The Yucca Insect Community

I am trying something new for this blog post. The last few weeks I have been paying close attention to yucca plants, especially the flowers, and taking many photos of the various insects (and spiders). We have a trio of plants in our front yard in Leavenworth, Kansas, USA, but I also examined plants in Okawville, Illinois, and one wild plant in eastern Missouri.

A tumbling flower beetle (top), and false flower beetle, nibble on pollen inside a yucca flower.

I created an album in my Flickr account here, with captions explaining most interactions and behaviors that I observed and documented. I am hereby directing you there to peruse the photos. I plan to keep adding photos to it, as I have many from last year that I have not yet uploaded even to my computer. Plus, there are a few more from Colorado. I thought I wrote an extensive blog post about yucca moths several years ago, but I can't find it if so.

Please let me know if this redirect is acceptable to you. There are other such communities of insects that might be easier to document this way, but if I receive negative feedback I won't repeat this experiment. Enjoy your summer!

Recent "Bug Eric" News

Bioblitz on the Snadon Tract of Coyne Prairie, Missouri, USA.

I was honored to be invited to be a guest on This Green Earth, a podcast, and NPR talk show hosted by KPCW in Park City, Utah, USA, last Tuesday, June 3. I spent a delightful twenty minutes or so with Claire Wiley and Christopher Cherniak, discussing wasps, and my book Wasps: The Astonishing Diversity of a Misunderstood Insect. If you would be interested in having me as a guest on your own podcast, please contact me via email: bugeric247ATgmailDOTcom. Thank you.

This past Saturday and Sunday, Heidi and I participated as group leaders for the annual prairie bioblitz organized by Missouri Prairie Foundation. This year it celebrated National Prairie Day at the Snadon Tract, a new addition to MPF's existing Coyne Prairie in Dade County, Missouri, USA. A future blog post will detail some of our insect and arachnid findings there.

Indian paintbrush flowers on the Snadon Tract of Coyne Prairie.

The bioblitz events of Missouri Prairie Foundation keep getting bigger and bigger. It is humbling to realize that a few attendees come specifically to meet myself and Heidi, and go on "bug walks" with us as we document the macrofauna. MPF is one of the most friendly and accomplished nonprofit organizations I have ever encountered, and I encourage my followers to consider membership or donations.

More personal traveling is on the horizon, but I will do my best to post notification of any public engagements. Meanwhile, the official publication date of my new book, Bugwatching: The Art, Joy, and Importance of Observing Insects is July 22. Please see the top of the sidebar if you wish to preorder. Thank you as always for your loyalty and support.

2025 City Nature Challenge Recap for Kansas City Metro

The City Nature Challenge is an annual event that I always look forward to, when I have no conflicting engagements. I tend to plan around it, in fact. This year’s edition was held from Friday, April 27, through Monday, April 30.

Pearl Crescent butterfly from Wyandotte County Lake Park, Kansas.

Some background is in order for those unfamiliar with this urban bioblitz. What began in 2016 as a friendly challenge between the California cities of San Francisco and Los Angeles has blossomed into a global project. The intent is to generate public interest in native urban flora and fauna, document as many species as possible during the event period, and build a database useful for assessing environmental trends both locally and globally.

Dance fly, Rhamphomyia nasoni, on our back yard fence.

Here in Kansas City, I am fortunate that the official map area includes counties a fair distance from the city. It is mostly rural in Leavenworth County, Kansas, where we live, but the town itself is at least suburban. Heidi and I usually travel to other areas, too, like Wyandotte County, Kansas, and Platte County, Missouri.

Spring Tree-top Flasher firefly, Weston Bend State Park, Missouri.

The weather this year was less than optimal, overcast virtually the entire time, cool temperatures in the low sixties (Fahrenheit), and occasional rain. Perhaps that is why public engagement was low. The stats are still coming in to iNaturalist, the web platform that hosts the observations for the event, but we had less than 300 people who contributed sightings. As a percentage of the human population, that is pretty dismal.

This unidentified web-spinning sawfly was one of my favorite finds in Havens Park, Leavenworth, Kansas.

Still, there is a current total of 3,744 observatios of 1,084 species (however iNaturalist defines that term, and it probably varies by taxon). Help in identifying observations has come from 349 individuals, from all over the globe. The border of Kansas and Missouri represents the eastern fringe of the Great Plains meeting the western edge of the eastern deciduous forest, so we have some diverse and interesting habitats.

Ultra-tiny ribbed cocoon-making moths, Bucculatrix sp, are abundant in our yard right now.

Personally, given the inclement weather, I looked at plants more heavily than I usually do. It helped that I now have an iPhone that takes photos which are comparable in quality to those produced by my Canon PowerShot SX70 camera. I think it performs better than the camera in some instances.

I can't believe I found this beautiful pair of Oak Stag Beetles, Platycerus quercus, under a chunk of dead branch in a front yard flower bed (male top, female below).

When Heidi and I went out together, we focused on birds. This was especially true at Wyandotte County Lake Park in Kansas, and at Weston Bend State Park in Missouri. Both parks are heavily forested, with a large reservoir at one, and small streams running through the other.

This Blue Corporal dragonfly was one of three species of Odonata I found during the CNC.

I don’t like that the City Nature Challenge brings out my competitive nature, but I feel compelled to demonstrate to other local citizens that insects and spiders are worth looking at. Consequently, I had the most observations for the Greater Kansas City Metro Area, and the second highest species tally. You can find the results for everyone at this link.

