Category Archives: Meet the bugs

Get your own special release Nevada Bee-Shirt!

Nevada is home to over 1000 species of native bees that are important pollinators of both wildflowers and many food crops. They come in all shapes and sizes, and they can be found in a wide variety of habitats. Despite being so important, bees are often misunderstood and many populations are in decline.

In order to celebrate these amazing creatures, we’ve created this special release t-shirt that highlights the incredible diversity in color, shape, and size of these amazing invertebrates. Designed by our wonderful and talented board member Angela Hornsby, these shirts are a great way to educate others about the importance and diversity of native bees and highlight your support for the tiny pollinators that work hard every day to help create a healthy ecosystem. Nevada Bugs and Butterflies is proud to support quality science education about native biodiversity in our area, and we provide pollinator education throughout the year. Proceeds from this sale will go directly towards our various educational programs, including workshops, talks, and take-home activities at our seasonal science center, like making your own native bee habitat!

Shirts are shipped directly to your address, order yours online today!

nevada bee shirt

Note that these American Apparel shirts run small- order a size up!

nevada bee shirt ladies

Note that these American Apparel shirts run small- order two sizes up!

Native Bee Talk by professor and author Joseph Wilson on May 12th

We are very excited to announce the next activity in our spring lineup, a talk by professor and author Joseph Wilson titled “Get to know the bees in your backyard.”

Bees are arguably one of the most important insect groups on the planet, but despite their importance they are remarkably misunderstood.  For example, it is commonly thought that the U.S. and Canada are home to just a handful of bumble bees, sweat bees, and honey bees.  In fact, there are over 4,000 species of bees native to the North America! This talk aims to dispel the common myths of bees, and will provide engaging accounts of the bees encountered in this region of the world, with clues for telling these stunning creatures apart.

Dr. Wilson is an assistant professor of biology at Utah State University Tooele and author of the newly published book The bees in your backyard: A guide to North America’s bees. Copies of the book will be for sale and Dr. Wilson will be signing books following the talk.

This free talk will be held on Thursday, May 12th at 6:30 pm at the Wilbur D. May Museum (inside Rancho San Rafael Park in Reno). The talk is co-sponsored by Nevada Bugs and the UNR Museum of Natural History. It’s sure to be a great time, packed with information and beautiful pictures, and we hope many of you will join us! Send us an email if you have any questions.

Joe's book is also available for purchase from Amazon

Joe’s book is also available for purchase from Amazon

Winter life for the insects

As we all enjoy some much-needed snow (and warm days in between!) this winter, one of the most common questions we get is about how insects survive the winter. And, as with other parts of insect biology, there are a wide variety of strategies. Using butterflies as examples, each species has its own strategy to survive from one fall to the next spring, or a way to ‘overwinter.’ Check out the pictures below to see how some Nevada butterflies overwinter!

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One of the most famous strategies is migration to warmer locations, just like birds. The monarch migrates in the fall from northern latitudes to specific locations in central Mexico, southern Arizona, or coastal California, with the same individuals flying north again in the spring.

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Painted ladies may overwinter in warmer areas as well, with populations reproducing all year long in warm climates and some individuals moving north each spring.

 

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Buckeyes are similar to painted ladies; they may re-colonize the same area over and over as it warms up from spring into summer, sometimes returning in huge numbers.

 

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The Melissa blue overwinters as an egg. In late summer, the adult Melissa blue will lay an egg on its hostplant (the plant required by caterpillars to survive), lupines or milk-vetches, and the egg will wait to hatch until the following spring when the plant begins to grow again. When the caterpillar emerges, it will be ready to eat!

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The common ringlet overwinters as a caterpillar. Often the caterpillars will roll up inside dead leaves, or tuck in tightly at the base of their hostplant (for the common ringlet that is native grasses), and come out of hibernation when the warm weather returns.

 

FREE native plant course– attract pollinators to your yard!

Update: We’ve filled our course! Thanks for all those who are interested. Given the number of requests we received, we will almost certainly offer another course later in the year, so keep an eye out as the season progresses.

