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  • This Caterpillar can Whistle!

    Walnut Sphinx caterpillar
    Walnut Sphinx caterpillar (click photos to enlarge)

    Last week I found this little guy crawling on the ground outside the screen porch. I picked it up and it thrashed around until I placed it on a nearby hickory sapling. I recognized it as the larva of the Walnut Sphinx Moth from the unusual angled head capsule and the numerous raised spots arranged in rings around the body. This individual is a mid-instar as the head is very elongated.

    Walnut Sphinx caterpillar late instar
    Walnut Sphinx caterpillar late instar

    A few years ago I found the late instar larva pictured above. The head is less elongated and the white stripe alongside the head capsule is more pronounced as pictured in the field guides (most field guides showing caterpillars show only the last instar which can be quite different from the earlier ones, but, in this case, Wagner’s Caterpillars of Eastern North America also has an inset showing the pronounced head of the early instar). These caterpillars, as is the case for many others, are easier to find at night by flashlight when they are actively feeding. During the day, they often rest on the underside of a leaf along the midrib.

    Walnut Sphinx caterpillar mid instar
    Walnut Sphinx caterpillar after thrashing about when touched

    The thing I find incredible about this species is it is one of the few caterpillars that makes sounds. When touched it thrashes about violently and can hiss or whistle by forcing air out of the spiracles (the small openings of the respiratory system found along the side of the caterpillar). How cool is that! So, if you see me along the woods edge with my ear down at a hickory or walnut leaf, just assume I am listening for a larval tune.

  • Cloudless Sulphur

    Cloudless Sulphur on small red morning glory
    Cloudless Sulphur on small red morning glory (click photos to enlarge)

    This time of year I often see a bright, clear flash of yellow in the garden and know it is a wanderer, a Cloudless Sulphur butterfly. On my trip to some refuges down east earlier in the week I saw plenty of these vibrant yellow beauties as they are a common species in the coastal plain. They can be found statewide, especially in late summer and early fall, when they tend to migrate in large numbers northward and inland from the coast.

    Partridge Pea plant
    Partridge Pea or Senna

    The primary host plant is Partridge Pea or Senna, a legume common in disturbed areas like roadsides and power lines throughout the eastern U.S. I learned the genus as Cassia 20+ years ago but it has since been reclassified (as have so many of the pants I struggled to learn in my state park days) as Chamaecrista fasciculata. Partridge Pea is a shrubby plant with loose bright yellow flowers and pinnately compound leaves.

    Partridge Pea open leaf
    Partridge Pea open leaf

    The leaves close at night giving rise to another of its common names, Sleeping Plant. There is also a noticeable raised gland at the base of the petiole, although I did not find any reference as to the function.

    Partridge Pea closed leaf
    Partridge Pea closed leaf

    The plant is also host for some other species of butterflies including the Orange Sulphur, Sleepy Orange, Little Yellow, and Gray Hairstreak.

    Partridge Pea seed pod backlit
    Partridge Pea seed pod

    The seeds are contained in a typical legume seed pod and are eaten by a variety of birds.

    Cloudless Sulphur egg
    Cloudless Sulphur egg

    Eggs are minute and sculpted and laid on flower buds or leaves.

     Cloudless Sulphur larva
    Cloudless Sulphur larva

    The caterpillars are brightly colored and I have seen them most often feeding on the flowers or flower buds, especially in the later instars.

    Cloudless Sulphur larva curled vertical
    Cloudless Sulphur larva curled in defensive posture

    When disturbed, the caterpillar will often drop from the plant and curl into a tight ball.

    Cloudless Sulphur chrysalis
    Cloudless Sulphur chrysalis

    Their chrysalis is one of the most unusual and beautiful of any I have seen. It can be a variety of colors and is oddly elongated in two directions. Apparently, most of the Cloudless Sulphurs that migrate leave few, if any, offspring behind as the species tends to be intolerant of cold conditions so does not fare well far from the coastal plain. I plan to monitor this chrysalis and see its fate, although I am guessing a butterfly may emerge in a couple of weeks rather than the chrysalis overwintering.

    Cloudless Sulphur on Coral Honeysuckle
    Cloudless Sulphur on Coral Honeysuckle

    The butterflies are said to nectar at a wide variety of plants but they seem to prefer red flowers in my garden, especially Coral Honeysuckle and Cardinal Flower. I may try throwing a few seed pods of their host plant along the edge of the garden this fall in the hopes of attracting even more of these dazzling fliers next season.

