Not What You Are Thinking!

So get your mind out of the arthropod gutter, please!  These two juvenile Large Milkweed Bugs (Oncopeltus fasciatus) are not mating in spite of the way it may look.  They are actually just hanging together waiting for their next molt which should be their final one.

This is the first year I have had so many of these in my milkweed, which has given me a wonderful opportunity to observe and study.  And, lucky you, I shall now share some of my arcane findings with you!  These colorful insects are in the True Bug family and go through an incomplete metamorphosis which involves 5 stages of growth, each called an instar.  The female lays her eggs in the seed pods of milkweed plants and when the insects emerge from the eggs, they are just little red dots, barely visible to the human eye.  As they grow, their outer exoskeleton splits and is shed (they molt).  They stay huddled together for the most part, possibly for protection from predators although I am not certain about this.  But it is quite common to find different stages of instars and adults all clustered together - see Extra.  Because they only feed on milkweed (and mostly the seeds) they are toxic and therefore not predated by birds or mammals.  

Now here is the interesting bit which I've only just learned.  They migrate!  These will migrate to the southern part of the Atlantic states or even into the southeast states.  In the summer, their descendants will make it back here to start the cycle over again.  Other than some butterflies and dragonflies, I'm not really aware of any other insects that do true migrations so this kind of fascinates me.  I'm watching about a half dozen little "colonies" of them around the garden and have noticed that the latter instars seem to have stopped eating and are now just clustered together, molting - guessing they are getting ready to fly.  There is a particularly large group that has been on the outside of a flower pot for at least a week, not eating but definitely molting.  When I checked on them today, I noticed that most of them are now adults, having finished their final molt.  So will they still be there tomorrow?  Stay tuned!

Other than totally getting my geek on in the garden, I also did a virtual yoga class (Peg joined me on the virtual mat) and attended to some things around the house.  No hummingbird sightings today, but I'm watching.  

Was very sad to read that Dame Maggie Smith died today.  What a wonderful actress she was, and what a loss.

xo
Debbi