We are proud to announce a free native plant course taking place out at our butterfly house on May 17th 1-4pm, created as a partnership between Nevada Bugs, the US Fish & Wildlife Schoolyard Habitat program, and RT Permaculture. The topic of this course will be using plants native to Nevada to attract the many different types of beneficial insects that are in our area. Topics will include plant choice and planting techniques that will maximize your site’s usefulness to native insects, an introduction to native insect identification and conservation, and a special highlight on monarch butterfly conservation. Our site owner, Neil, will also lead a tour of his 1-acre permaculture garden, which has many great examples of how to use native plants to attract beneficial insects. In addition, you’ll go home with a set of native plants to plant at your home– for free!

Native insects have several important functions for natural areas and your own back yard– pollination of many crops, control of pest insects, and nutrient cycling to name a few. Many native insect species, like our native bumblebees, are threatened by habitat loss as well as habitat fragmentation, where each habitat patch becomes smaller and less connected to other patches. Increasing pollinator-friendly plants and creating habitat for insects are the best ways to conserve the native species that help make our landscape productive, diverse, and unique. Native plants will also use less water, remain hardier, and be more pest and disease-resistant than many nonnative plants.

The course size is limited, so email Kevin to reserve your spot and help make a difference in conserving our native plants and pollinators! pollinator plant wksp flier

Move viewing- Microcosmos- November 18th

Come join us for a beautiful, artistic look at insects! We’ll be visiting our friends at Artemisia MovieHouse, Reno’s alternative for independent, foreign, and classic films, as they show the 1996 French art documentary Microcosmos! This film is a fascinating and beautiful look at insect life using extreme close-ups, slow-motion and time-lapse photography. The film is a winner of 9 awards including Technical Grand Prize at Cannes. The film will be shown Tuesday, November 18th @ 7pm, at the Good Luck MacBeth theatre, 713 S. Virginia St. Admission is $7/$5 for Artemisia members, bicyclists, and students. We’ll have our bugs to hang out with and hold after the show. Hope to see lots of people there!

Directed by Claude Nuridsany and Marie Pérennou

Directed by Claude Nuridsany and Marie Pérennou

Arizona Conference Highlights

Wow, what a rush! We just got back from our conference in Rio Rico, Arizona (the Invertebrates in Education and Captivity Conference) on Monday, and we were back at the butterfly house today. (As a side note, the butterfly house is looking GREAT, with lots of butterflies and the garden is in full bloom and berry harvest.) We had an amazing time, and met many great people in the captive rearing/educational invertebrate profession. This includes animal keepers and managers of zoos, butterfly houses, and natural history museums; as well as population biologists raising and studying endangered species; education researchers; and myriad others, like National Parks Service employees and wildlife photographers.

We started right off with catching bugs, on an all day adventure titled the Swing-n-Sweat! Starting in typical Sonoran Desert mesequite/acacia/cholla cactus habitat, we found large cactus longhorn beetles. We traveled around the Coronado National Forest, spotting giant water bugs, pipevine swallowtails, stag beetles, and tarantula hawks, among many others.

In the desert looking for cactus longhorn beetles

In the desert looking for cactus longhorn beetles

Cactus longhorn beetle, Monoeilema gigas

Cactus longhorn beetle, Monoeilema gigas

Female stag beetle that was hiding in a rotting log- prime beetle habitat

Female stag beetle that was hiding in a rotting log- prime beetle habitat

These tiger beetles were flying all over the banks of a small pool

These tiger beetles were flying all over the banks of a small pool

 

The next morning consisted of some great talks about citizen science projects being done around the country, like Bumble Boosters; followed by another afternoon and evening of bug hunting! This trip revealed new treasures like an 8-inch long red-headed centipede Scolopendra heros, and this 7-inch wide poplar sphinx moth that we attracted with a blacklight. There be big bugs in the desert! The monsoons made for amazing light and a wonderful rainstorm, cooling off the 105+ degree temps.

Scenery from the second day's trip

Scenery from the second day’s trip

Another stop on the second day was not only pretty but also had...

