INSECTS have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body mad up of a head, thorax, and abdomen. They have three pairs of jointed legs, compound eyes, and two antennae. Insects are among the most diverse groups of animals on the planet, with more than a million described species. Insects represent more than half of all known living organisms.
HAG MOTH Phobetron pithecium
The caterpiller of the Hag Moth is called a Monkey Slug. It is distinctive, with six pairs of curly projections, three long and three short from a flattened body, each densely covered in short, brown hairs. These appendages are not used for movement; the caterpillar's real legs are found under the body. The hag moth is a general feeder and is commonly found on shade trees and ornamental shrubs.
WOOLY BEARS & TIGER MOTHS Pyrrharctia isabella
They are native, they are our neighbors, just not as big and glamorous as some. They are colorful, exciting, active, adapted to life in the Berkshires. These are our very own tiger moths and woolly bears.
PIEBALD WASP Dolichovespula maculata
Who takes advantage of the cover of shade trees, up high? Our “bald-faced hornets*,” with their remarkable sculptural paper nests. They often build these way up there, hidden by leaves and safe from predators.
DARK FISHING SPIDER Dolomedes tenebrosus
Dark Fishing Spiders are also known as fishing spiders, raft spiders, dock spiders or wharf spiders and most are semiaquatic. They hunt by waiting at the edge of a pool or stream, then when they detect the ripples from prey, they run across the surface to subdue it using their foremost legs, which are tipped with small claws; like other spiders they then inject venom with their hollow jaws to kill and digest the prey. They mainly eat insects, but some larger species are able to catch small fish. They can also climb beneath the water, when they become encased in a silvery film of air. "Dolomedes" is derived from the Greek word "dolomed" which means wily, deceitful.
SUGAR MAPLE BORER Glycobius speciosus
The long-horned beetles are a big family, with more than 26,000 species over the world. Here in North America we have 1,200 of them, so you would think we who also live here would know them quite well. Or maybe you would just think, “Beetles? What’s so remarkable about them? They are small, kind of brown, live in the woods and under things. It’s no wonder we don’t know them or notice them.”
HOP MERCHANT/EASTERN COMMA Polygonia comma
Hop Merchants are butterflies. They eat hops, and they got their name from an idea that hop farmers once had about them. Like other butterflies, these have a caterpillar phase, then a chrysalis, then a winged adult which lays eggs that hatch into caterpillars…
CECROPIA MOTH Hyalophora cecropia
A cecropia moth lives for one year. That’s the whole story for one of these remarkable creatures, and only two months of that story, a sixth of its lifetime, is it out and about in the sunshine. The rest of the time, which would be about seventy-five years for many of us folks, the cecropia is not a moth and not walking around. It lives inside an amazing safe house of its own construction, made of “silk” so strong scientists and inventors have been figuring out how to make it in the lab or factory for all kinds of industrial and medical uses.
LUNA MOTH Actias luna
Luna moths live in the eastern half of North America, as far north as Saskatchewan in Canada, south to Texas, and in the east from Nova Scotia as far south as Florida. …The continental luna moth population is currently in decline because of deforestation of their habitat, pesticide use, as well as changing land use to more residential, business, or recreational environments not conducive to reproduction.
BLACKFLY Simuliidae
“I’ll Die With the Blackflies Pickin’ My Bones. . .” — Bill Staines, folk singer
The merry month of May! How we homesteaders scheme and work to get as much outside work done as we can before May comes along. sleeves. This is the time of a small insect (1/8 inch long) known locally by some as a “mayfly,” but more accurately as a blackfly. “