2024 August 12 morning

We start this morning with two difficult kinds of Hymenoptera which we can’t identify.  If any viewer can help with these, please do get in touch.

Gordon Hart writes:  Mary Morris sent me the enclosed picture of some of the thousands of dead insects scattered across the boats and the water in Brentwood Bay on August 9. Mary asked if they were tiny wasps, but I have always thought they were flying ants that hatch in August and September each year.

Jeremy Tatum writes:  Since there were thousands of them, I suppose they must be ants, though I don’t know which species.  If I had seen just one of them, I might have thought that it was a tiny wasp of the Family Pteromalidae – but I don’t think they swarm in thousands, so ants I think they must be.

Ants? (Hym.: Formicidae)  Mary Morris

Ants? (Hym.: Formicidae)  Mary Morris

The other difficult hymenopteran received today is the following insect photographed by Aziza Cooper at her home on Salsbury Way on August 11.  I am not sure, but it might be a horntail of the Family Siricidae.

Horntail?  (Hym.: Siricidae)  Aziza Cooper

Aziza Cooper writes: Today, August 11, there was one Woodland Skipper and one Cabbage White at McIntyre Reservoir. At the fields north of Martindale Road on the east side of the valley, there were about 20 Cabbage Whites.

Loxostege cereralis  (Lep.: Crambidae)  Aziza Cooper

Female Cabbage White Pieris rapae (Lep.: Pieridae)  Aziza Cooper

Woodland Skipper Ochlodes sylvanoides  (Lep.: Hesperiidae)  Aziza Cooper

Marie O’Shaughnessy sends the following from McIntyre Reservoir, August 10:

Butterflies seen were…

5 Woodland Skippers
2 Cabbage Whites
1 Painted Lady

Dragonflies were…

5 Black Saddlebags
4 Blue-eyed Darners
2 Paddle-tailed Darners
4 Western Pondhawks
2 Eight-spotted Skimmers
16 Blue Dashers

Black Saddlebags  Tramea lacerata  (Odo.: Libellulidae) Marie O’Shaughnessy

Black Saddlebags  Tramea lacerata  (Odo.: Libellulidae) Marie O’Shaughnessy

Blue-eyed Darner  Rhionaeschna multicolor (Lep.: Aeshnidae)  Marie O’Shaughnessy

Painted Lady  Vanessa cardui  (Lep.: Nymphalidae)  Marie O’Shaughnessy