Another stop on the second day was not only pretty but also had…

Scolopendra heros, the giant red-headed centipede. Packs a very painful venom, so stand back!

Scolopendra heros, the giant red-headed centipede. Packs a very painful venom, so stand back!

It was gorgeous!

It was gorgeous!

Scorpions do in fact glow under UV light

Scorpions do in fact glow under UV light

Poplar moth, Pachysphinx modesta, a large and beautiful moth

Poplar moth, Pachysphinx modesta, a large and beautiful lepidopteran of the night

We attended a great workshop about making exhibit displays, listened to talks from fellow educators who run outreach programs, and Kevin gave a talk introducing Nevada Bugs and Butterflies and what makes us special to the group. The conference ended with a banquet and dancing amidst an astounding lightning storm outside the hotel. We left with our heads full of new ideas for displays, new techniques for keeping our insects happy, and new friends. Finally, we stopped by the Arizona Sonoran Desert Museum outside Tucson, for some final inspiration with place-based, desert biodiversity education. It is an amazing museum and if you are in the Tucson area you should save a morning in your schedule to walk through beautiful gardens. Thanks to all who made this such a great conference and we look forward to coming back next year!

Flowers at sunset

Flowers at sunset

View from the Sonoran Desert Museum

View from the Sonoran Desert Museum

The Sonoran desert region is not that dissimilar from our Great Basin; just hotter. And actually wetter- Reno gets 7.5 inches of rain per year for comparison. The monsoons give enough water to support amazing (if seasonal) plant and animal diversity in the desert.

The Sonoran desert region is not that dissimilar from our Great Basin; just hotter. And actually wetter- Reno gets 7.5 inches of rain per year for comparison. The monsoons give enough water to support amazing (if seasonal) plant and animal diversity in the desert.

We'll miss you Arizona!

We’ll miss you Arizona!

 

Pollinator week continues

Hi everyone! We had an amazing opening day today, with 32 people coming to see the butterfly house. We had such a great time meeting new parents and kids, and planting some anise hyssop seedlings too! We will be open tomorrow (Friday) and Saturday, 10-3, as usual, and we are continuing National Pollinator Week activities with the Great Basin Community Food Co-Op Friday from 6-8 including discussion with Dr. Anne Leonard from UNR. Details below, hope to see you at the butterfly house and the co-op tomorrow!

Pollinators are responsible for creating 1/3 of the food consumed by humans every day!

Pollinators are responsible for creating 1/3 of the food consumed by humans every day!

Meet the Bugs: Milbert’s tortoiseshell

It’s prime time for raising butterflies here at Nevada Bugs; we’re getting ready for our opening day on June 19, and that means we need caterpillars, and fast! One species we’re raising now that you’ll be able to meet on opening day is the Milbert’s tortoiseshell (Aglais milberti), a beautiful brushfoot butterfly with a 2 – 2 1/2 inch wingspan. They are a fairly common species in riparian areas, marshes, trails, and occasionally roadsides, and range broadly across Canada and the western United States.

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Milbert’s tortoiseshell. Picture from Butterflies and Moths of North America

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Milberts’ caterpillars on stinging nettle (needles visible in background)

As with many butterflies, Milberts’ caterpillars can eat only a couple plant species, and in this case the most common local host plant is stinging nettle, Urtica dioica. This species is infamous for the painful sensation it leaves if you carelessly brush against it in the woods, and this is likely a good defense against small mammalian predators. We’ve learned to wear gloves when handling these plants!

Despite the drawback of handling nettle, these butterflies are a fun species to rear as caterpillars due to their somewhat unusual feeding behavior. As young larvae, until around the fourth instar, or molt, they feed in large groups, often covered in webbing to protect themselves and completely devouring a plant before moving on. Even as they age, they continue to congregate in groups, though they can form silk nests individually in the wild. They then leave the plant and wander off to find a safe place to hide and pupate, where they stay as a beautiful brown-green chrysalis with a copper sheen.

Caterpillars everywhere!

Caterpillars everywhere!

Milberts' chrysalis.

Milberts’ chrysalis. The Greek word chrysos means “gold.”

