particular, I want to talk about lone star ticks - Amblyomma americanum. They are very prevalent where I live, and in many parts of the US. Their range includes most of the eastern and midwestern states. Around here, we seem to mostly get bitten by these guys.

Here's today's story. Our dog, Franklin, went outside this morning and disappeared into the woods. I called for him and he came running back happily, but I had a sinking feeling in my gut. A few weeks ago we had both gone exploring out there, and we returned home covered in the tiniest ticks I've ever seen, which resulted in around 40(!!) horribly itchy bites. They took a long time to heal and it was very unpleasant - to say the least. Remembering this experience, and similar ones from the past. I ran a paper towel down Franklin's legs. The horror was confirmed.

Yes. Those tiny dots are all tick babies (larvae). Hundreds of them.

Cue mad bathing of the dog, stripping of all couch and bed linens, washing, vacuuming, and showering.

Lone star ticks are so named for the bright gold/silver dot on the back of the adult female tick. Ticks are arachnids but like insects and other exoskeleton-bearing invertebrates, they shed their skin and grow in several stages. After hatching from an egg, a tick is called a larva. It has only six legs and it quests, or waits, for a meal to walk by. After feeding it molts into a nymph. It eats again, molts, and then it's a sexually mature adult. The male and female feed and mate on the final host, then the engorged female lays eggs and dies. Pretty simple.

The lone star family! Top left: the adult male. Bottom left: adult female. Top right: nymphs. Bottom right: the larvae.

For size reference, here's a larval tick on the end of my fingernail. Yeah. They are ridiculously small.

It get's upsetting for us humans, because we are one of the hosts, and ticks are known to transmit pathogens that cause diseases. Lyme disease is one that always rears its ugly head when ticks are discussed. Lucky me, covered in bites from the larvae: lone star ticks do not carry the pathogen (Borrelia bacteria) responsible for Lyme. They do occasionally carry other nasty stuff, see here. But even luckier me, larvae can't carry anything. To carry a pathogen a tick has to first bite a host that already carries a pathogen and ingests it along with the blood. I was the lucky first meal for the larvae, so they only have my blood... for now.

I could attempt to launch into a very detailed exploration of ticks and all the upsetting various tick borne diseases, but quite frankly there are plenty of sites with good information, so I'll just point you to those for more details. Safe to say it's best to avoid getting bitten in the first place. Also, I'm no tick borne disease expert, but here is some information I do know, from my own experience and information I've gathered. The larval lone star ticks climb on and walk around looking for a suitable place to bite into my skin. These larval ticks seem to bite, then find me distasteful, and fall off quickly, but the damage is already done. When they sink their mouth parts into skin, they inject salivary compounds, including a glue-like secretion to anchor them in place. If the tick is removed, these substances stay put, and the itchy bite is a reaction to this. And it takes weeks to heal, for me at least. Nymphs and adult lone star ticks do basically the same thing, but they bring the added risk of pathogens with their bite. They are also implicated in a situation in which their bites cause a cross reaction to the proteins in red meat, causing a serious food allergy. Fun.

So what to do? For now, I try to keep myself, my dog, and my family out of the woods. The larvae activity peaks in late summer/fall, so I'll save my woods-exploring for another season. I use all the usual tick precautions if I do stray into their territory: use repellent on clothing, and employ thorough tick-checks and shower when I return. Though they are less risky from a disease standpoint, the larvae come in alarming numbers, and their tiny size makes them very difficult to detect and pick off. At least larger nymphs and adults are easier to spot if you are careful.

If you find a tick attached to you, pull it off. You are supposed to use tweezers, but take care not to squeeze too hard and pierce the tick, which is bad news. Anything in the tick's gut could get into the bite. Don't do that. Grasp it as close to the head as you can manage, and pull straight out. I use my fingers because I feel like I have better control, and I don't have to search for tweezers, but again, that's not advised. The earlier you get a tick off, the better the chance that it hasn't had time to transmit a pathogen.

Because I am who I am, I always save the ticks I find in a vial of alcohol. You could also stick them to a piece of tape. I think it's a good idea to hang on to ticks that bite you, so you can get them identified, and for possible testing later.

The CDC has a lot more official and better organized information on lone star ticks, and ticks and the diseases they transmit in general.
http://www.cdc.gov/ticks/

As always, if you find a tick (or any insect or arachnid) and get a photo, feel free to post it to my Facebook page and I'll do my best to tell you what it is

More Lone Star ticks...

