Have you ever found a cool bug in your backyard, tried to I.D. it, and been frustrated because you could not find it in any of your field guides, in a google image search, or even in BugGuide.net?

Do not despair, as you are not alone! As you may know, insects are the most numerous animal life form on the planet, comprising about 85% of terrestrial animals. Not only that, insects come in all shapes and sizes, and do magic called metamorphosis after being nymphs or molting their hard exoskeletons as they move through instars on their way to sexual maturity.

"Arthropods are a highly-successful group of invertebrate animals that includes insects, centipedes, millipedes, spiders, mites, horseshoe crabs, scorpions, and crustaceans. In terms of species diversity, arthropods are second to none. That there are in excess of one million arthropods species that have been identified by scientists and there are estimated to be many millions that have not yet been identified. Scientists estimate there may be a staggering 30 million species of arthropods alive today, the vast majority of which are insects."

The insect world is currently divided into 32 orders. The largest order, the beetles (Coleoptera), contains more than 370,000 species. Other major orders are moths and butterflies (Lepidoptera, 150,000 species), bees, wasps, and ants (Hymenoptera, 120,000 species), flies (Diptera, 100,000 species), and bugs (Hemiptera, 80,000 species).

To make mystery bug I.D. even harder, remember that all insects go through metamorphosis-which means that most of them look completely different from adults when they are in their immature stages as larvae and instars-making it quite a puzzle to identify them, since field guides and websites often only show images of the adult stages of many insects.

For example, take mystery bug #1, found by my friend Lorene in her West Seattle garden:
after three fails (which included an image search, googling "green ladybug",  and BugGuide.net), I  googled "Seattle pest insects" and found a P-Patch reference document from the Seattle Dept. of Neighborhoods, that told me all about the invasive Green Stinkbug, which were first reported in Seattle in 2014.
Bingo! Lorene's bug turned out to be the 5th instar stage of the Southern Green Stinkbug Nezara Viridula. She found this insect alongside lots of little tiny black bugs (2nd/3rd instar) on a Dalia leaf, never before seen in her garden.

The thing to remember, when taking care of your backyard, is that often times immature stages of beneficial insects look very different from the adults. Be sure to be gentle when you are weeding and tidying up your garden for the winter, as many caterpillars overwinter in the grasses, leaves, shrubs, and woodpiles. These are your butterfly nurseries. If you do find a "pest" insect, such as the Green Stinkbug, please contact the Garden Hotline:  [email protected] or call 206-633-0224.

After picking blackberries two weeks ago, and subsequently suffering from the itchiest bites I have ever sustained, I am ready to share the results of my latest inquiry into...

It looks like a tick, but only if you use a microscope; these practically invisible mites are the larvae stage of an 8-legged arachnid. Boy's Life states: "Red bugs, chiggers, berry bugs, scrub-itch mites and harvest mites are all terms used to describe members of the family of insects known as Trombiculidae. These reddish-orange mites can be found worldwide, but they really enjoy hanging out in damp, grassy and wooded areas, especially at the edges of forests." Approximately 50,000 species have been described, although there are an estimated 1 million species currently living. 

I was lucky, I only picked up about 15 of these tiny creatures while out picking blackberries (which, to add insult to injury, were infested with fruit fly larvae); I woke up in the middle of the night with an intense itching in my belly button-seven bites-and the next morning found an additional eight bites around my waist and in the inside of my elbow and knee. (I am NOT including photos, as my bites are red, crusty, and oozy: impressively disgusting.)

I wondered...spider or flea bites? or, ewwww, bedbugs?
My research led me to confirm a textbook case of chiggers and to the prolonged and continuing study of the most effective way to stop the confounded itching.

First, from Dragonfly Woman:
Unlike many blood feeding insects and their relatives the ticks, chiggers have very short mouthparts. Those little dangly bits at the front end of the chigger in the picture above are the chelicerae, their mouthparts.  Now imagine the chigger in that photo shrunk down to a milimeter or a half milimeter in size, their actual size.  Like I said – very short mouthparts!  Chiggers don’t just eat the top layer of skin cells though – they go for the good stuff underneath.  To do this, they pierce the skin with their chelicerae, then inject saliva to digest the tissue and expand the wound.  The goop that is produced is slurped up by the chigger.  Remarkably, they also inject compounds into the wound that cause an immune response in the host animal, one that hardens the tissue around the bite site.  In essence, the hardened tube-shaped structure that forms (called a stylostome) is a straw that expands deeper and deeper into the host.  The chigger injects more saliva and sucks up more liquified tissue as the stylostome gets longer and longer.  That’s right!  Chiggers have tiny mouthparts, but they use their host’s own immune system to enlarge their mouthparts into a stylet like those of mosquitoes or a beak like those found in the true bugs!  Now if that isn’t amazing, I’m not sure what is.

