Miscellaneous Insects at Beebe Lake

We found several interesting insects at Beebe Lake including some orthoperans, lepidopterans, and a cicada's (Hemiptera) cast off cuticle. 

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Because we need to create a massive insect collection for class, we have been focusing on finding everything we can these days. There are often so many things that we collect on each trip that there is hardly any point of documenting them all, especially if we cannot identify them yet and they are not particularly interesting. With that said, we happened to come across a few creatures at Beebe Lake today that seemed worthy enough to show. 

We found several of these conehead katydids (Neoconocephalus sp.; perhaps ensiger based on cone shape), both males and females among tall grasses growing immediately along the edge of the water. These katydids are huge compared to the Scudderia mexicana back at home. 

We also saw some of these katydids, which are quite common among grasses and herbaceous plants everywhere and not just by the water. They are also in the Conocephalinae subfamily, in the genus Conocephalus (meadow katydids) though we are not 100% on the species yet. 

Tree crickets are also quite common among shrubs and sometimes even on the walls of buildings. They look to be Neoxabea bipunctata, or two-spotted tree crickets. We typically find them on the undersides of the leaves resting because they are nocturnal. On one occasion, we caught one that burst open with parisitoid maggots the next day. 

Near the water, at the same place that we found the conehead katydids, we also came across this loose lepidopteran cocoon. We don't have any clue what it could be right now.

There was also this huge cluster of geometrid eggs on a milkweed (Asclepias syriaca) leaf. These are actually very common around here and can be found on many different species of trees and shrubs. They are clearly extremely polyphagous. 

At the end of the lake, we found this cicada skin on a tree trunk, still in perfect shape.  

We actually found a live cicada a few days ago on August 29 that we will post here out of laziness. 

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Authors
Brian Liang

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