(timelapse photos of Photinus pyralis in flight. fly left, fly right from Wikimedia)
14 July 2026
Last night after sunset I sat on a park bench and watched fireflies (a.k.a. lightning bugs) in my city neighborhood. I could tell by their flash patterns that they were Photinus pyralis, the common eastern firefly, because the males glowed while ascending in a J shape. Females flashed from the tips of grasses to attract a mate.
You can see both behaviors in this video by Radim Schreiber at fireflyexperience.org.
The combination of color, flash and pause pattern, and flight path are unique to each species(*). Notice how different the flashes are for this species, the cypress firefly.
In today’s social media climate rumors spread quickly and persist despite the truth. This is nothing new in human history. When Francesco I de’ Medici, the Grand Duke of Tuscany, died of a fever at age 46 in 1587, the rumor mill said his younger brother Ferdinando had poisoned him. The rumor lived on, even though Francesco’s doctors said he died of malaria.
Where did human malaria come from? DNA solved the mystery in 2020 by examining the similarities of Plasmodium in primates to Plasmodium falciparum.
They found at least nine species of Plasmodium, three unknown before. When compared to human P. falciparum, the most closely related came from western gorillas from Cameroon, the Central African Republic and the Republic of Congo. In fact one was nearly identical to all known human plasmodium sequences.
P. falciparum only had to jump once and it became ours. Thus it is no surprise that Africa is a malarial hotspot. It stays that way because it takes a lot of money to eradicate malaria, money that many African countries do not have.
In the end, the change of power benefited Tuscany’s citizens. Francesco (the guy who died of malaria) was often despotic, heavily taxed his subjects, and sent the money to Austria. Ferdinando who succeeded him was a benevolent ruler who cared about the welfare of his people. He re-established the justice system and returned prosperity to Tuscany.
Not A Leaf: Acanalonia planthopper on a stem, Schenley Park, 3 August 2019 (photo by Kate St. John)
9 July 2026
Now that Bug Season is in full swing it’s fun to find the bugs in camouflage.
Planthoppers are parasites that suck the juice from plants, though they rarely reach the pest level in their native range. They barely move when perched but if you jostle them they jump like grasshoppers. Plant.Hoppers. Every life stage uses camouflage to hide from predators.
Google Lens identified the bug at top as an Acanalonia planthopper that sucks the juice of woody plants. Usually green in color, the adult is trying to look like a leaf.
This means that even on vacation you’ve gotta watch out for ticks.
The bites of two species can make you very sick: black-legged ticks and lone star ticks. This diagram shows their relative size and shape, shown with the familiar dog tick for comparison.
Black-legged (or “deer”) ticks are at the top of the danger list. They are exceptionally plentiful and they spread Lyme disease.
Don’t let this tick get on you!
Black-legged tick (photo from Wikimedia Commons)
Just about anywhere you’d want to vacation in the Northeast and Great Lakes States is prime territory for black-legged ticks. Planning a beach vacation? Notice that this tick is there too.
These ticks are especially plentiful in the Southeast and have begun moving into PA. When they bite they transmit a protein in their saliva that causes an allergic reaction to mammalian foods — meat and dairy products — called alpha gal syndrome.
Millipedes on a tree stump with fungi, Schenley Park, 28 June 2026 (photo by Kate St. John)
30 June 2026
Last Sunday in Schenley Park we discovered that right now it’s Millipede Mating Season in Pittsburgh. Millipede mating habits are so fascinating that I had to look into it.
First off, millipedes are not insects; they have a lot more than six legs. Their class Diplopoda contains 13,000 species, all of which have two pairs of jointed legs per body segment. The number of body segments varies a lot from short pill millipedes to Eumillipes persephone which can have over 1,300 legs.
Their name literally means “thousand feet” but most millipedes have far fewer. Count the body segments (but not the head) and multiply by 4. The ones in my photos have less than 100 legs.
They appear to be greenhouse millipedes (Oxidus gracilis) which were originally from Asia and are now invasive in North America. The name “greenhouse” comes from the fact that they thrive in greenhouses where they become pests. They can also live in cool moist woods where they feed on decaying plant matter.
When millipedes mate, copulation happens in the first seven segments but courtship involves all the segments. First they have to find each other, complicated by the fact that greenhouse millipedes cannot see — they don’t even have eyes. The males emit sex pheromones to attract the females.
After they find each other by scent and touch, the male walks on her back to stimulate her with rhythmic movements of his legs. It also calms her so she won’t reject him or curl up in a defensive posture.
