Stone Hill Ozark Hellbender Red: A Great Wine for a Greater Cause

Hey, I want to remind you to pick up a few bottles of Ozark Hellbender next time you’re out buying wine.

Now if you’re going, “whatever is she talking about?” then you need to read on, because this is really cool.

In 2018, Hermann, Missouri’s own Stone Hill Winery—the historic 1847 winery that, with its restoration in the 1960s, almost single-handedly started the renaissance of Missouri’s wine industry—started producing a dry red blend they call Ozark Hellbender.

Why the weird name? A portion of the profits go to help fund the research and restoration efforts of several conservation organizations to restore the Ozark hellbender, an endangered native Missouri aquatic salamander.

Actually, in the past year, both of Missouri’s subspecies of hellbenders have been declared federally endangered, so restoration efforts are more critical ever.

Here are some links to learn more about hellbenders, their conservation status, and the Saint Louis Zoo’s captive breeding and restocking efforts.

In a nutshell—as if you could fit one into such a small place—hellbenders are huge, slimy, brown salamanders with small eyes and loose skin. They spend most of their time hiding under big flat rocks in cool, fast-flowing Ozark streams. Adults can be 11 to 20 inches long, making them the largest salamander in North America (three relatives in the giant salamander group are larger and live in East Asia; all of them range from threatened to possibly extinct in the wild). Missouri is the only state to hold both subspecies of North American hellbenders.

The reasons for their decline are numerous and are compounded by the fact that females usually don’t breed until they’re about seven or eight years of age. And even then, they may only breed every two or three years. They typically live for three decades in nature, but that’s assuming their streams remain habitable for them, and even then, their small, vulnerable offspring need to have a decent shot at surviving to breeding age. One hellbender was documented as living to age fifty-five—no wonder they don’t breed until they’re seven or eight; they’re kinda like us.

And so there’s a captive breeding and restocking program, which, combined with efforts to improve and protect their natives streams, might bring them back to the point where their populations are stable.

A personal reverie: MU’s legendary zoology professor Dean Metter used to keep the university’s herpetology collection (enclosures with live snakes, lizards, and such) in a hallway on the second floor of Stewart Hall. My dad, with the rest of the geography department, had their offices in the basement of that building. Often, when we were there to pick up Dad after work and there was a delay of some kind, I’d go upstairs and visit Doc Metter’s herps.

As a pigtailed Campfire Girl, and before, as a tagalong little sister with my brother’s Cub Scout den, we had a guided tour of the collection by Doc Metter himself. I’ll never forget him gently removing a speckled kingsnake from its cage and letting me hold it.

Along one, rather dark wall was a big, long, galvanized tub about waist-high. It must have had a chiller on it, in addition to the circulation/filtration. It was always humming and moving the water around. And there, in the tub, was a fourteen- or sixteen-inch-long hellbender. It never seemed to move, except to kind of waver a little with the current; it just rested in there like a shadow. It was there forever, it seemed. Knowing what I know now, it’s sad to think of that creature living in a galvanized tub in a lonely university hallway, educating those of us too young or citified to discover hellbenders on our own.

Nature had designed it for a life creeping around on Ozark stream bottoms, exploring amid boulders and bunches of watercress, crawling under large flat rocks, hunting crayfishes. Of living as one with the quick freshness, in the higher oxygen content of springfed sections of the river, and the richness and quietude of the pools.

. . . Anyway, there’s something primordial and shadowy about hellbenders; something uncanny and otherworldly. Very fascinating. It’s heartbreaking that something so . . . so . . . seemingly eternal could become extinct, wiped from existence forever.

So, this wine helps raise funds to help the hellbenders.

But it does a few other things, too.

It shows the maturation of Missouri’s wine industry, when one of its leaders is able to step well beyond the tried-and-true, by now rather formulaic marketing angles of “quaint local winery,” “historic ethnic German winery,” and “have your wedding receptions here, folks!”

I really like how Stone Hill, with this project, is connecting with Missouri's natural history and showing a dedication to its future. The “German heritage” angle is an obvious focus and starting point for most Missouri wineries, but this is showing Stone Hill's maturity as an institution.

