Wow, winter is almost over! A few short weeks without a post, and my field season has withered away. Well despite the blog silence, I have continued to actively seek out winter insects with much success. I'll have a number of back-order blog posts to make, but here are a few sightings that are fairly recent.
Lepidoptera seem to require fairer weather than some other winter-active insects, so it hasn't come as a surprise to find lep numbers on the rise as temps become more mild. Here are two recent snow caterpillar sightings:
While doing some birding last Friday, this "cutworm" was crawling across the snow in a parking lot in Burlington, near a soldier beetle larva. Thanks to the help of Sam Jaffe, this fellow was ID'd as
Noctua pronuba.
Another caterpillar, encountered the next day on the snow in Colchester in a wetland:
While very small, this caterpillar has the distinctive markings of a
Haploa sp. As adults, they come in stunning patterns of black-and-white, with orange in their bodies.
