Beneficial insects are insects that pollinate trees and plant-life while they collect nectar from flowers. Insects that are predators of undesirable, destructive insects are also seen as beneficial to human activities. Examples of beneficial insects that are helpful to your garden, yard and house are dragonflies, parasitic wasps, pollinators like bees, butterflies and moths, assassin […]
Bernheim Pollinators: Butterflies as Pollinators
Did you know that butterflies taste with their feet? When a butterfly lands on a flower, it will tap the flower and leaves of the plant to make sure it is either a nectar or host plant. This will cause the tongue, or proboscis, to uncoil and extend into the flower. Tapping the host plant […]
Mourning Cloaks Have Returned
With the warmer weather we have been experiencing this week, mourning cloaks and other butterflies have been seen flying around Bernheim Forest. Mourning cloaks are one of many butterfly species that overwinter, or live through the winter, as adults. They are usually one of the first butterflies seen each year, in addition to Question Mark and Comma […]
Trails from the Bent Twig Trail: The Cycle Continues
They’re back! The spicebush butterflies have been laying their eggs on the spicebush, Lindera benzoin and sassafras trees Sassafras albidum on the Bent Twig Trail and elsewhere. Some of those eggs have hatched into small caterpillars. Nearly a year ago, I blogged about discovering these along this trail, so it seems fitting to find them again as […]