Here are a male and female in a mating embrace on the tufa bridge over Phipps Run. Once we started looking we found many millipedes in the tufa crevices.
Mating millipedes in Schenley Park, 29 June 2026 (photo by Kate St. John)
In this marked up photo you can see which one is the male — he’s shorter. There’s also a second couple nearby.
Mating millipedes markup — actually two couples, Schenley, 29 June 2026 (photo by Kate St. John)
The male has to cling to the female for the next step, all of which was a mystery to scientists until the Field Museum did a study in 2020.
In most millipedes, including Pseudopolydesmus, the male’s testes are located in the body starting behind his second pair of legs. But his gonopods, the specialized pair of legs used to insert sperm into the female, are way back on his legs of the seventh body ring. “He has to ejaculate and then dig his seventh-ring gonopods into that ejaculate,” she explains. “It’s a blue-ish liquid.”
Once the male has gotten his gonopods covered in blue ejaculate, he’s ready to insert them into a female’s vulvae. “She has two openings, one on each side between her second pair of legs,” says Sierwald. …
After mating, the female’s vulvae get sealed up with a gooey secretion, trapping the sperm inside. Later, when she lays her eggs, they get coated with the stored sperm on their way out of her body.
Bumblebee at obedient plant, 23 June 2026 (photo by Kate St. John)
27 June 2026
This week I was in Blair and Allegheny Counties where I found late June flowers, busy insects and urban deer.
Beauty
Obedient plant (Physostegia virginiana), at top, attracts many pollinators. It’s called obedient plant because if you move an individual flower to the side it stays in place.
Enchanter’s nightshade (Circaea sp.) started blooming at the summer solstice in Schenley Park.
Enchanter’s nightshade, Schenley, 26 June 2026 (photo by Kate St. John)
American germander (Teucrium canadense) is blooming at the Herrs Island back channel.
American germander, near Herr’s Island, 24 June 2026 (photo by Kate St. John)
On 21 June we had a beautiful morning birding the Lower Trail at Mt. Etna Station in Blair County. Before the day heated up, mist rose from the damp wooden railing on the pedestrian bridge over Frankstown Branch of the Juniata River.
Mist rises from a damp railing on the Lower Trail at Mt. Etna, 21 June 2026 (photo by Kate St. John)
Bugs
Also on the Lower Trail a bug floated down from the trees. We caught and examined it, only to find it was the exoskeleton of a mayfly.
Mayfly exoskeleton, Lower Trail in Blair County, 20 June 2026 (photo by Kate St. John)
On that same day back in Pittsburgh John English saw his first spotted lanternfly. 3rd instar.
Spotted lanternfly, Homestead, 20 June 2026 (photo by John English)
In 24 June I visited the Herrs Island back channel where I reliably find spotted lanternflies in the summer. There weren’t many but at least one was already in the final instar … the red one.
Two instars of spotted lanternfly, Herrs Island back channel, 24 June 2026 (photo by Kate St. John)Spotted lanternfly 3rd instar, Herrs Island back channel, 24 June 2026 (photo by Kate St. John)Spotted lanternfly 4th instar, Herrs Island back channel, 24 June 2026 (photo by Kate St. John)
The 4th instar will transform into a winged adult. This is only a matter of days away …
Spotted lanternfly stages, from nymph to adult (image from Wikimedia Commons)
Urban Deer
The deer in my urban neighborhood don’t care about people and cars. On 20 June my husband photographed a limping doe.
Limping deer in Shadyside, 19 June 2026 (photo by Richard St. John)Limping deer in Shadyside, 19 June 2026 (photo by Richard St. John)
And on 24 June my neighbor pointed out a doe and buck resting behind the retaining wall at Neville House. The buck is well hidden from my location. You can see the doe’s resting legs, her body and the back of her head.
Doe and buck sleeping behind the wall at Neville House, 24 June 2026 (photo by Kate St. John)
Magicicada from Brood VIII, Moon Twp PA, 9 June 2019 (photo by Kate St. John)
11 June 2026
Seven years ago Magicicada Brood VIII emerged in western Allegheny County. I caught up with them in Moon Twp, PA on 9 June 2019.
Protected from the chaos of the topside world, larvae that burrowed underground in 2002 had lived safely underground for 17 years. But in Moon Twp far fewer emerged than expected.
Find out what I discovered in this vintage article.
Tentworms starting up: Raccoon Creek Wildflower Reserve, 20 April 2026 (photo by Kate St. John)
29 April 2026
Nine days ago I saw the first tentworms on a small choke cherry tree at Raccoon Wildflower Preserve. Since then I expected tents to appear on many trees and am disappointed that they haven’t yet. When they do, yellow-billed cuckoos won’t be far behind.