So the chigger bites you, dissolves some of your tissue, and eats it.  Big deal, right?  Wrong!  These tiny little creatures are capable of producing some truly awful allergic reactions.  These aren’t the send you to the hospital, carry an epi-pen with you kind of response in most people.  Instead you itch.  You itch like you’ve never itched before.  Some people get massive itchy welts.  The itching is intense, so severe that people have been known to gouge welts out of their skin as they scratch and many people have reported that the pain of doing this and the ensuing scars are much easier to deal with than the itch of the bites.  Now the itching wouldn’t be so bad if it were just a few bites, but most people don’t get that lucky.  Instead they get tens or hundreds of bites from many individuals at one time (chiggers tend to be clustered together) that are located in inconvenient places (want to be observed scratching your armpit or your bra straps vigorously hundreds of times per day?) and don’t go away for 5-10 days.  That’s right – these little tiny animals can cause massive itching for 10 days or longer!  (Are you itchy yet?)

Along with experimenting with all of the above remedies, I would take 25-50 mg of Benadryl when the itching became intolerable (and also when my belly had a dessert-plate sized rash on it, which was most of the second week) once or twice a day, and especially before going to bed. I kept a bag of frozen peas and used that often, along with Ibuprofin. In addition, I dapped the wounds with tea tree oil and honey, for their antibacterial goodness, and also tried Cortisone*10 cream with aloe, and Aveeno's Anti-Itch concentrated lotion with triple oats and calamine. Taking an oatmeal bath is a lovely temporary solution, but-honestly, nothing really works.

I am two weeks in and considering using the Swiss Army knife cure. Arghhhhh.

Hmm, I had no idea-really. So...googled it, and the first answer came from "Ask an Entomologist"

This second image is a still-shot of a really cool gif created by Seattle's Eleanor Lutz (and if I ever figure out how to embed the gif, I will update this post!) Meanwhile:

I will have more interesting bug research for you soon, but wanted to lead with some fun facts. Enjoy!  (and be sure to check out Tabletop Whale for additional awesome science illustrations!)

It's funny, if you asked me what the main colors were in our backyard garden, I would describe to you the borage, peppermint, and lavender purples, the California poppy oranges (and pink), and brilliant red clover...but, after tidying up the yard yesterday, I noticed that there were SO many white flowers everywhere! Some of them are really tiny, like the yarrow, cilantro, and buckwheat, but others are just lovely anomalies; I absolutely adore the white California poppies and the elegant white foxglove!

I know that I should probably name all these sweet blooms for you, but it is SUNNY outside, so I must get back out and soak up that Vitamin D while I can.

Enjoy the tour!

Pseudoscorpions. Book Scorpions. Chelifer Cancroides
...are tiny arachnids, not scorpions at all!... but they have cool pincers and they prey on the larvae of clothes moths, carpet beetles, booklice, ants, and varroa mites. What's not to love?

It all started with a conversation in a beekeeping forum concerning the problem of varroa mites, and wondering if there were natural, non-chemical methods (besides hosting foundationless hives*) that might be employed to lessen the varroa mites' impact on a hive. Our question led us to two beekeeping researchers who are working with restoring a beehive's ecosystem by reintroducing pseudoscorpions into the mix to create a more diverse and healthy hive habitat.

In my first foray into the world of the pseudoscorpion, I found Torben Schiffer and his website beenature-project though this article (written in English, rather than German).  In a nutshell:  "Bees and pseudoscorpions have cohabited in hives for thousands of years, but toxic chemicals used in beekeeping have nearly eradicated the 'little insect with the tooth of poison.’ Torben’s mission is to restore the natural symbiosis between the two species in order to control the new unwelcome member of the triangle, the varroa mite."

Torben's research partners are teens from the Hamburg school where he teaches biology :^)

Further sleuthing led me to the work of Roland Sachs, who also has an interest in restoring healthy hive ecosystems through natural beekeeping methods. He has been exploring hive construction and alternative methods of keeping honeybees.