American Idia Moth near the blacklight sheet.

I did get in a blacklighting session in the front yard one night, but there was precious little flying in the cool temperatures.

This female ichneumon wasp, Xorides peniculus, was a new species for our home, at the front yard blacklight sheet.

It is a good thing that the nature challenge was not a week later. I went back to Havens Park here in Leavenworth yesterday, May 5, to find that a new gravel road had been laid, right through a small, ephemeral wetland, and over glade habitat at the top of the park. I am devastated and angry. Rumor has it that it will eventually be another paved trail for cyclists, dog walkers, and others. I am all for accessibility, when it does not compromise ecosystems. I don’t know that I will go back to the park now, but there is nothing similar within walking distance of our home (I don’t ride a bike, nor drive any longer, and we only have one car anyway). Pretty much everything else here is lawns.

Baby Fork-tailed Bush Katydid at Havens Park.

One thing that appears sorely lacking for the City Nature Challenge is widespread publicity. There is a wonderful team of individuals at the Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History that organizes the event each year, but they can only do so much. They have to register cities, for example, which is a demanding chore all by itself. It is up to the individual metropolitan areas to do their own marketing.

Nursery web spider, Pisaurina dubia, Wyandotte County Lake Park.

Did you participate this year? Have you done so in years past? Please feel free to share your experiences in the comments. Oh, and check out my "non-bug" finds over on my Sense of Misplaced blog.

That's Not an Ant?!

It is always best to avoid making assumptions about insects in the field. I was reminded of that on three seperate occasions this month, all of them involving mimicry of ants by small longhorned beetles in the family Cerambycidae. Early spring is apparently the season for these wood-boring insects, at least here in Kansas. Their resemblance to ants is uncanny, and highly convincing.

Cyrtophorus verrucosus

While exploring our yards and looking for insects on April 2, I noticed what I thought was a carpenter ant climbing on the exterior of our detached garage. I was about to dismiss it, but decided to document it anyway, as it would be new for the year. Imagine my surprise and delight to discover it was instead an adult Cyrtophorus verrucosus. This species has no common name, which is unfortunate given its uniqueness.

The beetle averages only 9 millimeters in body length. Larvae bore in a variety of host trees, including maple, hickory, oak, elm, birch, chestnut, dogwood, Eastern Redbud, American Beech, and even pine. The adult beetles are active from March to July, but are most abundant in early spring. Cyrtophorus verrucosus ranges over most of the eastern U.S., and Canada as far west as Alberta. This was a new species for our property.

I was invited to present the keynote address for a joint meeting of the Kansas Academy of Science, and Central States Entomological Society, in Wichita, Kansas on April 5, and Heidi and I stayed over to go exploring on Sunday, April 6. I reached out to a Facebook and iNaturalist friend, Ryan Philbrick, and we met at the Kansas Wildlife Exhibit in Central Riverside Park. From there we went to Keeper of the Plains, and walked the nice concrete trail along the Arkansas River. At one point, Ryan turned over a small, broken tree limb on the ground. He noticed millipedes and a small "ant" crawling over the bark.

Euderces pini

I trained my camera on the ant and discovered it was another species of longhorned beetle, Euderces pini. At only 7-8 millimeters, and slender, it is even more ant-like than other species. The larval host trees include Flowering Dogwood, Pecan, Winged Elm, and American Beech, but there are several other hardwoods on the menu.

The adult beetles are frequently found on flowers, feeding on pollen and nectar. Even dandelions will suffice until native trees start blooming. Euderces pini occurs in the southern half of the eastern United States, and appears as an adult from March to June.

Currant-tip Borer

Back home, yesterday, April 13, I happened to notice a small ant-like insect on the central air-conditioning unit in the back yard. It was even smaller than the other beetles, but at least it had a common name: the Currant-tip Borer, Psenocerus supernotatus.

Despite its name, this 4-millimeter beetle has been reared from plants other than currant: Green Hawthorn, Tulip Tree (aka Tulip Poplar, Yellow Poplar), and Black Willow. This beetle is widespread in North America, east of the Rocky Mountains, and the adults are found from April to June.

None of these three beetles are considered pests, maybe because they do not affect crops or orchard trees. Their earthtone colors make them rather cryptic, but they are quite active, running rapidly, and flying well.

An actual ant

It is interesting to note the convergence in body shape and coloration between the different genera. They each have white streaks or bars designed to suggest body segmenation where there is none. Ants show marked constrictions between the head, thorax, and abdomen. In these beetles, the thorax may be mistaken for the enlarged head of an ant, and the elytra (wing covers), "divided" into thorax and abdomen by those white markings. The true head of the beetle is relatively small, and in the case of the Currant-tip Borer, directed downward and nearly hidden by the thorax.

There are even more ant-mimicking longhorned beetle species. Give that "ant" a second glance, especially if you see it in isolation, with no other ants nearby. It may turn out to be a beetle instead.

Sources: Lingafelter, Steven W. 2007. Illustrated Key to the Longhorned Woodboring Beetles of the Eastern United States North Potomac, Maryland: Coleopterists Society, Special Publication No. 3. 206 pp.
Yanega, Douglas. 1996. Field Guide to Northeastern Longhorned Beetles (Coleoptera: Cerambycidae). Champaign, Illinois: Illinois Natural History Survey, Manual 6. 174 pp.