Tag Archives: pollen

Photo of the Week – August 23, 2013

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As we’ve been looking for bees lately, I’ve noticed the abundance of spotted cucumber beetles (Diabrotica undecimpunctata) in our prairies.  I’ve primarily noticed them because they are feeding on the pollen of flowers, and from a distance they look like a bee.  I can’t count the number of times I’ve crept up to a flower to see what kind of bee is on it, only to find that it’s just another cucumber beetle…

Spotted cucumber beetle on showy tick trefoil (Demodium canadensis)

Spotted cucumber beetle on showy tick trefoil (Demodium canadensis)

Spotted cucumber beetle has another name that will be very familiar to farmers – southern corn rootworm.  While it’s a native insect in North America, it has adapted very well to human agriculture and is now considered a pest in both crop fields (corn and other crops) and gardens (cucumbers and other cucurbits).  I’m hoping some of the readers of this blog can help me answer a couple questions I have about cucumber beetles.

1. Are spotted cucumber beetles more abundant in prairies now than historically because of the prevalence of nearby crop fields?

2. Do cucumber beetles have a significant impact on any particular prairie plant species or on the overall ecology of prairies?

As far as I know, cucumber beetles are just nicely adapting to human-dominated landscapes, and while I see a lot of them, their primary impact is that they keep fooling me into thinking they’re bees…

A Soldier Beetle Occupation

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Everywhere I look, I see soldier beetles.

They’re in my yard, they’re in my prairies, and now I think they’re getting into my head (figuratively speaking).  The linden tree in our front yard is blooming this week, and every flower is loaded with feeding and mating soldier beetles.  Over the weekend, my son and I went to our family’s prairie and it seemed there were soldier beetles on every plant! 

While soldier beetles are predators, they also feed heavily on pollen.  This one is feeding on sensitive briar – aka cat’s claw (Mimosa quadrivalvus) at our family prairie in Hamilton County, Nebraska.

Daniel and I were at the prairie to look for musk thistles (only found one) and check the cows (found them all).  After we accomplished those two objectives, I grabbed my camera to take advantage of the diffused light from the bright overcast skies and Daniel headed to the pond to chase frogs.  Dan didn’t catch any frogs, but I managed to get some decent shots.  Some of those photos included soldier beetles as the primary subject – they were easy to find.  Other photos included soldier beetles accidentally.  In a few cases, I didn’t even know the beetles were in the photo until I loaded the images onto the computer back at home.

While they are sometimes misidentified as lightning bugs, these are soldier beetles feeding on the pollen of a black-eyed Susan flower.  I photographed these on purpose…

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When I photographed this fly feeding on a daisy fleabane flower, I didn’t even see the soldier beetle in the background – though I shouldn’t be surprised it was there…

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These regal fritillary butterflies are out very early this year, and are fortunate that milkweed flowers are also out early. I was photographing the butterflies (including the variegated fritillary), but ended up with soldier beetles in the photo as well.

When I zoom in on the butterfly photo above, I can count five soldier beetles. Can you find them all?  One is particularly tricky to find because only the back half shows.  I think I see the leg of another, but I can’t tell for sure.  If you click on the photo and then click again, you’ll get a zoomed in image (if your computer works like mine).

If you want to learn more about soldier beetles – including how to differentiate them from lightning bugs – click here.

I wonder if they’ll chase away the moths…