  • A Good Day Down East

    One of the great things about retirement is the freedom to take advantage of good weather and make a wildlife watching trip on the spur of the moment. Yesterday was one of those days and I spent it in my favorite area in NC – Pocosin Lakes National Wildlife Refuge. I arrived about 8 a.m. and was going to scout the area for bears. The rains this season (and perhaps some Federal budget cuts) have made for tall vegetation along many of the roadsides so it is a little tough to see while driving in certain areas but I soon found one bruin waddling along a dirt road. It wandered off as I approached and I could hear it walking through the swamp when I stopped and got out. I continued over to one of my favorite spots and was surprised to see two other vehicles at the gate. Turns out one was a couple of friends who were down the road looking for bears and the other was a man that knows an old friend of mine from graduate school – small world. The last thing I thought I would be doing at Pungo yesterday was socializing!

    Canebrake Rattlesnake defensive posture
    Canebrake Rattlesnake crossing dirt road on refuge (click on photos to enlarge)

    After spending about an hour chatting I decided to explore some other areas of the refuge and headed out. I soon found a large Timber Rattlesnake crossing a sandy stretch of road. Timber Rattlesnakes in this part of the state are usually lighter colored than those in the mountains and are often referred to as Canebrake Rattlesnakes. The name refers to the large patches of River Cane, a type of vegetation common in the coastal plain, and an excellent habitat for these snakes.

    Canebrake Rattlesnake
    Canebrake Rattlesnake in defensive posture

    This area has a healthy population of these beautiful snakes so I got out and watched it for a few minutes before it finally crossed the road and disappeared. Unfortunately, I later found one in another section of the refuge that had been recently killed by a vehicle.

    Needham's Skimmer
    Needham’s Skimmer

    I drove over to Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge to look around, and, while I did see two bears in a soybean field, it was the abundance of invertebrates that caught my eye. Dragonflies and butterflies were out in large numbers.

    Black and Yellow Argiope at ARNWR
    Black and Yellow Argiope

    I also spotted several large Argiope spiders as I drove slowly along the refuge roads. Late in the afternoon I decided to drive back through a section of the Pocosin Lakes refuge that I had never explored. I ended up driving all the way through the refuge from Hwy 94 to the Pungo Unit on miles of well-maintained gravel roads  Along the way I saw three Black Racer snakes, a few Wild Turkey, two bears, some deer, and more Northern Bobwhite Quail than I have seen in several years.

    Palamedes Swallowtail on dead box turtle
    Palamedes Swallowtail on dead box turtle

    Palamedes Swallowtails were flying everywhere along the route. These are the quintessential swamp swallowtails and large numbers were puddling in moist spots along the gravel roadways. There was also one sipping a macabre meal form a dead Eastern Box Turtle, one of two box turtles I found dead in the road on the refuge. Both turtles were laying upside down and did not seem to be damaged by cars so I am not sure what happened to them.

    Bear with two cubs on Allen Rd
    Black Bear with two cubs

    It was getting late in the day by the time I arrived back at the Pungo Unit of the refuge. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a bear standing, looking over the vegetation. By the time I stopped the car and grabbed the camera, she had dropped down and was ushering her two young cubs in the opposite direction. Too bad I had missed that shot of her standing looking at me with the cubs huddled by her side. I ended up seeing eleven bears for the day but the last one was my favorite.

    Black Bear after coming out of soybean field
    Black Bear walking down path

    The bears are now feeding in the corn fields on the refuge so I went to one where the fading sun was at a good angle and started walking down a path. As if on cue, a bear walked up out of a canal and ambled down the path ahead of me. It sniffed, walked, sniffed some more, and then went back down into the canal and into an adjacent soybean field.

    Blsck Bear standing in soybean field
    Black Bear standing in soybean field

    All I could see were the round black ears moving through the tall soybeans. The sunlight was almost gone so I took a few more steps and apparently made a little too much noise, which caused the bear to stand up, providing me with the shot of the day. The bear looked around and must have decided all was well, as it dropped down and continued walking off to find a nice spot to dine in peace. You never know what you are going to see on these refuges, but there is almost always something memorable.

  • Is This a ? Egg?

    Butterfly in egg-laying behavior
    Butterfly that was laying eggs in a patch of False Nettle (click photos to enlarge)

    I glanced out the back of the screen porch the other day and saw a butterfly behaving as if it were going to lay eggs – that typical fluttery flight around a plant that indicates she is searching for just the right spot to lay an egg.