Eastern tent caterpillars (Malacosoma americanum) are native moths whose mother lays a big batch of eggs on a host tree in the Rosaceae family. The tiny caterpillars form inside the eggs and overwinter until next spring when the tree starts to leaf out. The growing caterpillars emerge and build a communal tent where they shelter during the day. At night they come out to eat the leaves of their host — usually a cherry tree.
Tentworms on a choke cherry branch, 18 April 2015 (photo by Kate St. John)
Yellow-billed Cuckoo eating a tentworm, May 2014 (photo by Robert Greene, Jr)
The population of tentworms flutuates year to year — from not-so-much to “infestation” — and yellow-billed cuckoos take advantage of this. The cuckoos are nomadic and choose to nest in areas with hairy caterpillar outbreaks, according to the study Invasive Prey Impacts the Abundance and Distribution of Native Predators.
Other birds also take advantage of abundant tentworms. Baltimore orioles eat tentworms.
Balitmore oriole eating a tentworm, 15 May 2017 (photo by Donna Foyle)
Blue-gray gnatcatchers use the webbing to bind their nests together.
Blue-gray gnatcatcher gathering tentworm webbing for her nest, 26 April 2017 (photo by Steve Gosser)
If you have tentworms in your trees, be patient and let the birds get rid of them. Don’t poison the insects with pesticides lest you poison birds or deprive their nestlings of food.
Meanwhile I’m hoping to find more tentworms soon. Unfortunately the weather will be cold and rainy for the next three days including lows in the 30s. 🙁
You’ve probably heard of “Dress for Success” career advice. Today we’ll explore dressing for outdoor success to avoid Lyme disease.
This spring there are so many black-legged ticks (Ixodes scapularis) that unless you are vigilant it’s very easy to get a tick on your body, be bitten, and quite possibly get Lyme disease. How vigilant do you have to be? It depends on what you wear.
If you wear summer clothes that expose your arms, legs and toes you’ll need to check frequently while outdoors and check very carefully when you come inside. Look at your ankles and between your toes. Look behind your knees … and in other places you don’t want to expose to the public. This chart does not check toes and ankles because it assumes you’ll wear socks!
How to do a tick check (image from PA Dept of Health & CDC.gov)
Light-colored long-sleeved shirt with collar. Ticks are trapped under collar!
Socks long enough to put over your pant legs.
Hat with brim. Good for sun, too!
Closed-toe shoes.
This 1+ minute video illustrates what to wear with extra tips. NOTE: The video says to spray your skin with DEET. Alas, no. DEET prevents mosquito bites but it does not repel ticks.
Katydids are usually hard to find because their green color and leafy shape provide camouflage in their natural habitat. This one in Costa Rica can only be seen because his leaf is lit from below.
When scientists in Panama occasionally found a hot pink version of a normally green katydid (Arota festea) they assumed it was a mutant. Out of curiosity they kept a pink one in captivity and were amazed to discover that it slowly changed color. Within two weeks it turned green.
At every stage, from hot pink to vibrant green, its color camouflaged it among the leaves.
In the [insect] animals’ native jungle home of Suriname, Colombia, and Panama, about 36% of plants turn pink before adopting their typical mature green—a process of delayed greening sometimes called “red flushing.”
The katydid’s color is connected to everything else. Now we know the connection.
(Figure 1 caption) Intense hot pink morph of an adult female Arota festae. Photographed at 23:32 on 27 March 2025 on Barro Colorado Island, Panama, using a Sony A7CR camera with a LAOWA 90?mm f/2.8 lens and a Godox Speedlite TT350 flash. The final image was produced by focus stacking 4 photographs in Adobe Photoshop, with brightness increased for clarity while leaving saturation and hue unaltered. Photo credit: Zeke W. Rowe
(Figure 2 caption) Pink-to-green color change in Arota festae (Griffini, 1896) and resemblance to pink leaves in delayed plant greening. (A) Photographs of the same A. festae individual at days 0, 4, 5, and 14 following initial discovery at 23:12 on 27 March 2025 on BCI, Panama. All photographs in (A) were taken by Benito Wainwright. (B) Photographs of local plant species displaying delayed greening (from left to right: Paullinia bracteosa, Coccoloba manzinellensis, Inga ruziana, and Andira inermis). From the left, the first, second, and third photographs in (B) were taken by J. Benito Wainwright, and the fourth photograph (on the far right in B) was taken by Phyllis Coley
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