Also, German immigrants brought a tremendous love of nature with them to the New World. While the English-derived Americans liked trees, grass, and gardens when they were trimmed, mowed, or planted in rows, the Germans held romantic feelings about wild places, where plants and animals grow free and take the forms and patterns innate to them. Yes, many German immigrants were (or became) master horticulturalists, but alongside their love of cultivation, they held a deep love of untamed nature. So this project, which celebrates an aspect of wild Missouri that many Missourians would feel squeamish about, continues that Germanic love of wilderness.

When I communicated this idea recently on Stone Hill’s Facebook page, I got this nice reply from someone at the company: “Thanks for the kind words! We are really glad we can play a small part in continuing that tradition and supporting this special Missouri species! As farmers, it is so important to keep our natural world healthy for the future.” . . . To which I say, Right On!

I don’t think they’ll mind me flat-out copying their descriptive text for the 2018 Ozark Hellbender wine:

BLEND INFORMATION: Since the Ozark Hellbender spends most of its life secretively hiding under rocks in the bottom of Ozark streams we are keeping our blend a secret as well. But we’ll give you some hints! All variety of grapes used are grown in the Ozark Mountain AVA. Some grapes aged for one year in neutral oak barrels to bring out complexity, softness and drinkability. Then just before bottling, like any good family recipe, we add the final variety which is held secret only for our winemakers to know.

TECHNICAL INFORMATION: Alcohol - 13%; Residual Sugar - 1.5%

TASTING INFORMATION: A smooth red blend with aromas of sweet cherry, blueberry and a touch of toasted oak. Creating a soft, complex and very drinkable wine, made from grapes all grown in the Ozark Mountain AVA. *A portion of the proceeds from every bottle of Ozark Hellbender wine sold is donated to the Saint Louis Zoo and hellbender conservation. (750ml)

AWARDS:

Bronze - 2019 Missouri Wine Competition

Yes, it's an award-winning wine! In fact, just recently, the 2019 Ozark Hellbender won "Best of Class Semi-Dry Red," and the 2018 Ozark Hellbender received a gold medal, at the 2021 Missouri Wine Competition. Way to go, Stone Hill!

Seriously, what are the grapes, you wonder: Here’s what they told me (in response to my Facebook question, subtly hinting if Merlot was one of the ingredients): “No Merlot in it! It is a blend of three grapes: Norton, Chambourcin, and #3 is a secret. [Finger-to-lips "shh!" emoji.] All three are grown on our own vineyards though.”

Norton is the strongest part of the blend. Have you ever tasted Norton wine? It’s distinctive. It’s North America’s native, sophisticated dry red grape variety. It’s Missouri’s premier wine grape. It has a fascinating history; if you want to read more, I heartily suggest Todd Kliman, The Wild Vine: A Forgotten Grape and the Untold Story of American Wine.

Norton isn’t for everybody. It has a distinctive flavor. It’s like this: If you’re hankering for oranges, a grapefruit will taste just wrong; it’s so close, it seems almost an insult to oranges; so close, well—just give me an apple. But the fun of wines is their variety. Thank goodness wines aren’t all the same! There are many really good wines—you simply won’t like all of the types. In his insightful essay “Knowing Nothing about Wine,” John Thorne described it like this: “Needless to say, wines with the same rating don’t taste equally good (Malbec, for instance, is a varietal that tastes rather like ink; a highly rated one tastes like delicious ink).”

But Thorne goes on to talk about how really good wines, highly rated ones—even if you don’t end up liking the variety—will still be worth trying, because you can usually see why some people really like them. They offer food for thought. They’re interesting. I suggest trying Norton with this in mind.