    False Nettle
    False Nettle, Boehmeria cylindrica

    The butterfly was one of the anglewings – either a Question Mark or an Eastern Comma, and the plants were some False Nettles (one of the anglewings’ host plants) mixed in with some ferns and other moisture-loving plants in a shady, wet drainage area out back. I have been seeing Eastern Commas feeding on the figs in the garden but this one would not slow down long enough for me to see any details on the wings to make a clear identification. I went inside and grabbed the camera with the 300mm and an extension tube and fired off several shots as the butterfly flitted about quickly laying an egg here and there on the undersides of leaves.

    Question Mark confirmed
    Question Mark confirmed

    I often use the camera to help me identify species that are moving too quickly for a good view. Once you look at images on the computer, you can often see identifying characteristics more clearly. Such was the case in one photo this time – I could just make out the distinct marking on the underside of the wing that identified the egg-layer as a Question Mark, Polygonia interrogationis.

    Question Mark egg 2
    Freshly laid Question Mark egg on underside of False Nettle leaf

    I went back outside and started turning over leaves looking for eggs and finally found one  – a very small greenish egg sculpted with vertical ridges. The eggs of Question Marks and Eastern Commas are identical so seeing the egg-layer is important for identification. In reading about these two closely related species, I found an interesting note about their eggs – females often lay eggs in short stacks, one egg on top of the other, in stacks of a few up to 8 or 9 eggs. Naturally, I went back out to see if I could find any.

    Question Mark egg 5
    Dark egg of an anglewing

    My first find was a single darker-colored egg on the same plant. I assume it is an egg that was laid earlier and may be getting ready to hatch as I have seen other species’ eggs darken prior to hatching. I suppose the other possibility is that the egg has been parastized by something. I’ll have to wait and see.

    Question Mark egg stack of 2
    Egg stack

    After searching the False Nettles for eggs and only finding singles, I went up to the garden to check another host plant that I know is growing up there – a Winged Elm sapling. Question Marks and Commas have three common host plants in our area – False Nettle, Stinging Nettle, and elms. The first leaf I looked under had a short stack of two dark eggs. There were lots of eggs on this tiny sapling, perhaps due to the abundance of decaying figs in the adjacent trees that attracted the butterflies to the area.

    Question Mark egg stack of 3 b
    Egg stack on underside of elm leaf

    It wasn’t until I had set up to photograph the stack of two eggs that I noticed a cluster of eggs on a curled leaf at the tip of the branch, including a stack of three eggs. It looks so strange and even though I searched the internet  and all of my reference books, I came up with no clear explanation as to why these species stack their eggs. Some butterflies, such as the Pipevine Swallowtail, have larvae that contain toxins and lay their brightly-colored (warning colors like orange or red) eggs in clusters. Their distasteful caterpillars usually feed in groups which may afford them more protection from predators. I also found a  reference to a species in England whose stacks of eggs are said to resemble the flower parts of the host pant, thus camouflaging the eggs to a certain degree. None of these explanations seems to quite fit in this case, so the reason for egg stacking remains a mystery to me.

  • So Many Butterflies… Go FIGure

    ‘Tis the season… a little later than usual, but the season nonetheless. While I was camping in New England, the figs on the trees outside my garden decided to start ripening in my absence. By the time I returned this past week, they were fully ripe, which had not gone unnoticed by many of my woodland neighbors.

    As in past summers there is a bit of a race to see who gets to the ripe figs first. I tend go out each morning and pick those figs that are starting to ripen before they fall prey to the other local fig-eaters. In the past it’s been the usual suspects… Hornets, Yellow-jackets, June beetles, and a few species of birds – especially woodpeckers and crows. But the trees were full of overripe figs when I returned and the table had been set for everyone. Now there are fruit flies, hornets, birds, and butterflies all over the fig trees.

    Fig with fruit flies
    Ripe fig with fruit flies (click on photos to enlarge)

    Many types of butterflies do not live on nectar alone – some species prefer overripe fruit, tree sap, and even decaying animals or scat (animal poop) to feed on. Decaying fruits have carbohydrates and minerals, necessary to most butterflies. Butterflies have excellent chemo-receptors and are able to locate sources of food like rotting fruit from great distances.

    Butterflies feeding on fig
    Butterflies feeding on fig dropped on fence post by a bird

    These figs must have the right sensory signals as I was amazed at the number and variety of species attracted to the fig feast.

