Insect Appreciation: Some Beautiful Visitors and a New (to me) Species!

As most of my regular readers know, I have a strong interest in all life forms, bugs included.  Here's a round-up of a few of my more interesting recent visitors.

This is a round-headed apple borer (Saperda candida).  It is a super cool-looking striped beetle, but I am really not pleased to see it.

My little apples are coming along on my 4-in-1 apple tree.  I have some 1 akane, 2 honeycrisp and 3 liberty apples.  The chehalis branch didn't have any blossoms this year.  So I will be keeping an eye out on the apple tree to ensure that the larvae of this beetle do not cause problems.

This beauty is a great spangled fritillary butterfly (Speyeria cybele).  I was delighted to see it and it was very kind about posing for photographs.

It was enjoying some nectar from my foxglove blossoms.

The white-looking patches on the hindwing are actually metallic-silver looking in the sunlight.  It's a really gorgeous butterfly.

Here's a new bee species that I didn't know about before photographing it and learning about it.  It's called the European Wool Carder Bee (Anthidium manicatum) - a particularly appropriate bee to have in my yard, considering my fondness for wool.

The bee has been given this name because it harvests hairs from leaves, such as from lamb's ears or other hairy-leaved plants, for its nest.  It lays eggs into the hairy nest, and provides a supply of nectar and pollen, which the baby bees eat after hatching.  It's a European bee species that was introduced to Canada sometime in the mid-20th century.

Interestingly, the males of this species tend to display territorial behaviour with flowering plants.  They ward off males to ensure they can mate with females that come to the territory.  I observed this bee flying around my foxglove plants without actually settling anywhere, which seems consistent with its territorial behaviour.  It even chased away the butterfly I shared in the pictures above.

Finally, because I am a bit moth-crazy, here are a couple of recent beauties to visit my porch.  This is the double-banded carpet moth (Spargania magnoliata).

This is the blinded sphinx (Paonias excaecata).

And this is the fingered dagger moth (Acronicta dactylina).   I think its face looks a bit like an owl.