I heard somewhere that Ozark Hellbender red became the top-selling red at Stone Hill Winery in Hermann when it was released (apparently, it still is). That’s pretty remarkable, because the average Missourian typically prefers sweet wine. That Hellbender Red is selling so well could mean that Missourians have suddenly become conscientious consumers, choosing products that give back to good causes . . . or it could mean that Missourians have suddenly developed more cultivated palates . . . or it could mean that Ozark Hellbender red is a deviously clever blend that offers enough berry flavor to satisfy the average palate but enough complexity to make it good for people who prefer dry reds. And serving it chilled makes it smoother for red-wine newbies. Indeed, this blend can be kind of a “gateway drug” for Norton, and even “dry red” appreciation. Or it could be a combination of all three.

I think lot of people would like to drink dry red wines because of their purported health benefits and because, as you sit among your friends, a glass of deep red wine simply looks groovier than white—but many can’t make the leap in terms of flavor. I can see someone trying a Norton varietal and thinking, “I can’t enjoy this.” But after a few weeks enjoying Ozark Hellbender red here and there, you could easily acquire an appreciation for Norton: “Oh, this is that unique flavor I’ve come to enjoy in my Ozark Hellbender red, only more of it.” . . . And if this is what Hellbender red achieves for Stone Hill, then bully for them! Smart-smart-smart-smart-smart.

I hope you will go out and try a bottle of Ozark Hellbender red—for the tasting experience . . . and to help the hellbenders.

Noninsects of 2019

If you don’t like arthropods (insects and spiders and such), get ready to rejoice, because once this post is done, I’ll turn to other subjects. Meanwhile, this is the one that’ll give you the heebie-jeebies for sure. After several posts highlighting the various insects I photographed in 2019, I’m doing a post on non-insect arthropods.

As you might remember, one of the key identifying features of insects is their number of legs: six. So if you see something that looks like an insect and it doesn’t have six legs, then it’s probably not an insect. A millipede is a prime example, because it has not just six legs, but a million.

Just kidding. It’s not really a million legs; it’s usually more like 80 to 100 or so. Interesting fact: they have two pairs of legs for each body segment, not counting the head and tail (which have no legs), and the first three body segments (which have only one pair of legs per segment). As the millipede grows and molts, it adds new body segments. These humble arthropods eat humble fare: lichens, maybe, and decaying vegetation. At least some types of millipedes (usually the ones with bright warning colors) can secrete toxic substances (including cyanide) if they feel threatened. But unless you’re planning on eating one (not recommended), why would anyone threaten a millipede?

Anyway, we found this cute little millipede walking around on our front porch steps in the late afternoon sunshine on March 13; it was a fairly warm evening. It was only about 1¼ inches long. The warming temperatures must have roused it out of its winter torpor.

The next two are spiders. The first is an oddball called a featherlegged orbweaver.

We get these around our yard each year, and I took this photo on June 5. Why do I call it an oddball? Well, first, it just looks odd. The forelegs are typically held straight out in front of the body, though sometimes they hold their forelegs foreword in a Y shape. Either way, they look rather peculiar.

By the way, in the photo above, she is facing downward, her forelegs stretched out straight in front of her, and above her abdomen is one of her egg cases, which is shaped something like a whelk shell. These spiders create a line of these spindle-shaped egg cases, which look a lot like their abdomens, then pose along the line, blending in.

But there’s more. Although they’re an orbweaver (a weaver of orb-shaped webs), they’re not true orbweavers (a member of the Araneidae or typical orbweavers, the family of spiders that build orb webs). Featherlegged orbweavers instead belong to a family of spiders called cribellates, or cribillate orbweavers (Uloboridae), because they possess an unusual sieve-like (perforated) plate called a cribellum, which is positioned at the place where silk exits the spider’s body. This cribellum causes the silk to become hackled—to have woolly fuzzy extensions along its length, instead of being a smooth-sided silky strand. Because the silk is so cottony, it easily snags the legs and other pointy, jagged body parts of insects. They stick to it the way rough dry fingertips snag on polyester fabric.

In fact, this cribellate silk is so good at snagging insects, it replaces the sticky goo that other spiders have on their webs. Also, cribellate spiders have such success with their hackled threads that they do not even have venom; they don’t need it. Not having any venom is a true oddity for a spider. Instead of injecting venom into the prey, they regurgitate digestive juices onto the bound prey, then lap up the liquefying meaty juices. It’s sort of how flies burp up digestive fluids onto their foods, then sop up the goodies.