    Red-spotted Purple on fence post
    Red-spotted Purple showing underside of wings

    The most noticeable of the scaly-winged fig-feeders are the Red-spotted Purple butterflies. They are common here in the Piedmont and are easily recognized by the red-orange spots on the undersides and the bright iridescence on the upper surface of their wings. I rarely see them nectar at flowers but often find them on tree sap, bird droppings, and rotten fruit.

    Red-spotted Purple spread wing
    Red-spotted Purple basking

    Yesterday afternoon there were over a dozen of these beauties flitting around the fig trees. With so many around, it should be a good year for finding their highly sculpted eggs at the tips of Black Cherry leaves, an abundant tree along the power line.

    Carolina Satyr
    Carolina Satyr

    Another abundant butterfly on the figs is much less noticeable – the diminutive Carolina Satyr. There may actually be even more of these flying around than the Red-spotted Purples, but they have an erratic, lilting flight and when they land, they can be tough to see.

    Carolina Satyr top view
    Carolina Satyr top view

    The undersides have a few noticeable eye spots but the upper wings are more moth-like and drab than most species of butterfly. Since they tend to be low-flying, they are often overlooked in the garden. I have yet to find one of their eggs or a caterpillar, which feed on various species of grasses. Guess I will just need to spend a little more time observing since there are now so many out and about.

    Comma feeding on fig 1
    Eastern Comma feeding on fig

    The Eastern Comma is a quick and erratic flyer that is fond of fruit, tree sap, and carrion. One of the so-called Anglewings (named for their sculpted wing edges), it can be separated from its close cousin, the Question Mark, by looking at the silvery marking on the underside of the hind wings. You can see the curved punctuation mark clearly in this photo and also see that it lacks the small dot on the distal end of the mark, so this is an Eastern Comma.

    Comma feeding on fig
    Eastern Coma showing bright orange upper surface

    When they flash open their wings, they are a beautiful brownish orange with dark spots. This is one of the few NC species of butterflies that overwinters as an adult.

    Tawny Emperor
    Tawny Emperor

    My favorite fig-feeder is one I rarely see elsewhere – the Tawny Emperor. Very similar to the more common Hackberry Emperor, both species share the restrictive habitat needs of an area with Hackberry or Sugarberry trees for host plants. Both species also share the unusual habit of often landing on sweaty human observers to probe for salt. As hot as it is supposed to be today, maybe I will go out and sit near the fig trees and see if I can attract a few. The things we do for science:)

  • Looking for Leviathan

    Many years ago I had the privilege of co-leading a week-long whale watching workshop aboard a schooner in Maine for the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences. It was an experience I will never forget (for many reasons). So, while traveling up the coast of Maine I was looking for opportunities to see whales again. There is a well-known whale watch company in Bar Harbor that cruises many miles offshore in a large, fast catamaran. They have a good success record, but it looked like it might be so crowded that it would not be my cup of tea.

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    When I found out about a smaller company out of Eastport, Maine, that took smaller groups out for whale watching, I jumped at the chance. Coastal towns like Lubec and Eastport are a far cry from the hustle and bustle of touristy Bar Harbor. This is what Maine is really all about. It was a dreary morning and when I went in to pay for the trip I was very pleased to see the company name, Eastport Windjammers. Looking across the street to the dock I could see a beautiful old wooden schooner, the Ada C. Lore. Originally built in 1923, this 118 foot beauty was used to dredge oysters under sail. She is one of only three remaining historic Chesapeake Bay oyster schooners in the United States.
    The weather had reduced the number of willing passengers to only 10, barely enough to make a go of the trip. Once the captain and crew arrived we were off.

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    There were a number of birds we passed as we cruised out toward the bay – Bonaparte’s Gulls, Black Guillemots, and a couple of Razorbills. As we neared the shore of an island, the Bald Eagles began to appear. First only a couple, then many, all flying and calling in the gray sky. Every now and then, an Osprey would swoop down and harass one of the larger birds. One of the deckhands said that toward the end of August eagle numbers would jump dramatically as schools of fish moved into the bay. That is also the time when the most whales are nearshore, including the Humpbacks. The deckhand referred to Humpbacks as the rock star whales because of their tendency to put on quite a show for visitors.

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    Within a few minutes we encountered our first Minke Whale. The Minke (pronounced “mink-ee”) Whale, is a small, streamlined baleen whale found in most of the world’s oceans. They can reach lengths up to 33 feet and weigh up to 10 tons. Minke Whales are one of the most commonly seen baleen whales along the Maine coast. This area is an important feeding ground for whales, who go there to take advantage of the rich amounts of schooling fish, plankton and krill during the warmer months.

