Story and Photos by Joan Herrmann

Whereiwander… today and most of this month are melancholy times for me. It is a time to say goodbye to so many of the flora and fauna that I appreciate seeing and or hearing daily. The hummingbirds have already left for their extremely long journey. Migratory birds are both flocking and flying as they journey southbound. I have been watching the gray, black, and red squirrels retrieving the black walnuts to add to their winter caches. Most of the rodents have been preparing throughout the summer and the term “busy as a beaver” applies to them all. Among those that I will miss most are the insects. The meadow and woods are now going to be the nursery for the billions of eggs and millions of adults that will spend the winter in a state of diapause. Diapause is the time of dormancy for insects, similar to hibernation for mammals.

Insects have always fascinated me, and throughout the spring, summer, and fall, before a hard frost, we may have the opportunity to see many different species and many of the different stages of a complete metamorphosis; this is the change through the stages of egg, larva, pupa, and adult. Butterflies, like all insects, have six legs, two sets of wings (forewings and hindwings), a head, thorax, abdomen, and a pair of antennae (antenna singular). Butterflies have clubbed antennae. Moths have feathery or fringed antennae.

Many of you may have had the experience of watching a monarch butterfly go through all these mysterious changes. In the early summer, when the adult monarch butterflies migrate to our area is a good time to observe the entire cycle. If you watch the female monarch as she approaches a milkweed plant, her host plant which is the plant on which she will lay her egg. She may lay the egg on common milkweed (Asclepias syriaca) or any other asclepias species, such as swamp milkweed (Asclepias incarnate), but only a milkweed plant. Milkweed contains all the nutrients that the larva (caterpillar) will need to survive and grow. Milkweed contains a toxic alkaloid known as a cardiac glycoside, which doesn’t harm the monarch caterpillar, but it makes the caterpillar toxic to a potential predator. She will only lay one egg per plant. The reason for this is that when the egg hatches, the larva will begin eating the leaf on which it has been laid. When the butterfly approaches the milkweed plant, she will “taste” it with her tarsi (claw) on her foot before she lays an egg. The tarsus contains the chemoreceptor for both taste and smell.

The larva is quite small when it eats its way out of the egg, but within just a few weeks’ time, it will have consumed the entire plant. As it eats, it grows, and as it grows, it will go through several instars. An instar is the shedding of its skin. Just like children quickly outgrow their clothes, a caterpillar will outgrow its skin. It will go through five instars before it is ready to begin its next stage, which for a butterfly is called a pupa or chrysalis. The caterpillar will spin a “silk button” on either the milkweed plant or a convenient twig or spot nearby. It will hang from the silk until it sheds its last skin. Under that last skin is the chrysalis. It will now begin to shrink in size and harden up. It may look like a “pale green jelly bean” with golden dots and a golden ring around the top. The last stage before the adult emerges depends on the weather. The warmer it is, the sooner this will occur. The color of the chrysalis changes from green to clear, and you will be able to see the adult through the now clear chrysalis. It will take a while for the adult to break through the chrysalis, and it will need time to pump the hemolymph (insect blood) from its abdomen into its wings. It is a truly miraculous event to watch.

Moth species outnumber butterflies by as much as twenty percent. Moth larvae are sometimes confused with butterfly larvae, and many have the same host plants. The milkweed Tussock Moth (Euchaetes egle) is another insect that lays her eggs on milkweed, and when these fifty-plus eggs hatch, they are communal feeders. As they begin eating as a group, they consume everything in their path, which may even include a monarch butterfly egg or the tiny newly emerged larva. They eat until they have skeletonized the entire leaf, leaving only the veins. Their appearance changes as they go through their instar moltings. They begin to look like tiny black and orange “shaggy dogs.” This coloring, like that of the monarch butterfly, signals predators that they are toxic too. The Viceroy Butterfly (Limenitis archippus) is a monarch mimic in coloring and is not toxic, but its hue provides the same warning.

This time of the year is when we begin to see moth caterpillars, especially the well-known wooly bear caterpillar, which is the larva of the Isabella Tiger Moth (Pyrrharctia Isabella). This caterpillar will spend the winter not in a cocoon but curled up under a log or in leaf litter until early spring. After it emerges from its winter sleep, it will begin to eat voraciously and then pupate inside a cocoon made up of its hairs and silk. The adult moth will eventfully emerge to complete this metamorphosis. The Isabella Tiger Moth caterpillar, known as the wooly bear, will go through six instars (molting or shedding). The one that we see in the fall has a greater percentage of the brown segment than it would in the spring. Even though wooly bears can endure subfreezing temperatures, protection from the elements is still essential. It is fun to believe that they have the ability to predict winter duration, but it is probably just an “old wives’ tale”. Some interesting true facts about wooly bears are that they eat a variety of plants, which include dandelions, grass, and nettle. A wooly bear is capable of traveling about four feet per minute. And that even though they look cute or cuddly, handling them is not advisable. They are not soft and, in fact, have hairs (setae) that can lodge in your hand, and if you rub your eye, they may become lodged in your eye.

Look, but don’t touch is a much safer option.

I highly recommend using field guides when you are trying to identify different species of insects. Also, learning about the different host plants that the female will lay her egg on of each species will help greatly in finding or identifying most insects.

Joan Herrmann has taught and done programs for Schools, Garden Clubs, Libraries, and Nature Centers for about 38 years as a Professional Nature Photographer, Naturalist, and Outdoor Educator. After moving from the Rochester area in 1995, she began her Photography business, Essence of Nature, and became a co-owner of The Artworks in Old Forge, New York. As a docent at Munson, Williams, Proctor Arts Institute in Utica, New York, she has been educating children and adults for nineteen years.

In 2007, she began working with the Black River Outdoor Educational Program (BROEP). In 2013 and 2014, she did a week-long summer program at BROEP with Mohawk Valley Community College (MVCC).

Using her love of nature and photography, she created a Flora/Fauna outdoor educational program teaching students (ages 6 to 14) the joys of nature and creative photography skills.

Joan’s love of nature has been a lifelong study of Birds, Wildflowers, Mosses, Ferns, Trees, Amphibians, Reptiles, Grasses, Insects, Spiders, Tracks, Scat, and Galls. She has assisted in cataloging all trails used by the hiking Coaches and photographed and identified seasonal Flora.

Since October 2016, she has written a bi-monthly nature column with Adirondack Express Newspaper. In October 2019, she began a bi-monthly column with the My Little Falls newspaper. You may reach her at jmhphoto8442@gmail.com.