The other spider I photographed (above) was a longjawed orbweaver, genus Tetragnatha, in family Tetragnathidae. These are also called “stretch spiders,” for the way they rest. Holding the two pairs of forelegs straight forward, and the two pairs of hind legs straight backward, they—with their elongated, narrow bodies—look like little twigs. The “longjawed” part of their name refers to their huge chelicerae. Best not to imagine yourself as a mayfly when you contemplate the hunting of longjawed orbweavers.

They are fascinating spiders that are associated with boat docks and the vegetation around lakes and streams. This longjawed orbweaver built its web among the big tropical plants we keep along the retaining wall of our driveway.

Finally, the other noninsects I photographed were these water springtails (above). Long considered insects, because they have six legs, springtails as a group are now classified separately from insects. They may have six legs, but they aren’t related to insects. I photographed these floating on a pond on a relatively warm day at MDC headquarters, March 23.

Springtails are fascinating! There are all kinds of interesting facts about them, including why they are not considered insects. Here’s another cool fact: water springtails (this species), for instance, can see polarized light—an adaptation for living near water! Do look at my writeup on water springtails on the MDC field guide.

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).

The True Bugs of 2019

Continuing my little series sharing some of the insects I photographed this year, grouping them by order (or whatever, as the case may be). In this case, yeah, order: Hemiptera, the true bugs.

First, a fascinating species that I don’t think we have here in Missouri: the woolly alder aphid; Prociphilus tessellatus. I saw these at a reclaimed wetlands in Virginia on June 12. There are a ton of videos about these weird aphids. I shared links to four of these videos in the preceding sentence. If you click on any or all of them, you’ll enjoy. Incredibly interesting behavior. In my one photo, note the attending ant.

Also, that same day in Virginia, at the same community wetlands, I found a colony of dogwood spittlebugs (Clastoptera proteus) drinking and hopping around on a bunch of native viburnums (I’m pretty sure that’s what those shrubs were). These were the adult spittlebugs, so they were no longer living in a mass of spittle. Instead, they were having a grand time drinking sap and hopping around in the sunshine on the leaves of an entire colony of acceptable food plants. There were, of course, plenty of birds hanging around, too, which no doubt abruptly ended the fun for many, many of these spittlebugs. Because this, my friends, is what bird food looks like.

About a month later, we noticed several colorful leafhoppers on our baby sapodilla tree. (We grew our little tropical sapodilla from a seed within a fruit we bought at Robert Is Here!)

One of the most memorable things I read about leafhoppers this year was someone likened them to speedboats. And yes, they do look like speedboats! Sleek and slender, with spiffy colors and markings—wow! The only thing is, you have to look carefully at them to appreciate them, because they’re tiny.

Did you know that leafhoppers cover themselves with wax? Sometimes you can see a little white oval spot on the second half of their bodies, which is kind of a reservoir of waxy-stuff. They use their little comblike serrations on their legs to wipe the waxy stuff over their bodies. The wax helps to repel water, and maybe even more importantly, it helps repel the sticky excretions that come out of their friends, relatives, and neighbors after they feed so heavily on sweet plant sap.

This particular miniature speedboat is Graphocephala versuta. You could call it the “cunning sharpshooter,” because versutus is Latin for “cunning” and Graphocephala members are in a leafhopper subfamily called sharpshooters.

One of my projects this year was adding to the true bugs on MDC’s online field guide. You can see them all here.

The Beetles of 2019

Simply sharing some more of the insects I photographed this year, grouping them by order (or whatever, as the case may be). In this case, order: Coleoptera, the beetles.

I found this elm borer (Saperda tridentata) resting on our front door the morning of May 30. It had no doubt been attracted to our porch light during the previous evening. This is one of the insects that got me in the habit of inspecting the wall and door under the porch light in the mornings!



