Tag: caterpillar

85/150: Common Milkweed is bitter and milky, perfect for the Monarch Butterfly

Posted on by Andrea Dobrescu
Plantae: Spermatophyta: Angiospermae: Dicotyledonae: Gentianales: Asclepiadaceae: Asclepias: Asclepias syriaca (Blanco, 1837)

Asclepias syriaca or Common Milkweed is native to eastern North America and receives its name from the milky sap excreted from the stem and leaves when damaged. This full sun, drought tolerant plant blooms in early to mid-summer attracting a variety of insects including bumblebees, monarch butterflies and hummingbird moths. Continue reading “85/150: Common Milkweed is bitter and milky, perfect for the Monarch Butterfly” →

61/150: Some caterpillars love to eat insects!

Posted on by Lauren Stitt
animalia: Arthropoda: Insecta: Lepidoptera: Lycaenidae: Miletinae: Feniseca: Feniseca tarquinius (Fabricius, 1793)

When thinking of a typical caterpillar, you may picture one happily munching away on leaves. Not all caterpillars, however, feed on plants. The caterpillars of the harvester butterfly (Feniseca tarquinius) are actually insectivorous, meaning they feed on insects. Continue reading “61/150: Some caterpillars love to eat insects!” →

14/150: Woolly Bear Caterpillars Surviving Winter

Posted on by Jayme Sones
Animalia: Arthropoda: Insecta: Lepidoptera: Lymantriidae: Gynaephora: Gynaephora groenlandica (Homeyer., 1874)

Tired of winter? Get some tips on winter survival from the Arctic Woolly Bear caterpillar (Gynaephora groenlandica). Did you know this caterpillar lives up to 7 (some suggest 14) years before pupating into a moth? Continue reading “14/150: Woolly Bear Caterpillars Surviving Winter” →

rare Arthropods

Posted on by Nate Jones

Hello everyone, this past week at BIO, among many other things going on, we finished our standardized sampling at rare Charitable Research Reserve. This was our second sampling event since we had previously sampled the same sites at rare in the late spring. Continue reading “rare Arthropods” →

Sweeping Into Action

Posted on by Nate Jones

This week we deployed a sampling team of 5 to set up 3 sites for standardized sampling at rare Charitable Research Reserve in Cambridge. Four colleagues and I set out early Monday morning to get started on our days’ work. I was eager to get back out to the field and set up some traps. For a few of our crew members it was their first time preparing the array of traps for our standardized sampling. Continue reading “Sweeping Into Action” →

Heating up the Hot Springs

Posted on by Beverly McClenaghan

Kootenay National Park is a long, thin park with the highway running down the middle through a large valley and with mountains rising up on either side. The valley is made up of coniferous forest and it is very susceptible to forest fires. Following the highway up through the park, you pass through an old, forested area and then suddenly you pass into a huge burnt area full of dead trees from the highway right up to the treeline on the mountains on both sides. Continue reading “Heating up the Hot Springs” →