Wasps and Other Mud Puddle Visitors

During early afternoon on the day before the Toad Pool went dry, I spent a couple of hours photographing visitors to the rapidly shrinking puddle. During this session I concentrated more on short videos than on stills.

A single, newly morphed toad is a couple weeks behind the hoard that emerged from the pool a few weeks ago. This little guy has only been a land dweller for a short time, but it already displays the mannerisms of an adult.  Click HERE for YouTube version.

The most noticeable visitors to the pool were wasps loading up on water. The wasps were light enough to ride the surface tension of the water as they drank.

Several species of paper wasps took advantage of this dwindling water supply. A few mud wasps also flew in, but they all left with only water.  Click HERE for YouTube version.

The paper wasp in this video doesn’t seem to be intimidated by the beetle larva attacking it from the rear. It’s probably a good thing the larva couldn’t get hold of the wasp, or it might’ve been pulled right out of the water.  Click HERE for YouTube version.

A small wolf spider stalked the mud flats.  It was particularly interested in the movement of what appeared to be a small insect near the edge of the pool. What wasn’t immediately obvious was the fact that the small insect was held in the jaws of a much larger aquatic beetle larva.

The spider finally attempts an attack on the small insect, but is driven back when the beetle larva begins to thrash its head. Immediately after the head thrashing, the beetle larva scoops a small bit of mud into his breathing snorkel, located just to the right of the thrashing head, and shoots a mud ball at the place the spider had just been.  An interesting defense mechanism.  Click HERE for YouTube version.

Several butterflies took advantage of the wet mud to imbibe some mineral laden water. The most persistent of these was a common Buckeye.

The temperature at the time this video was made was 93°F and there was a strong wind blowing. You can see the puddling butterfly occasionally buffeted by the wind. I was pretty much baked all the way through by the time I called an end to this photography session.  Click HERE for YouTube version.

Eastern Snout Butterfly and Some Other Puddlers

Dry weather continues and the pond has made its transformation into a mud hole.  Open water is gone, but the area is still attractive to a wide range of wildlife species.  The most noticeable are the butterflies that come to claim water and minerals from the soupy mud.

The Eastern Snout Butterfly, a species uncommonly seen around here, has come to the mud in record numbers.  Normally I only get to see one or two of this species each year.  On this day there were at least a dozen scattered across the mud flat.  This guy has a profile that is unmistakable.  You don’t have to be very close to recognize the squared off back edge of the wings.  It looks like someone snipped them off with pinking sheers.

On the front end is the snout formed by super long labial palps.  If you’ve ever seen one of these butterflies, you’ll never fail to recognize it.

You don’t even have to get close for an accurate identification.  This is the first time I’ve seen this species at the pond, but I’m not surprised they’re here now.

The host plant of the Snout Butterfly larvae is the Hackberry.  This Hackberry growing at the edge of the pond has just gotten large enough to support a colony of Snouts.  I’m going to have to trim this tree back to keep it out of the electric lines, but I hope it will serve for many years as a nursery for Snout Butterflies.

Total butterfly numbers continue to be lower than normal.  I keep wondering if the severe storms and flooding we had earlier are partly responsible.  Even so, several other species joined the Snouts on the mud.  These four Clouded Sulphurs remained as a group as they moved from place to place about the pond bottom.

There were several skippers about, all Wild Indigo Duskywings.  These were all dark, crisply patterned individuals that must have just recently emerged.  As they age, colors fade and scales are lost, making some of the skippers very hard to identify.  It’s nice to see them in such prime condition.

Pearl Crescents were represented by a single individual.  I’ve been seeing them around, but their numbers are much lower than normal.

Eastern Tailed Blues are around in good numbers.  This species is normally very common, but its small size causes it to be overlooked by many people.  Fortunately, it’s tolerant of close approach, so you can slowly work yourself in close for a good look.  I’m hoping that butterflies will become more numerous of summer progresses. 

Butterflies and the Final Pond Mud

This has been a great year for butterflies and now is the time to be watching for southern species that extend their populations into Ohio during the late summer. This is a Little Sulphur, a regular immigrant species found at Blue Jay Barrens. It’s a very flashy butterfly that I may see once or twice each season. This northward expansion is a risky business for species such as the Little Sulphur. These temporary populations are killed by cold winter temperatures and this behavior can appear to do nothing but destroy a lot of butterflies. Species increase their chances of survival by occupying every acceptable habitat they can find and aggressive immigration guarantees that every possible opportunity is taken to improve the long term chances for survival.

As has been the case with many other species this year, the area is thick with Little Sulphurs. These three are probing for the last of the moisture from the drying pond. It’s interesting that the above normal rainfall we were having earlier in the year ended abruptly in mid July and we’ve been in drought mode since then.

I talked earlier about the butterfly’s habit of taking mineral laden moisture from the damp earth. This puddling behavior provides a great opportunity to observe large numbers of butterflies. Each day without rain brings more butterflies into this last bit of moisture left by the disappearing pond.

The pond sediments have shrunk during the drying process, causing cracks to form in the pond bottom. The moisture no longer wicks to the surface as it did when water was more plentiful. These Eastern Tailed Blues have to probe deep to find any moisture.

Many of the Pearl Crescents have taken to probing around the base of plant debris. Apparently the mulching effect of the plant material makes it easier to find moisture near the surface.

The grouping behavior of the different species reminds me of herds of grazing animals moving across the African veldt. Each butterfly species searches for moisture in a slightly different manner and location. So, like those grazing herds, the different species utilize the same resource, but in a manner that eliminates competition. It would be interesting to make enough observations to know whether this separation of species is a normal thing or if it’s just what’s been happening here during the past couple of weeks.

Puddlers

The excessive rains continue, but there are still times when some of the pond bottom is exposed. This always attracts puddling butterflies. Puddling is when butterflies sit around on damp earth and drink the mineral laden moisture from the soil. The species I most commonly see is the Eastern Tailed Blue. It’s not uncommon to find dozens of these little guys sitting at the pond’s edge.

Unlike most butterflies found around a puddle, these do not sit directly on the mud. They all sit atop pedestals formed by plant stalks or mounded vegetation. As water evaporates from the top of the pedestal, the mineral concentration in the water at that point is increased. More mineral laden water continually wicks its way up the pedestal, so the mineral content of the water in the area of evaporation becomes much higher than what would be found near the ground. The butterflies take advantage of this process to more efficiently ingest the minerals they need.

It’s primarily the small butterflies that come around the pond. Maybe the larger species are too often eaten by dragonflies or frogs. The Pearl Crescents also avoid sitting directly on the ground. They tend to sit on and drink from Chara, a form of aquatic algae.

Although it is an algae, the growth pattern of Chara makes it look much like a vascular plant having a central stalk with whorls of leaves. When minerals are present in the water, the Chara develops a calcium coating. This may also be a point of mineral concentration that gives the Pearl Crescents just what they need.

I’ve read that most puddling butterflies are males. I saw a lot of interaction between individuals, some of which was mating activity, so there must also be a few females present.