This species is one of the many longhorn beetles (that’s a family), and it’s in a subfamily called the “flat-faced longhorns.” I think it’s spiffy looking. It lays eggs in cracks of the bark of stressed elm trees, and the larvae feed under the bark, creating squiggly galleries as they go. It can transmit the fungus that causes Dutch elm disease, but it’s not the main vector. Instead, three species of elm bark beetles are the primary vectors; they’re in the weevil family of beetles. We do have some elms in our neighborhood, but since the venerable old American elm that used to stand in front of my mom’s ancestral home was cut down (for no good reason), all that’s left are Siberian elms (“piss elms”) that are past their prime, so pfft, who cares, let the beetles have them, eh?

Seeing that nifty-looking elm borer inspired me to work outside on the patio that morning, keeping my eyes open, and this plain little ol’ click beetle came and visited me. Click beetles are in family Elateridae; I think this one is some kind of Melanotus species, but good lord there are a lot that all look alike!

Click beetles are the ones that, when harassed or worried, play dead. They lay on their backs, legs tucked in, then suddenly: Click! In a split second, they bend their abdomen/thorax segments, making an audible clicking sound, and the sudden click flips them away—somewhere, anywhere away—from the perceived danger.


Click beetle playing dead, just like an opossum, huh?

Then there was the very, very cool Hercules beetle I saw in Virginia on June 10.



We were walking along a strip mall and saw a few women making OHMYGOD gestures; this scarab beetle is very large, and the antlerlike extensions of the exoskeleton make them look formidable. When I picked it up (yeah, I picked it up, thinking “Ah, poor beetle, what are you doing in this lame strip mall place? You need to be in the woods!”), I held it by its sides, and it pressed hard against my fingers with its legs. Very, very strong beetle. What an impressive insect. I set it free in by bro’s backyard, which has a little wooded area near it.

Interesting (and sad) fact about the eastern Hercules beetle: they are declining and may soon be declared threatened: they need certain types of large hardwood trees to complete their life cycle, and ash trees are very important. Now that ash trees throughout North America are threatened by the emerald ash borer, the amazing, fantastic, proud, humble eastern Hercules beetle may also disappear from our continent.

On June 5, I photographed a flea beetle and a darkling beetle in our yard near our house.

The flea beetle was pretty attractive; I think it is species Disonycha procera. This is one of the many colorful and attractive leaf beetles.



The darkling beetle (below) (a Tenebrionid--again, that’s a family of beetles) was one of a bazillion that crawled out of the landscaping mulch along the front of our house one morning when I watered it really well. They all walked up the side of our white-painted house, so they were especially noticeable. They have such dark bodies; as if they were made out of black rubber. There are lots of species of darkling beetles that look more or less the same; I think this is species Alaetrinus minimus.



Then there was a longhorned beetle on our back porch screen on June 20:



This (above) is Acanthoderes quadrigibba, whose name (I figured out) can be translated as the four-humped flat-faced longhorn. There is no common name, even though these beetles aren’t especially uncommon. The larvae feed on rotten wood, so they’re not considered pests.



The dogbane beetle (above) has to be of one of North America’s most beautiful beetles! Another member of the leaf beetle group. We saw this handsome insect resting on a window of the Amtrak station at La Plata, the way we went there to watch trains. See what happens? You embark on your day thinking you’re going to see A, B, and C, and instead (or in addition) you get M, N, and O.

The bonus beetle doesn’t look much like a beetle at all! It looks more like a lizard:



But let’s not forget that most of a beetle’s life is spent looking like a grub, or . . . a teeny tiny lizard. So this is an immature multicolored Asian lady beetle. These are the ladybugs that crawl into little cracks and get into your home in autumn, then buzz around your light fixtures for weeks afterward, and leave squiggly lines of poop on your walls and curtains. Yes, they are from Asia. Yes, they are a nuisance. Many people consider them invasive, but I think it’s still legal to import them and set them loose supposedly to fight against crop pests.

. . . Um, right.

More arthropod pictures soon!

The Moths of 2019

Going through my pictures from La Plata, I fell in love again with an insect we saw there, a dogbane beetle. It was resting on a shaded, north-facing window, but it was shining beautifully in rich rainbow colors. And I realized, “Hey, I’ve met a lot of new insects this year.” Maybe you’d like to meet them too?

