Under the Microscope - Archive
Whitespotted Sawyer
June 01, 2008
If, when quietly wandering around outdoors, you have ever heard and tried to track down a rhythmic, grating sound, thinking you were in search of a small rodent or perhaps a cricket, only to find that the noise comes from within a dead log, the noisemaker might well be the larva of the whitespotted sawyer. Its chewing noise is described …
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Birch polypore, Piptoporus betulinus
March 01, 2008
Also called birch bracket, this distinctive fungus only grows on birches, looks like nothing else that grows on birches, and is very common. Also in its favor from the human perspective is that it is not an aggressive tree killer, but is instead primarily in the business of decomposing dead trees. Birch polypore is present throughout the range of the …
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Pine Bark Adelgid, Pineus strobi
December 01, 2007
The bark of older and larger white pines is crusty and ridged, but before that, in youth and adolescence, a pine’s bark is smooth, interrupted only by whorled branches, and is usually a deep charcoal gray. Sometimes, in contrast to what should be, the bark is washed with startling white, a sure sign that something is wrong.
Pine …
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Woolly Alder Aphid, Prociphilus tessallatus
September 01, 2007
On warm days in September and October, puzzling specks of wool are sometimes seen sailing along on the breeze. Some of these fuzzballs might be woolly alder aphids, insects that have been sitting tight and sucking sap on alder all summer but which now are migrating to their winter homes, usually on silver maple. More than half of each speck …
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Blister Beetle
June 01, 2007
Years ago, I learned that the large, bulbous, metallic-blue beetles that are often found on the lawn are called blister beetles. When bothered, they exude a clear, orange liquid from their joints that is particularly noticeable on their legs, where it oozes from every segment. The orange secretion stays in bright, round droplets, and if you get it on your …
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European Woodwasp
March 01, 2007
In February 2005, the identification of a European woodwasp, Sirex noctilio, that had been caught in an insect monitoring trap the previous September in Fulton, New York, near Lake Ontario, quickly got the worried attention of many forest entomologists. A number of Sirex larvae have been intercepted at shipping terminals, both before and after this capture, but when a free-living …
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Turkey Tail Fungus, Trametes versicolor
December 01, 2006
Last winter, I went on a photography binge, trying to get as many pictures of common and good looking fungus specimens as I could find in my neighborhood. I knew at the start that I was attracted to the turkey tail fungus but still was surprised to find that about a third of my many photos ended up being of …
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Maple Trumpet Skeletonizer, Epinotia aceriella
September 01, 2006
In late July, I spent some time watching maple trumpet skeletonizers under a microscope. At that time they were tiny, just an eighth of an inch long, wispy, and translucent. The “trumpet” part of the name of this insect comes from the very slender, tapering tube that each caterpillar larva constructs from its own excrement (called frass) and into which …
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Locust Leafminer, Odontota dorsalis
June 01, 2006
In leafminers, the larval stage typically is spent in a leaf’s interior between the upper and lower epidermal layers, feeding on the spongy and palisade parenchyma cells. Though this environment may seem to be a severely restricted, miserable place to spend your days, insects from several different orders have chosen to trade their freedom, as it were, for the protection …
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European Fruit Lecanium, Parthenolecanium corni
March 01, 2006
Many people in the Northeast were puzzled last July to find a shiny, sticky goo coating the leaves of all kinds of trees. When the cause was discovered, it just made the situation more baffling. An astounding number of tiny insects riddled the undersides of tree leaves. What were they, and how could there suddenly be so many of them? …
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