9 September 2026

Two weeks ago I found this small ornate bug on a jewelweed leaf in Schenley Park. I knew I’d seen one before but it had been several (actually 15) years. I was wracking my brain to come up with a name when, “Duh! Use Google Lens.” He’s a green stink bug nymph (Chinavia hilaris).

Like other stink bugs he uses his long stylet to pierce soft plant tissues, inject his saliva containing plant-digestive enzymes, and suck the juices out of the plant. When he does this to fruits and vegetables he’s considered an agricultural pest. Fortunately he’s not invasive. In Schenley Park he chooses jewelweed but doesn’t affect the plant’s abundance.

Adult green stink bugs overwinter under leaf litter and emerge in April or May.

They mate in May-June and the females lay a cluster of eggs on the undersides of leaves (May-July). The eggs look like tiny barrels — very tiny compared to the leaf veins at left.

Not all of the eggs make it. A native parastic wasp (probably Trissolcus euschisti in this photo) lays her eggs inside the stink bug eggs. Her larvae hatch and eat the developing stink bugs. Brown marmorated stink bugs have a similar predator that traveled to North America to feed on its host.

When the eggs hatch into nymphs they go through five instars (June-August) to become adults.

Peak adult activity is in August. Then they taper (Sept-Oct) as they get ready to overwinter under the leaf litter.

Right now is the time to look for our very own stink bug. Green stink bugs won’t invade your house. Those are the brown marmorated stink bug who waits until October to plague us.

p.s. Stink bug on someone’s hand? Stink bugs don’t have teeth so they cannot bite.

2 September 2026

For insect novices like me, August is the easiest time of year to find any life phase of the catalpa sphinx moth (Ceratomia catalpae). In August the caterpillars are large and their bodies signal that it’s time to stop eating and start pupating. They drop from the trees and burrow underground to overwinter and pupate. That’s where I found the caterpillar pictured at top in early August.

How did he reach that stage? Here are some of the steps in his transformation.

1. His parents pupated and emerged in April or May. They are well camouflaged in the woods but not as interesting as the last instar.

2. His mother looked for a catalpa tree and laid her eggs on the undersides of the leaves.

3. By June in Pittsburgh northern catalpas (Catalpa speciosa) are in bloom and already have eggs and caterpillars under their leaves.

4. When they hatch the caterpillars a very pale but they do have that distinctive black horn.

5. In early August in the final (or near final) instar they have yellow sides, a black back and, yes, the black horn.

At this point their damage on the catalpa leaves is obvious.

6. The final instar burrows underground and forms a cocoon — which I never see because I don’t go digging for them. The cocoon waits until spring to emerge as an adult.

And then the cycle starts over again.

Meanwhile this tree in Schenley Park saw no catalpa sphinx moths this year. It went through its own transformation from flowers in June to long seed pods in August.

31 August 2026

A week ago at Hays Woods I found a nest of fall webworms (Hyphantria cunea) at eye level. We usually see these webs high in the trees so this was a good opportunity for a closer photo, shown above.

Their mother had laid a mass of eggs on a leaf; a week later the eggs hatched into tiny caterpillars. To protect themselves they built a communal web, mostly at night, to surround themselves and the leaves they are eating. As they consume the leaves they expand the web. As ugly as this looks it does not harm deciduous trees because this is the end of the growing season.

Fall webworms stay close to each other when they’re small but at the 5th or 6th instar they venture out alone. In this photo from Bugwood, the tiny ones are inside.

To get a better photo of the caterpillars I approached the web. In response they began a strange and jerky distraction dance.

If I was a warbler would I be thrown off by this display? Or would I eat a worm anyway? If I was a yellow-billed cuckoo I’d probably pluck a webworm as an easy meal.

The webworms that survive pupate into a 2-inch moth. Males are speckled, females are all white.

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13 August 2026

Late July through September is the best time of year to see funnel webs in Pittsburgh. The spiders that build these webs have been present since spring but they were so small I overlooked their webs.

Late summer webs show nicely, especially in dew. Here’s my selection of photos from 2016 to 2026, including two from Acadia National Park.

Funnel web spiders rely on stealth, speed and strength to capture their prey. Their non-sticky carpet webs have a hiding place in the middle — a funnel — where the spider lurks and waits for prey to jiggle the web. When they feel the right vibration they zoom out of the hole to grab a meal.

Funnel weavers are FAST and they have a backdoor escape route if something large and scary is messing around at their front door.

— The SpiderMentor: Funnel Weavers — Fast and furious!

The good news about American funnel web spiders is that they are not dangerous to humans. When I jiggle a web to entice the spider to come out, it never works for me. Apparently I am “something large and scary” that is dangerous to funnel web spiders.

Learn all about funnel web spiders in Pittsburgh in this blog post by Amy Bianco, the SpiderMentor.

10 August 2026

In August in southwestern PA you may notice a tiny white ball floating above the trail, maybe at eye level. If you walk into it you discover the ball is on a thread. It moves horizontally in a light breeze and can raise and lower itself. On closer inspection you can see it’s a white insect.

The white balls are the caterpillars of the planthopper parasite moth (Fulgoraecia exigua), one of the very few carnivorous moths in North America. The species is not rare but its dietary habits are.

In a super-closeup the tiny caterpillar looks like this.

The adult moth is also tiny with a wingspan from 8-13 mm (0.3 – 0.5 inches).

Since their life cycle is not tied to a host plant, the female lays her eggs on any vegetation where her young will find planthoppers to parasitize. Perhaps she chooses a site where planthopper nymphs are already present.

When her eggs hatch the tiny caterpillars seek an adult planthopper, latch onto it under the wing, and proceed to suck all the juices out of it. Here’s an example of what they’re looking for, the most common green planthopper in PA: Acanalonia conica the green cone-headed planthopper.

Two closeups from iNaturalist show the caterpillars actively parasitizing green planthoppers.

Planthopper is green and is facing downward.

Planthopper is facing right.

Eventually this sucking of body fluids kills the planthopper. The caterpillar drops off and, when it’s ready to pupate, it drops from the trees on a silk thread to find a place to make its cocoon.

The shape of the tiny cocoon is unusual. Brandon Woo of The Incorrigible Entomologist likened it to the Sydney Opera House in 2018. That’s what everyone calls it now.

Eventually the moth emerges and the cycle starts again.

Watch for a tiny white ball on a thread this month. It’s Bug Season!