Although I’ve taken loads of “bug pictures” this year (I'm still taking plenty more), I’m only going to do the highlights. But because there are so many, I’ll present them in five separate posts: moths, beetles, true bugs, and a collection of flies, mantids, and others as a sort of “miscellaneous insects” category. I’ll finish with spiders and other noninsects. Ready? Let’s go!





This here is a boxwood leaftier (Galasa nigrinodis)—a type of pyralid moth—that was perched on the bathroom wall one morning in mid-April. It seemed very early in the year to be seeing a moth; Bugguide says they usually fly June through September. I’m pretty sure it must’ve come indoors as a pupa on a potted plant we brought inside for the winter. We have a box bush in the backyard, which must have provided its food last year before it pupated accidentally in some plant we ended up bringing inside. Isn’t it fascinating how they stand, like they’re doing a pushup? I was impressed by the beauty of its maroon and orange iridescence.

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The next two are geometrid moths—the name means “earth measurer” and it refers to the caterpillars, which most people would call “inchworms.” As adults, they’re distinctive moths, typically posing with wings open and flattened out to the sides. The colors and patterns on fore wings and hind wings usually run seamlessly onto one another. If you’re thinking of learning more about moths, geometrids are a good place to start—because many of them are so pretty.



The first day of June, this geometrid, called the bent-line carpet (Costaconvexa centrostrigaria), was perched on our front doorsteps. Wow! It pays to look closely at insects, doesn’t it! It’s called a “carpet,” apparently, because the ornate patterns make it look like an oriental rug. As a caterpillar, this moth eats various species of knotweeds and smartweeds. I predict this species will be extra common in our area, given the flooding this year—we have a bumper crop of smartweeds locally, about everywhere the floodwaters had been a few months ago.



A few nights later (June 3), a juniper-twig geometer (Patalene olyzonaria) came to our front porch light. As the name suggests, the caterpillars of this species eat juniper foliage. The caterpillar, true to the typical geometrid pattern, looks JUST like a juniper twig—tan, with a series of little X markings—and when it stiffens and stands still at an angle to the twig it’s resting on, you’d have little luck seeing it. I truly admire how the adult moth looks like a dead leaf, right down to the kind of wavy texture to the wings. I'm grateful this insect let me photograph it.

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I know you’ve seen plume moths before—probably on a screen window or the side of your house in the morning. You’ve probably wondered what they are. They always hold their wings folded tight and out to the side, so they look like a T. It’s easy to recognize them as plume moths (family), but narrowing them to species is much more tricky.

I’m confident that this species is the morning-glory plume moth (Emmelina monodactyla). First, it’s a common and widespread plume moth species. Second, its caterpillars eat plants in the morning glory family, including field bindweed, a plant we struggle with in (so far, only in) one sector of our yard. Also, it superficially matches the pictures in Bugguide. (Bugguide, my guide!)

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On August 3, we enjoyed a few hours hanging out at Hermann’s Stone Hill Winery. We were getting ready to leave, and we saw this moth flying around; it finally lit in an oak tree near the parking lot. It’s not a great picture, because I was holding the camera way up above my head and zooming . . . and hoping for something decent. This is an imperial moth (Eacles imperialis), one of the lovely, majestic giant silkworm (or royal) moths. Others in the same group are luna moths, Polyphemus and cecropia moths, royal walnut moth, rosy maple moth, etc. Big, furry, gorgeous animals.

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Working on field guide entries about moths and insects recently has taught me a lot about creatures almost no one would give a second thought to. And guess what: learning just a little about them makes them incredibly fascinating. This species is in the crambid snout moth family (used to be grouped with the pyralids, like the boxwood leaftier above). Both have mouthparts that tend to be pointed forward, making it look like they have snouts.

