Large Milkweed Bug
Another photo has reached us from the shadowy halls of Warehouse 23, and you know what that means: Steve Jackson is at it again!
This time Steve and I made a good tag team, in a comedy of errors kind of way: he sent me a different image of this bug, which I quickly misidentified as a box elder bug. But Steve said the bug was 45mm long, which is WAY too big for a box elder, so I went back to BugGuide and dug deeper. After some twenty minutes of research, I was able to misidentify the bug again, this time as Oncopeltus sexmaculatus, the six-spotted milkweed bug.
A lot of folks would have shrugged and said, “Okay, thanks,” and forgotten about it. But not Steve. He went out to BugGuide and looked at the bug I had seen, and said “Ehhhh… I’m not so sure.” Then he had a go at searching BugGuide, finally landing on Oncopeltus fasciatus, the Large Milkweed Bug. He thinks that’s a better identity for this bug, and I think so, too.
The really funny bit is that this identification came out as the result of typo: the bug was actually 15mm. Had Steve not typo’d it, I probably would have told you all it was a box elder bug all along (until one of you corrected me).
Great shot as usual, Steve. Thank you!
Scott said,
May 21, 2008 @ 9:08 am
Bugs aside, how awesome is it that Steve Jackson is a contributor. I loved the Lord of the Rings M… What? Oh I’ve misidentified him? Easy enough mistake to make.
Srsly it is cool that SJ is a contributor. I was a big gaming geek in college.
JFargo said,
May 21, 2008 @ 2:18 pm
Very cool picture, and story of identification. I’d like to point out that I’m pretty sure that’s a milkweed pod that the insect is actually sitting on, which makes me think that you’ve got the ID correct…
Steve Jackson said,
May 21, 2008 @ 11:51 pm
(waves to Scott) Thanks! I appreciate your making it possible for me still not to have a real job!
JFargo: Yep. That is Antelope-Horn Milkweed, Asclepias asperula, in the phase that gave it its common name. I keep my eye on it because it’s a host plant for monarch caterpillars. In this case, it hosted something else. Another pod had a huge swarm of bright-orange milkweed bug nymphs, but my darned little PowerShot didn’t want to focus on them. Need . . . DSLR . . .
JFargo said,
May 22, 2008 @ 7:41 am
You know Steve, I was going to say that I was surprised you don’t already have one, and then I started looking into prices for just the base models, not even including higher quality lenses.
Yowch!
I’ll be the nymphs would have been very cool to see though.
Hopefully those monarch caterpillars will be heading your way soon! Should make for some cool pictures.
tceisele said,
May 22, 2008 @ 8:01 am
Yep, if you want to get cameras significantly better than Canon Powershots for insect photography, you are going to pay dearly for them. As Alex Wild puts it:
“So don’t say I didn’t warn you, months from now when you find yourself destitute, living in the street, your savings turned into lenses and flash units.”