More Insects of 2019

I’m continuing my little series on insects I photographed this year. Although in previous posts I grouped them by order, in this post, it’s kind of a grab-bag of miscellaneous types of insects.

Several teeny-tiny baby mantids were hanging around the backyard on May 30. I'm pretty sure these were the ubiquitous, nonnative Chinese mantises. They must have just hatched, which explains why they were still so near each other. Ravenous little buggers, they have to disperse quickly, or they’ll try to prey on each other. When people say it’s a “dog-eat-dog world,” they really mean it’s a “mantis-eat-mantis world.”

On June 6, a mayfly subimago (or “dun,” if you’re into flyfishing) was resting on our screen door. Mayflies are the only insects that molt once more after gaining wings. You can tell it’s a subimago (subadult) because its wings are whitish or cloudy looking.

I was on a roll in June! Here’s a crane fly that was resting on our aluminum front storm doors. See those weird little dealy-bobbers extending out from the body behind where the wings are attached? Those are called halteres, and they are a feature of true flies. True flies have only one pair of wings, right? Well, the second pair was modified into these halteres. Apparently, they function like little gyroscopes and help the fly to navigate. This would be especially useful if you’re, say, a house fly, zipping around at a million miles per hour.

You might also notice a little point at the abdomen tip. Fear not—this is only an ovipositor, not a stinger. This harmless, harmless, harmless female crane fly uses it as an egg depositor. Adult crane flies don’t have mouthparts that function, so they can’t bite.

In late June, I saw a handful of scenes like these on the undersides of some of the leaves on our black oak tree. Tiny blue-black spheres, many with holes in them, with several itty-bitty wasps scampering around nearby. This one had me confused, and I’m still not sure what’s going on. But here’s what I think:

The spheres are eggs from some kind of insect species. Maybe a hemipteran? And the “flies” are little parasitic wasps, Telenomus-somethings, perhaps the parents guarding the parasitized eggs, or (I think more likely) perhaps they are newly hatched adult Telenomus fresh from emerging from the eggs of their host species. They had long, fast-moving antennae—something I associate with parasitic insects, since they’re constantly trying to find suitable hosts as the clock is ticking on their own lifespans.

Above is another insect we saw at the end of June, at La Plata. It’s a moth fly, probably Clogmia albipunctata. It’s indeed an actual fly, a true fly, in the same order as houseflies, mosquitoes, horse flies, crane flies, and so on. But this nifty little fuzzy fly has scales on its wings, which makes it look a lot like a moth. So, “moth fly.” They are, alas, associated with kinda skanky wet areas, since their wormlike larvae are famous for growing up in dirty sink traps and other wet places with lots of decaying organic material. This is why you often see moth flies hanging around near sinks and bathtubs. But you have to admire these furry little fuzz muffins of flight.

Finally, a couple of mantises. These are representatives of Missouri’s two most common species. The one on top is native, the Carolina mantis, and the one below it is the Chinese mantis, a nonnative/exotic/introduced species (technically, it’s invasive, though hey, it’s had about a century of concerted, purposeful introduction as a so-called agricultural pest-control species, so it’s pretty late to be trying to put this genie back in the bottle).