Most crambids are tiny and not colorful. Many curl their wings around the body, so they look like little sticks. Sod webworms are a classic example. Even though they’re not colorful, you still have to look at wing patterns to identify them. This species, the elegant grass-veneer (Microcrambus elegans) has a pattern that looks like a frowny Halloween mask! So it’s rather easy to ID, even from a distance. This moth has has a wingspan of only about ½ inch. The larvae feed on grasses. You almost certainly have some of these trapped in your lamp covers, inside or out. (One of my insect superheroes, Eric Eaton, addressed indoor bug safaris in a recent wintertime blog post. I love it!!!!)

Hashtag "I love insects." Hashtag "I wish other people could see how beautiful and interesting they are."

Next, I'll share some nifty beetles!

The Eclipse of 2017

One of the big themes this summer has been the eclipse, and preparations for our Michigan cousins to visit. The whole thing was kind of like New Year’s: All the preparation and anticipation; then the compression of time the closer we got to the event (the family visit and logistics) and finally the eclipse itself, which seemed to last about ten seconds, and then it was over—we were spewed out the other side of the event and into the vastness of the future, the rest of our lives, all the stuff we weren’t thinking about as we were focusing on the point of time that was the boundary.

I used the event of my brother’s and cousins’ visit as a catalyst for doing a great deal of straightening, cleaning, and fixing up of our place. It hasn’t looked this good in a long time. It’s still not a showplace, but it’s much, much improved. And the progress we’ve made on the house, I think, will motivate us to do more—to continue the trend. “An object in motion . . .”

I have to admit that the eclipse itself underwhelmed me somewhat—Annie Dillard’s masterful essay “Total Eclipse” had me psyched and ready for a spiritually, existentially, chronologically, anthropologically (etc., etc.) moving experience. But the silence of it, the gradual movement into darkness was more subtle than I’d expected. It looked a lot like an approaching thunderstorm, which is normal enough around here, especially with a line of puffy cumulous, as there was, along the northern horizon. It just looked like a thunderstorm on the way. Or passing us by on the north.

Sue and I opted to view the eclipse by ourselves, while the rest of the family viewed it from near my parents’ home in Columbia (in the parking lot of a Baptist church, where a nearby lawn-mowing man didn’t ever stop mowing the lawn to view the eclipse). Sue and I didn’t want to spend our precious few minutes of totality in a parking lot. We invited the others to join us at our spot, but none of them felt confident there wouldn’t be horrible traffic between Columbia and our soybean field—and who wants to see an eclipse from a traffic jam?

I felt strongly that because it’s a natural event, I wanted to be in nature. I didn’t want to be with the hordes at the state capitol, or the crowds at Columbia’s official viewing party. Ugh! Later, we watched the NASA broadcast that had shown the Jeff City capitol area, and they actually had people blowing AIR HORNS to signal the beginning and end of totality. Godawful ~~~AIR HORNS!~~~ I’m soooooooo glad I wasn’t there.

Weeks before the eclipse, Sue and I had scouted out a little “numbered” county road (479) just southwest of the tiny town of Mokane. It was almost right on the center line of totality. This little road is a straight line between MO 94 and a Conservation Department access point (the Mokane Access) on the Missouri River. It’s in the broad, flat river bottoms, with wide-open sky, and except for a strip of forested land along the river, soybean fields all around.

On the morning of August 21, 2017, the great eclipse-viewing day, we packed our stuff into Sue’s truck: lawn chairs, our patio umbrella, and an ice chest full of beverages and comestibles. And we set out for our spot. We expected to see a lot of crazy traffic, but that wasn’t ever the case, before or after.

We got there super early, which was fine, because we spent time just enjoying the anticipation and taking pictures of insects and things. Of course! Like this peacock fly and straight-lanced meadow katydid.

We were a little worried about a pretty persistent layer of gauzy clouds that would seem to be in the wrong part of the sky during totality, but those clouds pretty much cleared up just in time, and what was left of them created cool, moody atmospheric effects all around the sky. (St. Joseph, to our northwest, was screwed, however, with thick clouds.)

