Insect Finds of the Week

Look at this giant swallowtail, yes that's its common name because it is pretty large.

The Latin name is Papilio cresphontes. It is slightly larger than many of the other butterflies around here like the tiger swallowtail.

The giant swallowtail was focused on this leaf for some reason. I wondered what it was doing while I was taking pictures. Usually they are on flowers not leaves.

Now that I processed the photos I can see it is laying eggs inside the leaves. I wonder if the larvae will hatch this year or next year... Time for a bit of research.

In contrast here is a tiger swallowtail (Papilio glaucus). You can see the tiger stripes on its wings and the slightly smaller tails on each wing.

I also saw a monarch feasting on these stinky flowers.

Here is a little wasp on a different type of stinky flower.

By mistake I caught a crab spider in one of the photos. The wasp above had flown away and I thought I got just a twisted looking flower. Now I can see the crab spider has bent the leaves around itself as a disguise for catching anything that lands on the flower.

Here is an Ebony Jewelwing with a Latin name of Calopteryx maculata. These guys are helpful in reducing the mosquito population.

The skippers are out finally. I'm not sure of which kind of skipper this is as there are many species of them around here. My best guess is fiery skipper (Hylephila phyleus).

Finally I saw a young fishing spider about half its full grown size. Its sitting on an ancient rotted dryad's saddle. These guys are fun to catch when full size, they are quite friendly similar to a tarantula.