    20130819-103443.jpg

    The dorsal fin of the Minke is tall and curved, and is located two-thirds of the way back on the body. That is usually about all you get to see when a Minke breaks the surface. They have a small blow, and usually do not extend the flipper, tail or much of their body above the surface, and rarely breach like Humpbacks.

    20130819-104014.jpg

    Soon there were several Mlinkes around the ship. And they were close. One whale in particular was swimming all around our vessel. It was distinctive in that it was missing most of its dorsal fin. The deckhand called it Stumpy and it was well-known to this ships’ crew.

    20130819-104356.jpg

    On one close approach, Stumpy raised up out of the water a little more than usual. My photo shows a series of whitish marks on Stumpy’s body at the waterline. I initially thought they were some sort of ectoparasite but looking online it appears as though these are scars on the whales’ skin left by feeding Lampreys. Lampreys feed by attaching themselves to the skin of fish and marine mammals, rasping through the skin and sucking out blood. If these are indeed Lamprey feeding scars, Stumpy has apparently fed quite a few.

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    After spending over an hour with the whales, we headed back to port. Along the way we were treated to a large group of seals laying out on some exposed rock. There are both Gray and Harbor Seals in this area, but most of these appeared to be the latter.

    20130819-110426.jpg

    Harbor Seals grow to about 5-6 feet in length, and weigh between 200-300 pounds. They can be quite variable in color ranging from light brown to dark gray, with light undersides. They also may have scattered light and dark spots.

    A Harbor Seal in the water looks a bit like a dog, with its round head, long whiskers and large eyes peeking above the water surface. This is the species we most often see on the North Carolina coast. The short cruise brought back a lot of good memories and increased my desire to spend more time in the future looking for marine mammals.

  • Faces in the Forest

    In every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks.
    John Muir

    I find great peace in a walk in the woods. And I usually find something that causes me to pause and look closer. I appreciate these simple moments of time and reflection and know I am lucky to have the opportunity to be a woods watcher, especially when the woods are like those I have walked in this past week.

    Sometimes you find things that you either don’t expect or that fire some neurons in an unexpected way. I had two such moments in recent walks.

    20130813-231246.jpg
    On a quick stroll at Quoddy Head State Park I saw this mushroom staring up at me. It isn’t often I frown in the woods so I was a bit taken aback by the gloomy glare of this fungus. A quick snap with the iPhone and I moved on, wishing the next critter to take a bite would result in an attitude adjustment.

    The next trail side countenance was a bit more surprising. The rain had just stopped when I strolled down a path in New Hampshire and came upon a puddle. I remembered a striking photo a friend had taken of water droplets in a woodland pool so I stopped to give it a try.

    20130813-233132.jpg
    The first few pictures yielded nothing special or no drip pattern at all. Then I looked closely at the last image on my phone and it made me smile.

    20130813-233357.jpg
    I am usually happiest when I am in such places but it is a bit rare when the feeling seems so mutual. And for the record, this image is real with no adjustments other than a slight crop.

  • A New Day in New Hampshire

    After a day of driving through torrential rains I reached a beautiful Forest Service campground in White Mountain National Forest in New Hampshire. A few of the campsites had standing water but mine was mainly dry. I could hear the roaring waters of a creek downslope from me as the rain subsided. And then, as if on cue, it stopped and a patch of blue sky appeared. Time to set up camp!

    The sounds of the creek soon beckoned and I hiked down to take a look at what a few inches of rain does to a mountain stream.

    20130813-073404.jpg
    The water rushed over and between boulders – a sound that would make for good sleeping.

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    The trail back to the campsite was full of details to be taken in – fungi, patterns on the bark of white birch trunks, tree shadows on a boulder…my only wish is that I was staying longer than one night.
    These north woods are special. I will return.

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  • Mainely Beautiful

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    I am winding down my camping trip to the north woods and the Maine coast. It has been a glorious week of hiking, camping in almost perfect campsites, and taking in the sights of a stunningly beautiful part of our country. Unlike many of my other outings, this one turned out to be less about wildlife and more about soaking in the essence of the place – the light over the ocean at sunset, the rhythmic sloshing of the waves on pink granite boulders, and the quiet of the fragrant north woods.

    And in what must be a first for me, I rarely took out the big lenses, much less the 7D. This is my first trip that I documented mainly with my iPhone…go figure. The relative lack of wildlife and the amount of hiking made it much easier to just carry the camera in my pocket.

