Thursday, March 31, 2011

First week in Wooster

I've finally arrived in Wooster, and it's hard to believe the week is almost over! I am settling into my new apartment, though most of my time is already spent at the OARDC. There is of course lots to do and classes have barely started!

The weather has been pretty lackluster with snow yesterday afternoon. I have had little photographic opportunities so far here, although I did find a few spiders and flies out (pictures to come as my card reader is still in Columbus). However, bug life has been revving up around the state; I found this wolf spider a few weeks ago in Columbus:


This was taken mid-March, so I would think this is a juvenile. Here's its backside for anyone that may want to attempt an ID (it was approximately 1 cm long).


Some other predators are also busy with the early season sawflies serving as a good meal!


This is a juvenile assassin bug (family Reduviidae, species Zelus luridus) sucking the life out of a sawfly (family Tenthredinidae, species Dolerus nitens) (both IDs from bugguide.net). These are both very common insects, so it's not much of a surprise I found them around an apartment complex.

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  2. These pictures are great. Sawflys can be major pests of some forest trees and shrubs. This will be a good biocontrol picture to use! I think that all the wasps we saw on your sticky trap may have been some type of sawfly? Hard to say from the distance but I have been trying to think of what those things could hav been. They did not really look like a solitary bee to me?

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