July, August and September are thee months of cold-blooded invertebrates here in southeastern Pennsylvania, and many of those little creatures with exoskeletons are exceptionally attractive and interesting. This September, I've seen some appealing spiders and insects in my home area, making my nature trips more exciting and inspiring.
I've seen a few strikingly black and yellow female garden spiders in their large orb webs hung among tall grasses or between wooden rails of a pasture fence where they wait for flying insects to become helplessly enmeshed in silk webbing the spiders produce themselves. These beautiful spiders, that have one-inch bodies and long legs, making them more visible than most spiders, paralyze their insect victims, wrap them in silk and suck out their juices when they are hungry.
I've also seen a couple of handsome fishing spiders in the slow-running edges of streams in sunny, grassy meadows. These spiders are nearly an inch long, are dark brown with two beige stripes on the tops of their thoraxes and abdomens. These camouflaged spiders use most of their legs to anchor themselves to shoreline vegetation, but each spider extends a couple of legs onto the surface of the slow current to feel for vibrations in the water caused by insects or tiny fish. Other kinds of spiders feel prey in their webs the same way. When a fishing spider feels vibrations close by, it runs over the water to snare its victim and paralyzes it for a future meal.
American ruby-spot damselflies are about an inch and a half long and live in and around small waterways in sunny pastures. I first saw these pretty dragonfly relatives this September, which was thrilling to me. Males of this species have an attractive red spot at the base of each wing, giving this insect beauty, particularly when zipping about in sunlight over a clear stream lined with vegetation. Those red spots also give this damselfly its common name. Females spawn eggs into plant tissues at the edges of streams, and the young feed on tiny invertebrates on stream bottoms. Adults consume flying insects.
This late summer, into autumn, I have noticed many one-inch-long spotted lantern flies flying about here and there, and blundering onto back decks and vehicles, where they walk about, then take flight again. These flies are attractive with dark spots on light-gray outer wings, red on each hind wing and yellow on each side of the abdomen, the lantern itself I suppose. The red and yellow are seen mostly when these slow-flying insects are in flight.
These flies in all stages of their lives seem to be alert and ready to quickly leap or fly away from danger. This species consumes vegetation and is said to be a pest on fruit, especially grapes.
Young lantern flies are black with white spots. Red develops on their wings as they mature.
While watching for migrant birds and monarch butterflies, I sometimes see a few green darner dragonflies migrating south to avoid the northern winter. Green darners are interesting because they zip along so rapidly, sometimes in little groups, catching small flying insects as they go. They can be spotted almost anywhere, including away from water.
I have noticed many lovely buckeye butterflies this summer, and into September, more, it seems, than in other years. I mostly see buckeyes on red clover blossoms in hay fields and along country roads in this area. But they visit asters and other flowers as well.
Buckeyes are attractive with brown and orange wings, with two dark, round spots that look like eyes on each of four wings. Those fake eyes help discourage birds and other would-be predators from eating buckeye butterflies.
I also saw a hickory, horned devil on the ground along the edge of a deciduous woodland. It was a six-inch, chunky caterpillar, light-green all over, which camouflaged it in the trees, had many dark barbs along its upper body and eight, black-tipped, long, orange barbs just behind its head. All that armory discourages predators from ingesting this regal moth, also known as royal walnut moth, caterpillar. Hickory horned devils consume the leaves of hickory and walnut trees and become beautiful gray moths with orange striping and yellow spots on their wings.
I found an eyed elator, a large kind of click beetle, in a fallen log in a deciduous woods. This almost two-inch-long, gray beetle has two black ovals that look like eyes on top of its thorax, again to discourage would-be predators from consuming this beetle. This beetle consumes plant juices and abruptly snaps its body to startle birds and other predators.
And I have seen a few praying mantises this summer, into September. But recently I saw one fly. That flying mantis resembled an other-worldly creature from a horror movie, or a tiny dinosaur. With their wings and legs extended in flight, mantises appear large and monstrous. They look like relics of the past, which all insects are. And mantises are predatory, which adds to their fearsome appearance, especially when in flight.
All these local invertebrates, and others, are attractive and intriguing, each in its own way. When out during July, August and September, look for some of these interesting, exciting creatures.
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