The Urban Pantheist

A little green fleck of life, this planthopper, Acanalonia conica*, has no common name. It plainly goes about its business, hop-flying from plant to plant. Bugguide says it is "polyphagous," but can't that be said about any of us? This species is found across the eastern United States, and apparently stowed away in someone's luggage on a trip to Italy, as it is now causing some alarm there. As an alien species that is happy to eat everything from elm to grapes and beyond, it may well turn into an agricultural pest.



*Greek konikos 'conic' (refers to the pointed head)

I like to joke that this animal's natural habitat is the window screen. The mundane truth is that they get themselves inside through small cracks to hide from the cold, then try to exit through the bright light of a solid window or screen. This creature's actual natural habitat is the conifer forests of western North America--so what the hell is it doing in Boston?


For whatever reason, the western conifer seed bug Leptoglossis occidentalis* spent the 20th century drifting across to the east coast. For at least ten or fifteen years I've been telling people about it. It catches people's attention because it suddenly appears inside, or they see it flying around in a dismayingly wasplike manner, or they notice that it produces a defensive odor. I personally like the odor, finding it close to sour apple smell--it actually contains compounds that are synthesized by the food industry for flavorings. In all other ways the WCSB is utterly harmless, not biting nor causing agricultural damage. A relative newcomer that still sometimes surprises.


*Thin-tongued westerner

Little brown jobs--naturalist talk for smallish, dull-colored, hard to identify organisms--often have no common name. The fact that this one has even the lackluster name of "brown stink bug," means that it has some reason to draw attention to itself. That reason is economic damage. This unassuming insect combines a broad appetite with an impressive reproductive capacity. The result is that Euschistus servus* is known to people who make money from growing food plants, because it ruins them. Besides "catfacing" peaches and putting spots on pecans, brown stink bugs also "may damage soybean, corn, cotton, alfalfa, sorghum, ... and tobacco." This one was probably helping itself to our raspberries. I fed it to the chickens.

* "Euschistus"= New Latin, from Greek euschistos easy to split, from eu- + schistos split, divided. I assume this is a taxonomy joke, about the reassignment of the genus and splitting of species, but that's just a guess. "Servus" literally means "At your service!" but has the sense of "slave."

This beautiful youngster is a stinkbug in the family Asopinae.* This family differs from all the others in that it is a predator. Most Asopines attack small soft-bodied creatures like aphids or caterpillars. Others attack their cousins, the plant-sucking stink bugs. Predatory stink bugs have been used for biocontrol in gardens and crops for this reason. This nymph has yet to grow wings, and my photo was sent to the bugguide file "Not Yet Identified Nymphs."


* from the Genus Asopus, from a Greek river god of the same name.

I thought having a pair in flagrante delicto was supposed to help you identify them?? Alas, even my facebook experts are stumped on these opposite-facing lovers, and the picture isn't good enough to subject it to bugguide.net's scrutiny. All we can say for sure is Order hemiptera.

The treehopper Entylia carinata lives on herbaceous weeds--this one appears to have laid eggs in the midrib of the leaf of one of our sunflowers.

This past Saturday I went to Dedham Trail Day. There were tables from local businesses and organizations (free pulled pork and ice cream!) and a friendly atmosphere. But the main reason I went was because my friend dedhamoutdoors was going to lead a nature walk on a newly opened trail!
As I waited for the nature walk to start, I walked along the milkweed looking for creatures. I found several longlegged flies, but they move so quick that the only way to catch one was to get this shot of its shadow from below.

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Some zookeepers were passing through one of their exhibit gates only to discover their skin and clothes stained by some purple substance. There were also a lot of flies and yellow jackets flying around. Finally someone noticed the aphids.


A lot of aphids. The purple staining came from the crushed bodies of hundreds of aphids. Since aphids normally spend nearly their whole lives on their host plant, this behavior is a little strange. My best guess is that they overpopulated their host plant and dispersed out of necessity. Above this gate is one of many Austrees in a row. An Austree is a ornamental willow hybrid developed for use as a windbreak--it grows straight and very fast. Researching willow aphids, I found that they feed on second year growth; there would only be so much of this kind of growth on each tree.


Most aphids are wingless, but some are born with wings, allowing them to fly to new host plants to establish new colonies.

Aphids famously produce a waste material called honeydew, which other insects use as a food source. Ants are usually the ones you think of accompanying aphids, but in my experience yellow jackets are drawn to aphids in the fall, when the yellow jackets are desperate for a source of liquid food. (Yellow jacket adults can't feed on solid food, so they feed their larvae solid food and the larvae regurgitate a liquid the adults can eat. In the fall, the queen stops producing new larvae and the workers must find liquid sugar on their own, thus the misery they cause to late summer soda drinkers and ice cream eaters.)

Looking on bugguide, it's clear that these are genus Pterocomma, large aphids that feed on willow or poplar. They most closely resemble, in appearance and behavior, other aphids on bugguide not identified to species, but named "halloween aphids" by one user. Their coloration plus their sudden appearance in October justifies this common name to me. I hope some aphid expert identifies them to species (and keeps the name "halloween aphid.")

This robber fly has rounded himself (herself maybe) up a thorn-mimic treehopper. They're probably sweet and delicious.


On the underside of a nearby sunflower leaf, some unidentified treehopper nymphs group together waiting for ants to tend and guard them. Am I right? Lumpy and homely. But kind of cute.

Treehopper Entylia carinata

This species of treehopper is one of about 3500 in the family Membracidae. All of them are little drinkers of plant juice, camouflaged to look like a bump or thorn on vegetation. E. carinata can be light tan to almost black, but the little round cut out notch is a consistent feature. They are frequently tended by ants, who lap up their nutritious waste products. Sometimes they are found surrounded by their wingless nymphs, which are homely, lumpy babies. (picture post of related unidentified species to follow)