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    Highlights of the trip include hiking in Acadia, especially up and over the Bee Hive by climbing a steep trail with steel ladders on the rock face, quiet breakfasts on secluded rock beaches, and the delicate beauty that surrounds you as you wander the rocky coast and the north woods. The temperatures, scenery, and forest made me think of the Maine Coast as being like an ocean on the slopes of my home states’ tallest mountain, Mount Mitchell. A great combination, to be sure.

    Cellular service has been, and remains, elusive, so I will simply post a few
    memories of the week. I hope to return soon.

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  • A Tale of Two Spiders

    A friend found this orb spider in the driveway last week. She noticed something wasn’t quite right and called me over.

    Orb Spider
    Orb Spider

    At first glance, the spider looked like it was wearing a white belt. A closer look and I could make out that it wasn’t an arachnid fashion accessory but rather something much more sinister – a grub, most likely a parasitic grub of some sort.

    Orb Spider with parasitic grub 1
    Orb Spider with parasitic grub

    I have seen a parasitic grub on a spider once before but it was much smaller and was on top of the spider’s abdomen instead of hugging the spider’s “waist” as in this case. After taking a few pictures I released the very active spider on the railing of the deck.

    Parasitic Wasp captured by spider 2
    Parasitic wasp grub on spider

    I went in and searched the web for parasitic grubs on spiders and quickly found information which made me believe this is a wasp grub. One reference said the grub clings to the juncture of the spider’s two body parts as this is a place that the spider cannot reach. After reading this I decided to keep a watch on the spider (it remained near the deck railing overnight) for a few days and see what happened.

    Parasitic grub
    Parasitic grub in web

    The next day when I checked on the spider I was amazed to see the grub dangling in a loose web, but no spider. The grub had grown significantly overnight. I went in for the camera and came back out to photograph the grub (Canon 7D, 100mm Macro with extension tube, and Canon MT-24EX Macro Twin Lite flash). It was wriggling and as I watched I could see it was beginning to spin a cocoon in the loose webbing. Then I happened to look down and I noticed the remains of the spider.

    Dead spider
    Spider after being parasitized by wasp grub

    The grub had essentially completely drained the spider of its body fluids before discarding the dried remains. This explained the sudden increase in size of the grub overnight. It had been feeding on the spider all along, but the final meal killed the spider and caused the grub to almost double in size. Another search of the web added some more pieces to the puzzle in the form of a description of a program with David Attenborough from Life in the Undergrowth. The documentary reveals a strange twist in the final scene between the spider and the grub. The grub apparently secretes a hormone into the spider which alters the spiders behavior causing it to forego the usual neat orb web that it spins every day and instead causes it to spin a loose web that the grub then uses as the stage for spinning its own cocoon.

    Parasitic grub spinning cocoon
    Parasitic wasp grub spinning cocoon

    About five hours after I first saw the grub wriggling in the loose web (it was 10 p.m. at that point), much of its cocoon was complete.

    Completed cocoon
    Nearly completed cocoon

    The next morning, I could see the grub still moving inside a neat sac cocoon made of gold-colored silk. Now I just had to wait and hope I saw the wasp when it emerged.

    Second spider with wasp grub
    Second spider with wasp grub

    That same day I happened to notice another spider on the other screen door on the porch with a similar parasitic grub. Each day since I have checked the cocoons as I walk by.

    completed wasp cocoon
    Completed wasp cocoon

    Two days later, the cocoon looked complete and a little more opaque.

    Developing wasp inside cocoon
    Developing wasp inside cocoon

    Eight days after I first saw the grub wriggling in the web I took a closer look and backlit the cocoon by moving one of twin lights behind it. I could see what appeared to be a developing wasp inside with the dark spot at the top being the head or eyes.

    Empty Wasp Cocoon
    Empty Wasp Cocoon showing exit hole chewed by wasp

    Today (on day 9 since the spider died) I stopped to look and saw the cocoon was empty. You can see the exit hole at the top where the adult wasp chewed its way out. I went to the other cocoon and it was also empty. But then I noticed something else…

    Parasitic Wasp captured by spider
    Parasitic wasp captured by another spider after emerging from cocoon

    A few inches above the cocoon was something wrapped in silk. It was a wasp caught by a different orb spider who happened to have a web just above the loose tangle made by the orb weaver that the wasp in its youthful grub stage had killed. Now the wasp had fallen prey to another spider just as it emerged from the cocoon. The complexities and interrelationships of nature just beyond (literally) our doorstep never ceases to amaze me. Take time to see what you can find outside – you may be astounded.

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