Carnivorous Encounters
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You walk through the savannah looking for the trumpets of pitcher plants that are poking through the grasses. You peer into each pitcher’s trumpet with the expectation of finding a pitcher plant caterpillar or moth (Exyra sp.) that lives in the trumpet of the pitcher plant.
More often, you only see caracasses of other insects that have fallen to the base of the trumpet. During love bug season, the trumpets can be filled to the brim! After a doomed insect slides down the slippery side of the trumpet, it cannot escape and dies. Its carcass is “digested” by the carnivorous plant.
This praying mantis was our reward for investigating the savannah. Perched atop the trumpet of a Yellow Pitcherplant (Sarracenia flava), she was waiting patiently for her next meal. The pitcher plant provided her a high vantage point to use her very keen eyesight to spot approaching prey. The praying mantis may spend hours perched motionless waiting for a chance to grab an unsuspecting insect between her powerful front legs.
The praying mantis (Stagmomantis carolina) is quite common from Virginia to Florida in the autumn. Look for this insect in the upper clusters of flowers, especially those in the aster family. The flowers attract butterflies and other insects that feed on the flowers’ nectar.
Field Guides to Butterflies and Moths
Butterfly Gardening: Creating Summer Magic in Your Garden. Sierra Club Books. 192 pp.
Brewer, Jo. Butterflies. Harry N. Abrams, Inc.
Covell, Jr., Charles V. A Field Guide to the Moths of Eastern North America. Houghton Mifflin Company.
Harris, L. Butterflies of Georgia, 1st ed. University of Oklahoma Press.
Holland, W. J. The Moth Book. Doubleday, Page and Co.
Holland, W. J. The Butterfly Book. Garden City Press.
Holland, W. J. The Moth Book: A Popular Guide to a Knowledge of the Moths of North America. Volume Five. Doubleday, Page and Co.
Klots, Alexander B. A Field Guide to the Butterflies of North American, East of the Great Plains. Houghton Mifflin Co.
Mitchell, Robert T., and Herbert S. Zim. Butterflies and Moths: A Guide to the More Common American Species. Golden Press.
Mudd, Maria M. The Butterfly. Stewart, Tabori, and Chang, Inc.
Opler, Paul A. A Field Guide to Eastern Butterflies. Peterson Field Guide. Houghton Mifflin Company. 396 pp.
Opler, Paul A. Peterson First Guide to Butterflies and Moths. Peterson Field Guide. Houghton Mifflin Company. 128 pp.
Pyle, Robert Michael. The Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Butterflies. Audubon Field Guide. Alfred A. Knopf. 924 pp.
In Pursuit of the Six-spotted Tiger Beetle
My wife Marcia and I were hiking at Torreya State Park near the Apalachicola River when I saw bright glints of green in bare patches of dirt on the trail. Upon closer examination, I saw that they were Six-spotted Tiger Beetles (Cicindela sexguttata).
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As always, I had my camera with me and I set out to photograph this beautiful metallic green beetle. Unfortunately for me, the beetles had no interest in posing for a portrait. On my knees, I would follow a likely beetle, prepare to focus, and then, just as I would get ready to click the shutter, the uncooperative insect would spurt off on a short flight before landing again at a distance just out of range of the lens. I would faithfully follow the beetle to its new landing site to try again. Of course, every time I almost reached the landing zone, off would go the beetle on its next flight. The flights were interspersed with short sprints as it searched for its prey which includes small insects and spiders.
This predatory behavior is not photographer-friendly! The tiger beetles were oblivious to me during the next forty-five minutes as I pursued them on my knees before finally getting an acceptable photo.
I had just discovered one of the characeristics of this tiger beetle species: touch-and-go landings. If you’re not familiar with this term, it refers to pilots who must make a certain number of takeoffs and landings to keep qualified for flying. They do this by briefly touching wheels down on the runway in their final approach and landing, and without slowing down, immediately take off again to repeat the process multiple times.
It turns out that the Six-spotted Tiger Beetle looks for motion and runs at breakneck speed toward the prey. It runs so fast that it can’t see the prey until it stops again. If the prey is within reach, the beetle grabs it with its jaws. Otherwise, the beetle will repeat the “touch-and-go” procedure until it succeeds.
The Six-spotted Tiger Beetle is found in shaded hardwood forests. It is one of Florida’s twenty-nine species and subspecies. There are 223 species and subspecies in North America. If you are interested in identifying tiger beetles, there are several field guides available. If budget is a concern, I suggest the paperback A Field Guide to the Tiger Beetles of the United States and Canada by David L. Pearson, C. Barry Knisley, and Charles J. Kazilek, 2006, Oxford University Press.
Insect Books
Barnard, Edward L., and Wayne N. Dixon. Insects and Diseases: Important Problems of Florida’s Forest and Shade Tree Resources. Florida Dept. of Agriculture and Consumer Services, Division of Forestry.
Bates, Marston. The Natural History of Mosquitoes. Harper and Row.
Borror, Donald J., and Richard E. White. A Field Guide to the Insects of America North of Mexico. Houghton Mifflin Company.
Chellman, Charlesw W. Pests and Problems of South Florida: Trees and Palms. Florida Dept. of Agriculture and Consumer Services. Read more
The Praying Mantis and the Gulf Fritillary
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We were walking along a trail with our friends and had stopped to admire a nice batch of pickerelweed that was growing in the water near a small wooden bridge on a trail. We were enjoying and photographing the many butterflies that were nectaring on the pickerelweed. Then I looked down into the water and say many butterfly wings floating on its surface. I knew then that a praying mantis had to be nearby.
In fact, she was directly above the floating wings on a pickerelweed, lying in wait for her next butterfly meal. This praying mantis had lost part of one of her forelimbs, but the abundance of buterfly wings showed that it did not seem to greatly impair her hunting skills.
Several Gulf Fritillaries and sulphur butterflies landed on her pickerelweed, but either sensed danger and left or were just lucky and escaped with their lives. But finally the praying mantis’ arms reached out and snagged an unwary Gulf Fritillary. We watched for over half an hour as she consumed every butterfly morsel except for the scaly wings which fell off as she finished her meal.
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