Larvae

Nymphs

Adult female

Adult male

Milkweed, Dogbane, and Insects that live on them

You've probably heard of Monarch butterflies, and you may have heard of their host plant, milkweed, and the effort to conserve and support the butterflies by planting milkweed. Milkweed is technically any species in the plant genus Asclepias. It belongs to the same family (Apocynaceae) as dogbane Apocynum cannabinum. Both types of plant host a variety of insects besides monarchs. Here are some of them.

This is common milkweed Asclepias syriaca. It can be found growing in fields and in hedgerows throughout most of the US east of the rocky mountains. The 'milk' or latex contains compounds called glycosides which make them inedible to many animals. But some insect species thrive on the plant, and even sequester the toxins. Others avoid the latex by chewing holes in the leaves to drain it. Many pollinators visit the flowers for nectar. The pollen of the flower is stored in waxy sacs called pollinia. These become attached to the bodies of larger pollinators. The complex pollination system of milkweed flowers can sometimes trap pollinators not large enough to transport the sticky pollinia.

This is an early instar monarch caterpillar Danaus plexippus. These caterpillars eat milkweed exclusively, but will feed on several species.

Here is a last instar caterpillar munching on the milkweed bud. After it has eaten all it can, it will leave and wander to find a site to transform into a chrysalis, the pupal stage of butterflies.

Here is a monarch chrysalis. The caterpillar finds a suitable spot, where is affixes itself to the branch (or terrarium in this case). It hangs upside down in a J" shape until it sheds it's last larval exoskeleton, revealing this pupal stage.

After about two weeks, the monarch pupal exoskeleton becomes transparent and you can see the adult pattern.

The adult butterfly breaks the chrysalis open and pushes its way out.

The newly eclosed monarch hangs on to the chrysalis or branch and waits for its wings to dry. It pumps fluid into the wings to expand them. It also ejects a brown fluid called meconium which is the metabolic waste materials gathered during the pupal stage.

Here the wings are all expanded and the butterfly waits for them to harden.

I placed this female on some swamp milkweed Asclepias incarnata where it can nectar and prepare for the first flight!

Monarchs are just one of the many species of insects found on milkweed though they are probably the best known.

Another caterpillar that eats milkweed is the tussock moth caterpillar Euchaetes egle.

The milkweed beetle is a "long-horned beetle" of the family Cerambycidae. It's name Tetraopes tetrophthalmus means "four-eyes" because the base of the antennae insert where the normal single pair of compound eyes would be, dividing them. Like monarchs, this beetle feeds exclusively on milkweed, and benefits from the plant toxins it ingests, which make it an unpalatable food for predators. It advertises this fact with aposematic or "warning" red and black coloration.

The large milkweed bug, Oncopeltus fasciatus belongs to the family Lygaeidae, the seed bugs. Its food is the seeds of milkweed plants, so it can commonly be found on the seed pods. Like the milkweed beetle, it sequesters the toxins produced by the plant and it also has black and red coloration. Young milkweed bugs nymphs are orange.

 The small milkweed bug, Lygaeus kalmii feed on nectar and milkweed seeds. 

A small beetle feeding on a bud.

Swamp Milkweed Leaf Beetle - Labidomera clivicollis, like other milkweed insects is black and orange. It belongs to the family Chrysomelidae. The lower photo shows the larva.

A male bumble bee Bombus sp. feeding on nectar.

A male carpenter bee Xylocopa sp. feeding on nectar.

I was very excited to find this beautiful jet-black leafcutter bee, a carpenter bee mimic Megachile xylocopoides. 

Megachile xylocopoides and some ants drinking nectar

Megachile xylocopoides

A small halictid bee drinks from the outside of the flower

Spiders love the traffic to milkweed blooms. A crab spider feeds on a small bee. In the next photo a  jumping spider waits by a blossom.

Dogbane Apocynum cannabinum is also known as Indian hemp, due to its use for fiber. It is poisonous and can cause cardiac arrest if ingested.

This beautiful beetle is the dogbane beetle, Chrysochus auratus. The species name 'auratus' means golden. They feed on the dogbane leaves and can be found on the plant thoroughout the summer

The beetles mate and lay eggs on the dogbane. The larva eat the roots.

Some sort of beetle drama?