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| Field Trip Report: Night Bugs! at Fox Ridge State
Park July 24, 2004 Thirteen people participated
in our first annual Night Bugs! event Saturday night at Fox Ridge State
Park. Although the weather in the evening threatened to be cool and rainy,
we got lucky; the light rain stopped, the clouds kept in the heat and
the humidity was high -- all of which made for some great night bugging!
GPBC member and moth expert Terry Harrison did a wonderful job setting
up the lights and microscopes and amazing us with his knowledge of all
the moths that came into our lights. We had 8 light stations set
up total, although only a few of us stayed late enough to visit the three
lights that were at a nearby prairie area.
Highlights included countless beautiful small moths ("microleps"), patrolling harvestmen ("daddy longlegs"), burying beetles with mites, large fishflies, impressive wasps, a large sphinx moth (at the prairie site), tiny mayflies with huge eyes, and the world's largest mosquito (also at the prairie site). [In case you were wondering, we did not have any trouble with biting insects at all.] Below are some pictures of what we saw, but these pictures really don't capture the diversity of the insects that came in to the lights or do these beautiful animals justice, especially those with more subtle color patterns -- seeing these moths close up on the sheet or under a microscope was really striking. Thanks to Terry Harrison and the staff at Fox Ridge State Park (especially Craig Fiegenbaum) for making our event possible and such a success! *If anyone wants to provide more complete identification or corrections for any of the below insects, feel free to contact the club by email* |
Burying beetle with mites. These mites live in a symbiotic (mutually beneficial) relationship with the beetle. For more information, click here for a site on an endangered species of burying beetle and mites. |
Moth and crane fly (Shadow)
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Fishfly |
World's largest mosquito
(with thumb for scale) |
Scarlet winged lichen moth (Hypoprepia miniata) |
Waved sphinx moth (Ceratomia undulosa) |
Brown scoopwing moth (Calledapteryx dryopterata) on blacklight |
Common gray inchworm moth (Anavitrinella pampinaria) |
Deltoid noctuid moth (Bomolocha sp.) |
Crambid moth (Polygrammodes flavidalis) |
Painted lichen moth (left; Hypoprepia fucosa) and Dagger moth species (Acronicta sp.) |
Underwing moth (Noctuidae) |
Painted lichen moth (top) Eyed Baileya (Baileya ophthalmica) (middle) Dagger moth species (Acronicta sp.) (bottom) |
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