Promethea ranching
Location: South Illinois
May 16, 2012 9:02 pm
Sent you a picture of a female promethea earlier this spring. She found…
Hi Daniel,
This is a sort-of press release: I'd be grateful if you'd feature it on your site.
Thanks,
Dave
As many have noticed,…
Red Admiral population explosion
Location: St. Catharines (near Niagara Falls, Ontario)
May 3, 2012 10:13 am
Hello,
I thought you might be interested to…
8 legs Plus pinchers?
Location: SE PA, 20 miles west of Philadelphia, 15 miles north of Wilm, DE
April 29, 2012 9:34…
Make plans for your own local National Moth Week event!!!
Posted February 1, 2012
What's That Bug? will be working the the…
Cecropia and Promethea
Location: South Illinois
April 24, 2012 1:52 pm
Here is a female Promethea and a male Cecropia hanging out on my screen.
We sent you a picture of a male Promethea we found last year.
Signature: Bert
Promethea (left) and Cecropia Moths
Hi Bert,
How lucky were you to witness this great scene. Folks lucky enough to live in areas where conditions are suited to sustaining Giant Silkmoths are likely to see them on a yearly basis.
Green Spider
Location: Vail, AZ
April 23, 2012 5:28 pm
Hi,
I found this one inside a Prickly Pear cactus flower. The extra hair on the legs makes me think it’s a Grateful Dead fan, or perhaps those help with climbing.
Thank you,
Signature: Carl
Green Lynx Spider
Hi Carl,
This distinctive spider is a Green Lynx Spider, a hunting spider that does not snare insects with a web. Green Lynx Spiders often wait in blossoms for pollinating insects. The extra legs are the pedipalps and their size indicates this is a male Green Lynx Spider.
Caterpillars have eaten my entire tree!
Location: Austin, TX
April 23, 2012 4:30 pm
While working on our ranch we kept having these guys drop out of the tree on us. There are 100s of them. They have cleaned the tree of all of its leaves and left only the leaf veins.
Can you tell me anything about them?
Signature: S Ross
Tent Caterpillar Relative
Dear S Ross,
We believe your caterpillar is related to the Tent Caterpillars, but we are currently unable to access BugGuide to attempt a more specific identification. We suspect that higher than normal caterpillar populations in Texas have resulted in greater populations of Caterpillar Hunters as well, based on reports we have received recently.
Moth?
Location: Escondido, CA (North Inland San Diego)
April 22, 2012 6:11 pm
This moth was found sitting on the wall outside of our garage early this morning (4/22/12) in Escondido, Ca. It is a very large, brown moth and it has eyelash like antennas. It hasn’t moved at all today. I have researched online and cannot seem to figure out what species it is. If you can help, that would be great!
Signature: Kaylynn
Polyphemus Moth
Hi Kaylynn,
This is a male Polyphemus Moth. The feathery antennae indicate his sex since he used his antennae to sense the pheromones of the female. Polyphemus Moths are found coast to coast across North America, but west coast sightings are not as common as sighting in the eastern part of the country.
Bug Links
Website: www.Spiders.us
April 20, 2012 10:00 pm
Hi, Whatsthatbug!
I write content for www.Spiders.us (along with Eric Eaton) and I know this may sound rude of me to ask, but I was wondering how you would feel about adding www.Spiders.us to your list of “Bug Links?” If it makes any difference, we have been listing you on our identification page – http://www.spiders.us/identification/ – for a few years, so we’d be kind of helping each other out. We are just trying to spread the word a little more about our site because we lost a lot of active users when we closed our first forum, but now we’ve opened a new one.
Forgive my forwardness… and PLEASE don’t feel obligated, I only mentioned that we linked to you as a show of good faith, not to make you feel like you had to link to us in return. Please do check out the site and see what you think of it before making your choice. 
Thanks for your time!
Mandy Howe of www.Spiders.us
Signature: Mandy Howe
Hi Mandy,
We are happy to add you to our page of Bug Links.
Butterfly and Ants on Oak Gall
Location: Iowa, United States
April 21, 2012 4:53 pm
Hello,
I thought you might like this interesting picture of a painted lady butterfly on an Oak gall along with many ants. Whenever an ant left, its abdomen was a lot bigger than when it got there! You can’t see in the first picture, but in the second one you can see how some of the ant’s abdomens are full of sap (the ant on the tree branch to the right of the gall).
Signature: Michelle Lynn
Red Admiral and Ants
Hi Michelle,
Your photo is quite fascinating, but a few corrections are in order. The butterfly is in the “Lady” genus Vanessa, however it is actually the Red Admiral, Vanessa atalanta. You can compare the under side of the wings to this photo from BugGuide. Many butterflies and indeed other insects are known to feed on oozing sap. We don’t believe this is the result of a gall. We don’t know what is causing the formation in the photo, but is doesn’t appear to be an insect gall to us.
some sort of bee
Location: Johnson Prairie, Southern Oregon
April 20, 2012 11:18 am
This came inside the camper and I got it out once and then it came back again, so I took its picture. Only saw one and cannot find an ID on it.
Thank you for this great website!
Signature: Leslie
What's That Bee?: Anthophora species
Dear Leslie,
We are having difficulty identifying your bee which we suspect is a Bumble Bee. The long hairs on the legs are an interesting feature that we have not been able to match with a photo on BugGuide. We suspect this might not be a Bumble Bee after all. We are seeking assistance from Eric Eaton, but perhaps one of our readers will be able to provide a comment as to this Bee’s identity.
Eric Eaton Responds and narrows down the possibilities
Daniel:
It is going to be something related to Anthophora or Habropoda (genera), but I never saw anything like this when I lived in Oregon myself. You might try John Ascher via Bugguide.net. I’m betting this is a male specimen, too.
Eric
Thanks Eric,
We will continue to research this critter.
John Ascher Responds
Hi Daniel,
Thanks for sending this query. The bee is a male Anthophora but I’m not certain of the species. Note that Michael Orr of the USDA Bee Lab in Utah is working on this group.
Making IDs for Hymenoptera on What’s That Bug? has been on my to do list for a while, but it’s hard for me to find a free moment (next week I leave for Singapore…).
Best regards,
John
What is this bug? Is it dangerous?
Location: Katoomba, NSW, Australia
April 20, 2012 5:40 am
We’ve been finding these bugs all over outside and my little boy has been playing with them. I just need to make sure they are not dangerous since they are all over the place lately.
Signature: -Autumn and Mark
Wingless Fly: Chiromyzinae species
Dear Autumn and Mark,
In January 2007 we received a similar photo from Australia. We knew the creature was a fly, but we were uncertain if it was wingless or if the wings were somehow lost. We eventually learned it was a wingless female fly in the Soldier Fly subfamily Chiromyzinae. At that time, there was no information available on the internet. Now we located a Tree of Life web page posted in 2008 that states: “Chiromyzinae is an unusual group of soldier flies as the larvae are predominantly phytophagous, with many species feeding on the roots of grasses (James 1981; Oosterbroek 1998).” These wingless Soldier Flies are harmless.
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