Sachs states: "The book scorpion’s potential is enormous. Though it is not the cure for the various problems of honey bees and modern beekeeping it can – in a suitable habitat (geometry & properties of hollow trees) and within the scope of natural beekeeping (no acids/chemistry, low honey extraction, swarming, etc.) – effectively combat the parasites. Not only the Varroa mite is on its menu. It will also suck out bee lices, small hive beetles, and wax moths with pleasure. Having book scorpions within bee hives signals natural beekeeping and an intact hive climate. Integrating it into your bee hives unfortunately cannot be the first step towards successful beekeeping without acids and chemistry. On the contrary its successful settlement can only be the result of a species-appropriate beekeeping, since book scorpions are very sensitive they will quickly leave an unsuitable habitat." Natural Beekeeping with Book Scorpions

Mymaridae. Fairyfly. Fairy wasp. Chalcid wasp.
Lately, I have been researching insects that are so small, you probably haven't seen them before.  Just last week, whilst looking at a few of my honeybees with my stereoscope, I discovered what appeared to be a miniature wasp tangled up in the bee-fur. What?

Yes, that is a honeybee, Apis mellifera, looking like a giant compared to the tiny wasp (next to the point of a pin). The first thing I tried to do was to take a photo of the little gal (clubbed antennae, not feathered or threadlike) so I could do an ID. This involved some pretty tricky gymnastics with my headlamp, tripod, "real" camera and close-up filter...but I still could not get close enough! I ended up pointing my iphone camera through the stereoscope to capture the best images, and was then able to begin the process of identification.

I found some matching images that led me to believe that I was in possession of a fairyfly, or Mymaridae. Most definitely a chalcid wasp. Let's have fun with Mymaridae, shall we?

What makes Mymaridae so cool, besides being goofy fliers and practically invisible?

Some species of fairyfly live underwater, others mate with their siblings before they hatch, and in one super-tiny species the males are so small that "they do not have wings or eyes, their mouths are mere holes, and their antennae are simply spherical blobs. The ends of their legs have been modified into suction cups for clutching at females long enough to fertilize them. They are so small, their entire bodies are smaller than a single-celled Paramecium."

As my daughter succinctly stated "Insects are such weirdos!"

This Woolly Bear caterpillar was high speed cruising across our path at Seward Park last week. I LOVE Woolly Bears, but I do not see them very often, and I wondered why. I did a little research and found out that if you google them, you will get a lot of information on whether or not you can accurately predict the severity of the upcoming winter by the width of their colored bands =Nope :^) 

I also found out that the Banded Woolly Bear can travel up to a mile a day looking for a protected place to spend the winter and that they like to burrow under piles of leaves. It turns out that a Woolly Bear needs the cold to complete its metamorphosis; that is, they almost freeze solid and when spring arrives they thaw out, eat some greens, and then spin a cocoon (that looks a bit like a cat hairball), before transforming into its adult form as a Tiger Moth. The Tiger Moth has only one task to complete in its two-week life: find a mate and lay eggs. They do not even have mouth parts, so need waste no time looking for food.

Does the Woolly Bear hibernate like its mammalian namesake? I dug a little deeper ...
Infinite Spider explains: "For a long time scientists weren't sure if the woolly bear caterpillar used a strategy of diapause (insect equivalent of hibernation) or quiescence to survive winter. Scientists from the University of Pennsylvania did some studies of different caterpillars collected in fall and winter and then compared their development and metabolic rates. They found that the woolly bear caterpillar goes into quiescence, hiding under leaf litter and literally going dormant until conditions change. They could wake easily if it got nice outside, unlike their diapausing cousins."

 Xerces Society has created a slew of cute #LEAVETHELEAVES graphics to encourage folks to enjoy the benefits of leaf litter. Cheers for mulch and overwintering sites for our insect friends!

Bombus mixtus enjoying the sage blossoms and snowberry in our front yard

Honeybee collecting nectar=Sage Honey this fall

Did you know that almost 90% of all flowering plants rely on animals, rather than the wind, for pollination? Over 200,000 species of animals act as pollinators. The vast majority of animal pollinators are insects such as beetles, bees, ants, wasps, butterflies and moths; of these, bees pollinate the largest number of plant species. About 1,000 species of pollinators are hummingbirds, bats and other small mammals (Pollinator Partnership, 2017).

A little something for everyone:
Nature's Nether Regions, 
Life in the Soil,
dirt: the erosion of civilization
Noah's Garden
Attracting Native Pollinators
Mycelium Running

We had both Red Admiral and the Spring Azure butterflies visiting; look how TINY the Spring Azure is, perched on a forget-me-not. The Vosnesenskii bumblebee is our most numerous bombus, and the tiny metallic green bee with striking black and yellow stripes is an Agapostemon, or male sweat bee, a member of the Halictidae family. They are considered solitary but often nest communally in the ground. Also, apparently not good swimmers (I rescued this little guy from the birdbath :^)