Milberts’ have a rapid development time, going from newly hatched to pupa in under 3 weeks. However, after pupation they are a fairly long-lived species, often living over a month. They exhibit two flight generations per year and will be active as adults until perhaps early October, when they’ll overwinter as adults. Be sure to see these beauties on our opening weekend!

 

Join us at the Discovery Museum March 22 & 23

We’ll be at the Terry Lee Wells Discovery Museum Saturday and Sunday, March 22nd and 23rd from 12pm-2m! We’ll have lots of different live insects to hold and observe, including the beetles and velvet ants we’ve featured on the site here in recent weeks. Come get up close and personal with some of our cool bugs, even get a look at some cute baby buckeye caterpillars under the microscope. Hope to see you there!

Come see our cute millipedes!

Come see our cute millipedes!

 

Meet our bugs- velvet ants!

For this week’s installment of the “meet our bugs” series, we’re profiling a fascinating example of Great Basin biodiversity, our velvet ants. Despite their name, these cuties are actually wasps (Hymenoptera) in the family Mutillidae. Velvet ants are all solitary species, unlike many of the un-friendly wasps you might be more familiar with. Species of these wasps are found all over North America, though they are especially diverse in the arid West, and you can sometimes find them if you are hiking in undisturbed habitat. One feature almost all species share is the presence of aposematic coloration, or bright coloring that is meant to convey danger to potential predators. In the case of velvet ants, females are armed with a powerful sting, one of the most painful in North America! However, they are not aggressive and very rarely sting if unprovoked. As shown in the picture, many species in a given area will mimic each other to increase the protective ability of their coloration, a process known as Mullerian mimicry. So, it can be hard to identify individuals as different species; we do know that our wasps are all in the genus Dasymutilla.

Velvet ant in our display

Velvet ant in our display. Cotton ball is soaked in nectar solution.

Figure of Dasymutilla diversity in North America, along with associated mimicry rings (figure from Wilson et al. 2012).

Figure of Dasymutilla diversity in North America, along with associated mimicry rings (figure from Wilson et al. 2012). You can read more at the website of Joe Wilson at Utah State University Tooele.

Velvet ants have a number of interesting biological features. Males and females are extremely sexually dimorphic, meaning the sexes look very different. Sometimes, males and females of the same species don’t even share the same color pattern, making it hard to tell which species is which. In addition, females are all wingless (thus, all of ours are females), and are also the sex with a stinger; males fly and are harmless. One other characteristic of velvet ants is an extremely tough exoskeleton, which comes in handy for their lifestyle. Velvet ants share an unusual reproductive strategy in that they are ectoparasitoids of other solitary hymenoptera. A female velvet ant will locate the burrow of a solitary ground-nesting bee or wasp that contains a developing larva, invade the nest (often to the dismay of the host), and lay an egg next to the larva. The velvet ant egg will hatch into its own larva and proceed to kill the developing host, devouring it and/or any prey items in the burrow. However, once the velvet ant metamorphoses into an adult, the wasp will be a nectar feeder, visiting flowers during the morning and evening, making these species important pollinators of arid regions. Adult velvet ants can live for one to a few years, relatively long lived for wasps. Below are a couple short videos that demonstrate the nectaring behavior of velvet ants (the white ball is a cotton ball soaked in nectar solution).

Velvet ant drinking

Velvet ant drinking

In addition to the mimicry of velvet ant species to each other, other types of insects that may not be as well defended also mimic velvet ants to try and gain protection via association, a process called Batesian mimicry. These species include spiders, beetles, and antlion larvae. In fact, the spider mimic below was found right at the butterfly house, and we have seen velvet ants on the site as well. The unusual biology and ecology of these organisms, along with their diversity in the Great Basin, make them great species to exhibit at our butterfly house and outreach events.

Jumping spider velvet ant mimic

Spider velvet ant mimic

 

Up close and personal. Big eyes are essential for a hunting lifestyle.

Up close and personal. Big eyes are essential for a hunting lifestyle.

Spider mimic dorsal view

Spider mimic dorsal view

Velvet ant dorsal view