The silvery light before totality was pretty interesting, and it might be what I will remember the most. Since we were parked on a (limestone) gravel road through soybean fields, the contrasty lighting was especially pronounced, since the shadows cast by the broad leaflets of soybeans already look kind of sharp, and the plants nearby were coated with white dust from the gravel road.

We got a good view of the sunset/twilight effect on the horizon, with yellow, salmon, pink hues all around us. It kept getting more and more interesting! We kept saying: Wow . . . look at that!

From a line of trees off to the south, close to the river, a colony of scissors-grinder cicadas, which usually only chorus in the evening, sang when it got dark: wheee-ooo, wheee-ooo, wheee-oooooo . . .

Using solar sunglasses, we didn’t see the diamond-ring effect or Bailey’s beads before totality; the last edge of the sun just seemed to “wink out” in the glasses—when we removed the glasses, all that could be seen was just the darkness of the moon and the corona. . . . And a really interestingly blue sky, a color that doesn’t show up in any of the photos people took.

Instead of looking like something . . . dynamic, or tremendous, the eclipsed sun mainly just looked weird, like a new kind of star, a black moon, or a small cloud, or a balloon. A tiny round hole in the sky that hadn’t been there before. Knowing it would only last a few minutes, we looked around and tried to notice as much stuff as possible. We kept spinning around and pointing: “WOW! Look at THAT! . . . Oh, WOW, look at THIS!” We saw some pink prominences. And although we got something like 2 minutes and 40 seconds of totality, it seemingly lasted about ten seconds.

We did see the diamond-ring effect as it left totality, then everything started happening in reverse, and we watched the shadow drift away from us toward Kentucky.

My camera and video recorder, with their automatic light metering, didn’t capture the true changes in the amount of light. They kept compensating for the darkness, and lightening the images. I’ll have to remember that in 2024.

We were not the only people on our little gravel road—there were about fifteen other vehicles, which all arrived after we’d settled in. Some of the cars that drove by were hauling boats, heading to the MDC river access, to no doubt see the eclipse from the water. (That’d be sweet, eh?) Of the viewers parked along the road, we saw license plates from Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas, and Ontario. Some of these folks packed up and took off as soon as totality was over; others took longer to leave. We stayed the longest.

The other cars were pretty far away from us, but most of the people seemed to have some sort of setup like ours: a patio umbrella, a few chairs, an ice chest.

My photographic capabilities are quite limited, and so is my knowledge. I did venture to take one picture of the sun, once it was getting close to totality (I could tell because I was using my protective eclipse-viewing glasses). The sun, of course, was all blown out in the photo, but the lens flare, below it, replicated the crescent shape of the sun, rather like a pinhole camera. Anyway, I thought it was cool.

I didn’t spend any time trying to take photos during the eclipse; I only took pictures beforehand of the place, our setup, the road, the horizon, the soybeans, the insects. Then, a few minutes before totality, I started my video camera (on a tripod, aimed at the northwest horizon) and just let it run and record what we were saying. I’d share it with you, but it’s nearly 530 MB and I don’t know how to upload it without completely destroying the quality of sound and image. I guess I need to upload it to YouTube, then embed it here. (Sheesh, so much work.)

But anyway, we fiddled with our cameras, video, tripods so much during the hours before the eclipse that we didn’t have our picnic before, but after. So while the other cars were departing, we broke out our little fruit, wine, and cheese party.

Everyone had been warned that there could be some serious traffic before, during, and after the eclipse, so we weren’t interested in getting involved in it. As it turned out, the crowds were seemingly minimal except at major highway interchanges and bridges.

I have real sympathy for our local restaurateurs, who were told by festival planners and city officials to expect lots and lots of business . . . and it was a big fizzle. The restaurants had stocked up on foodstuffs, then, for many of them: hardly a customer. True, the motels were all completely booked months ago, but apparently not many people ate out. It might have been that the locals were scared away from the town center by the warnings of possible traffic.

But who can blame anyone for such guesses being wrong? This kind of event has never happened before in the United States, and there were hundreds and thousands of places where people could go to see it, ranging from big, organized city festivals, to nearly anyone’s backyard, to our lonely sea of soybeans along the Missouri River.