Subject: Huge butterfly
Location: Ruston, LA
May 20, 2013 7:35 am
What kind of butterfly is this? It was photographed in Ruston, LA (near Monroe), on 5/20/2013, around 9 a.m.
Signature: John
Cecropia Moth
Hi John,
This is a Cecropia Moth, not a butterfly.
Subject: Southern Oregon Bug
Location: Southern Oregon
May 20, 2013 8:58 pm
Hi,
We found this bug while playing in Lost Creek. It acts like it wants to sting with its tail and bite. Should we avoid this creek and bug? Thanks in advance..
Signature: Jerrod
Dragonfly Naiad
Dear Jerrod,
This is the aquatic larva of a Dragonfly, known, like other aquatic larvae of flying insects, as a Naiad. It will not sting and it will most likely not bite. I has a highly specialized hinged mouth that expands and shoots out to snare prey while the naiad waits well camoflauged among the plants and aquatic debris. Each species of Dragonfly, and there are many, has a distinctive looking Naiad, but alas we do not have the necessary skills to quickly identify your Naiad to the species level.
Subject: Truly awful spider
Location: Eastern PA
May 20, 2013 5:47 pm
This was spotted on a warm morning in May in Pennsylvania, in a flat space between a gate and the post it goes up against. It was identified (I think incorrectly) at brown recluse spider. Any idea what this guy is?
Signature: Joe
Nursery Web Spider: Pisaurina mira
Joe,
You should be ashamed of yourself calling this Nursery Web Spider “Truly awful.” Nursery Web Spiders, which include Fishing Spiders, are along with Wolf Spiders among the best mothers in the arachnid world. The female Nursery Web Spider carries her eggs in her chelicerae or jaws and eventually finds a safe place when the eggs are getting ready to hatch. The safe place is often in a low tree or shrub and she spins a nursery web which she continues to guard. We believe your Nursery Web Spider is Pisaurina mira.
P.S. Here is a link to the Brown Recluse.
Nursery Web Spider
Nursery Web Spider carrying Egg Sac
Nursery Web Spider from Scotland guarding her Nursery Web
Nursery Web Spider
Subject: Ants
Location: Pittsburgh PA
May 20, 2013 7:26 am
I found these ants outside my back door on the bricks. This colony poped up over night.
Signature: Joe
Wheel Bug Hatchlings
Dear Joe,
We corrected what we perceived to be an overwhelming cyan cast to your photo and it accentuated the red in the abdomens of these newly hatched Wheel Bugs. You can still see their empty egg mass in the lower left quadrant. We will be flying into Pittsburgh in two weeks.
Wheel Bug Hatchlings with empty Egg Mass
Subject: A Tawny Emperor, I think
Location: San Antonio, TX
May 20, 2013 7:07 pm
Hi, guys, had a visitor to my patio garden today, and I was able to get a couple of good shots. I think it’s a Tawny Emperor, Asterocampa clyton. But I can’t tell if it’s a Louisa Tawny or a Texas Tawny. I’m leaning toward the Texas Tawny because the colors were pretty subdued. On the other hand, it was pretty sizable, an inch and a half at least. Any way, you haven’t posted a photo of a Tawny in a couple of years, so I thought I’d submit her. Thanks for all you do!!
Signature: Melvis & Laugh
Tawny Emperor
Dear Melvis & Laugh,
Here at What’s That Bug? we tend to be generalists more the specificists, so we are not certain that we can correctly identify your Emperor to the species level. We will leave that for the Lepidopterists among our readership. We did consider your comment that the colors were pretty subdued” so we attempted to correct the situation. The wall appeared green to us so we neutralized it which added some warmth to the Emperor’s wings. We do believe it resembles this particular Tawny Emperor on BugGuide.
Think you’re right, Daniel. Missed that one. Thanks for taking the time to look! Hope we have more to send you soon!
Subject: Can you tell me
Location: PEI Canada
May 20, 2013 5:33 am
we found this bug on Haskaps we grow and would like to know what it is
Signature: Tommy
Click Beetle
Dear Tommy,
This is a Metallic Borer Beetle or Jewel Beetle in the family Buprestidae. We need to research the species and we may run out of time this morning. Our initial search did not provide a species ID so we will try to contact Eric Eaton and perhaps one of our readers will submit a comment today.
Correction courtesy of Eric Eaton and Mardikavana (via comment)
Daniel:
That is because it is not a buprestid 
This is a click beetle, family Elateridae (note acute hind angles on the thorax), specifically this one:
http://bugguide.net/node/view/456972
Neat find, great image!
Eric
Subject: Spear bearer
Location: Costa Rica
May 19, 2013 2:36 pm
We saw different of these insects. Are these females of Cophiphora?
Signature: fred from belgium
Conehead Katydid
Hi Fred,
We will contact Piotr Naskrecki to get assistance with this female Katydid from Costa Rica. The “cone” on the head does seem to be consistant with Cophiphora photos online, including these on National Geographic Stock and on FlickR.
Conehead Katydid
Piotr Naskrecki discovers new species of Katydid in Costa Rica: Copiphora hastata
Hi Daniel,
This is actually one of the species that I discovered and described, Copiphora hastata. These wonderful animals use their long ovipositor to lay eggs among dead leaf fronds at the base of palm trees.
Cheers,
Piotr
Subject: Nest
Location: Southwestern Pennsylvania 18mi north of Pittsburgh
May 19, 2013 10:17 pm
Today I photographed and interesting cocoon like nest, with a bunch of something(maybe insects) inside.
I’ve never seen a nest like this in the trees. It may, for all I know, it may be a small, tent caterpillar’s nest.
But the ones I’ve always seen are much larger.
I didn’t dig into the nest to find out ’cause I didn’t want to intrude on the bugs. Any Ideas?
Signature: Rich
Nest might belong to Tent Caterpillars
Dear Rich,
We agree with you that this might be the newly started nest of a recently hatched colony of Eastern Tent Caterpillars. We will try to get a second opinion from Eric Eaton. More information on the Eastern Tent Caterpillar can be found on BugGuide. As an aside, we will be flying into Pittsburgh in a few weeks to visit family.
Possibly Tent Caterpillar Nest
Eric Eaton provides another possibility
Daniel:
Tough call. I’m thinking Fall Webworm, as they tend to make webs on the outer reaches of branches, whereas tent caterpillars build webs in the crotches of branches, often several “tents” to one tree, or in a series of trees close to each other. Fall Webworm tends to have more isolated colonies.
Eric
Thank you so much for the return email.
Have a good trip and a great stay at, “Da Burgh”.
Thank you both again for the rapid response and ID.
Isn’t it a bit early for webber caterpillars to appear?
Richard Rich
Once we received Eric’s response, we pondered the time of year. Tent Caterpillars already have established nests in the spring and Fall Webworms are most noticeable later in the season, but they do begin hatching earlier. Your “nest” might be the beginning of what will become a substantial “web” later this year.
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