Help with Butterfly-predacious Hornets

[jhimmel at connix.com]

On a similar note - I think it's interesting the role wasps and hornets play in 
lepidotera - especially at my blacklight sheet.  When I first started doing 
this, toward the middle of the summer I began to notice piles of wings all over 
the ground by the sheet.  At first, I attributed it the Tufted Titmice, who had 
found an easy morning meal waiting for them(I have to keep moving my site to 
stay ahead of them).  But it turns out to have been Bald-faced Hornets.  They 
grab the moth, fly to a nearby branch where they strip off the wings and fly off 
with it.  One of my more upsetting finds were a pair of body-less Promthea 
wings.  The Yellow Jackets, who become a big problem later in the summer and 
early fall, grab and sting the moth and fly off with it intact.

And then there are the larvae attackers.  One afternoon I noticed mud packed in 
the open end of my butterfly net, which was left outdoors.  When I tapped it on 
the stoop, 35 geometrid larvae fell out of the end - alive, but paralyzed. On 
another occasion, I watched a large wasp try to drag a huge sphingid larva into 
a hole in the dirt.  It landed on the ground with the larva, set it down, moved 
a pebble that was covering a hole(after a thirty second search for it), and 
enlarged the hole (which was necessary).  It tried to drag the larva into the 
hole, but it was still too big.  It enlarged the hole some more, finally dragged 
it down, and replaced the pebble! 

Ah, the lovely horrors in nature..



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John Himmelman, CT USA
jhimmel at connix.com
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