{"id":8437,"date":"2016-06-23T22:58:52","date_gmt":"2016-06-24T02:58:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/?p=8437"},"modified":"2017-04-20T12:45:34","modified_gmt":"2017-04-20T16:45:34","slug":"milking-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/?p=8437","title":{"rendered":"Milking it"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today’s hike took me through a meadow that I haven’t been to in years. The community has reseeded it so that it’s now all native plants, specially picked to attract birds and butterflies.<\/p>\n

Milkweed is a favorite of monarch butterflies, and there are now several huge patches of it in the meadows.<\/p>\n

Milkweed is a lovely flower – here’s a whorled milkweed –<\/p>\n

\"milkweed\"<\/p>\n

The milkweed in this field was\u00a0very tall, though, more like the ones I remember seeing as a kid in Ohio.<\/p>\n

I got up close to photograph the progression they make from those tiny flowers to the big puffy seed sacks.<\/p>\n

It’s remarkably like pregnancy:<\/p>\n

\"IMG_6534\"<\/p>\n

As I was up close, I noticed a pair of bugs mating. Of course, I took their photo – who can resist a little bug porn?<\/p>\n

\"IMG_6538\"<\/p>\n

Then I noticed that the next plant also had a mating pair of these bugs.<\/p>\n

And so did the next one.<\/p>\n

And the next. It was a milkweed orgy!<\/p>\n

\"IMG_6542\"<\/p>\n

When I got home, I posted these photos to the Spider and Insect Enthusiast Group<\/a> that I belong to and asked for help with identifying these couples.<\/p>\n

A fellow group member immediately piped up, “Milkweed bugs!”<\/p>\n

I laughed and said, “HAPPY milkweed bugs.”<\/p>\n

Well, yes, but it turns out that Large Milkweed Bug is their actual name.\u00a0Oncopeltus fasciatus<\/a>.\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

I’d thought she was kidding.<\/p>\n

I learned that the Large Milkweed Bug lays eggs in the milkweed pods, about 30 eggs a day. A female can lay 2,000 eggs in her one-month lifetime.<\/p>\n

I had another one to ask about – a lovely fuzzy caterpillar, tufted with a texture like yarn. This was also on a milkweed.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_6547\"<\/p>\n

But before I asked for an ID, I googled “milkweed caterpillar” just for fun.<\/p>\n

And there it was: Milkweed Tussock Moth caterpillar.<\/p>\n

So next time you’re stuck for the name of a bug, just call it a “[Name of Plant It’s On] Bug.”<\/p>\n

Here’s another bug from today, the Shiny Passionflower Bug:<\/p>\n

\"IMG_6554\"<\/p>\n

You know I’m kidding, right? That’s the\u00a0infamous Japanese beetle – they are terribly destructive. (That’s also what the bug in the featured image is – except that’s a Gnawing Elderberry Bug.)<\/p>\n

So how about this one – the Skinny Purple Cone Flower Bug.\"IMG_6527\"<\/p>\n

This flower’s also known as echinacea. Maybe he has a cold and wants to fortify his immune system?<\/p>\n

I’ll get back to you with an ID on that.<\/p>\n

Today’s penny is a 2012, the year that I saw milkweed in Ohio for the first time in decades. More about that another time.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today’s hike took me through a meadow that I haven’t been to in years. The community has reseeded it so that it’s now all native plants, specially picked to attract birds and butterflies. Milkweed is a favorite of monarch butterflies, and there are now several huge patches of it in the meadows. Milkweed is a … read more Milking it<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8442,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[321],"tags":[52,1056,1046,894,157,964,1054,1055,174],"class_list":["post-8437","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tress","tag-52","tag-beetle","tag-bug","tag-caterpillar","tag-flowers","tag-insect","tag-milkweed","tag-moth","tag-plants"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8437","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8437"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8437\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8459,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8437\/revisions\/8459"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8442"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8437"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8437"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8437"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}