A pair of local insects

Jbailey · Post by **Jbailey** » Fri Jul 18, 2008 3:56 pm

Here are a couple of six-legged critters I've found nearby or on my patio planters. The Stick Insect is easy to identify. Can anyone identify the red insect. It habituates Milk Weed.

Jim

salden · Post by **salden** » Fri Jul 18, 2008 4:58 pm

I posted the same beetle and was told it was a Milk Weed Beetle.

Ken Ramos · Post by **Ken Ramos** » Fri Jul 18, 2008 5:52 pm

I was going to say that too but Sue beat me to it.

Jbailey · Post by **Jbailey** » Wed Jul 23, 2008 7:54 am

These insects are easy to stalk. The stick insect is fun to play with. They crawl over your hand and up your arm--sometimes really fast.

Jim

Planapo · Post by **Planapo** » Wed Jul 23, 2008 10:15 am

Always interesting to see what is around locally in other places of our planet.

Blimey, Wisconsin!

Until now I was oblivious of Phasmatodea living that far north in the Nearctic! Thanks for expanding my knowledge, Jim.

As far as I´ve just figured out now this one then should be a Diapheromera sp., possibly D. femorata.

--Betty

Jbailey · Post by **Jbailey** » Wed Jul 30, 2008 12:11 pm

Betty:

Danke for the comments on my photos. I'm not quite that far north, though. I'm only 40 degrees, 88 minutes north. You can pass a highway sign a few hours north that marks the 45th. parallel. It also says you are halfway to the north pole!

I was in Koln twice for the Photokina exposition. The second time, my wife and I took an extra week to tour around Deutchland.

Jim

rjlittlefield · Post by **rjlittlefield** » Wed Jul 30, 2008 1:12 pm

Jbailey wrote:I'm not quite that far north, though. I'm only 40 degrees, 88 minutes north.

OK, now I'm curious.

Google seems to be telling me that the border between Wisconsin and Illinois is pretty near 42.5 degrees, that is, 42 degrees 30 minutes.

Am I looking in the wrong place?

--Rik

Planapo · Post by **Planapo** » Thu Jul 31, 2008 1:09 am

Jim, Sorry, I shouldn´t use technical terms without explaining them. "Nearctic" is misleading if one is not used to it. Especially the English reader is possibly prone to read something like "Near arctic" out of it and, understandably, will object when he is assuming that his home has been shifted to close to the North Pole.

But this is not the case here. Nearctic (reads Ne-arctic, Ne from Neo= New, for New World) is the name for a bio- or zoogeographical realm or ecozone and it is reaching from the North pole as far down as Florida.

Now, considering the stick insects (=Phasmatodea). They have their main distribution area in milder climates of the tropics and subtropics and over here in Europe (which is part of the Palae-arctic) you have to go down South to the Mediterranean to find them in their natural habitat. So for me, seeing a stick insect in Wisconsin in your photo was quite a surprise which made me do a bit further reading and I´ve learned that the distribution area of Diapheromera reaches north to even Canada.

Hope you enjoyed your stays in Germany back then.

--Betty

Jbailey · Post by **Jbailey** » Thu Jul 31, 2008 10:34 am

Rik:

I typed too fast for my slowing brain. I am at 43 degrees 8.8 minutes north.

Betty:

No apologies needed, my friend! In fact last winter we got a record amount of snowfall and above normal number of sub-zero days. Maybe I'm getting to be living near artic after all.

Yes, indeed, we enjoyed our drive through Germany. We stopped at Trier, Heidleberg, Neuschwantzstein castle, and the Mosel region. We had some good eats in Cologne and the Schwartzwald region, too.

We also made a short stop to see the Rhein falls at Schaffhousen, Switzerland.

Jim

A pair of local insects

A pair of local insects

Thanks

Not quite neararticm

Re: Not quite neararticm

Oops again!!