Common Insects of Texas and Surrounding States: A Field Guide

Number Seventy-one

The Corrie Herring Hooks Series

COMMON INSECTS OF TEXAS AND SURROUNDING STATES

A FIELD GUIDE

JOHN ABBOTT AND KENDRA ABBOTT

University of Texas Press

Austin

Copyright © 2020 by the University of Texas Press

All rights reserved

First edition, 2020

Requests for permission to reproduce material from this work should be sent to: Permissions

University of Texas Press

P.O. Box 7819

Austin, TX 78713-7819

utpress.utexas.edu/rp-form

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Abbott, John C., 1972– author. | Abbott, Kendra, author.

Title: Common insects of Texas and surrounding states : a field guide / John Abbott and Kendra Abbott.

Description: First edition. | Austin, TX : University of Texas Press, 2020. | Series: The Corrie Herring Hooks series ; no. 71 | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2020007556

ISBN 978-1-4773-1035-9 (paperback)

ISBN 978-1-4773-2235-2 (ebook)

ISBN 9781477322352 (ebook other)

Subjects: LCSH: Insects—Texas—Identification.

Classification: LCC QL466 .A23 2020 | DDC 595.709764—dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020007556

doi:10.7560/310359

Contents

Key to Color Groupings

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Classification and Nomenclature

What Is an Insect?

Insect Diversity

Insect Growth and Development

Studying Insects

Endangered Arthropods in Texas

How to Use This Guide

Insects of Texas

Springtails (Collembola)

Two-pronged Bristletails (Diplura)

Bristletails (Archaeognatha)

Silverfish (Zygentoma)

Mayflies (Ephemeroptera)

Dragonflies & Damselflies (Odonata)

Stoneflies (Plecoptera)

Caddisflies (Trichoptera)

Earwigs (Dermaptera)

Webspinners (Embiidina)

Angel Insects (Zoraptera)

Barklice, Booklice, and True Lice (Psocodea)

Thrips (Thysanoptera)

Fleas (Siphonaptera)

Twisted-winged Parasites (Strepsiptera)

Grasshoppers, Katydids & Crickets (Orthoptera)

Walkingsticks (Phasmida)

Mantids (Mantodea)

Cockroaches (Blattodea)

Termites (Blattodea)

True Bugs (Hemiptera)

Lacewings, Antlions & Allies (Neuroptera)

Alderflies, Dobsonflies & Fishflies (Megaloptera)

Snakeflies (Raphidioptera)

Scorpionflies & Hangingflies (Mecoptera)

Beetles (Coleoptera)

Flies (Diptera)

Butterflies & Moths (Lepidoptera)

Ants, Bees, Wasps & Sawflies (Hymenoptera)

Other Arthropods (Arachnids, Crustaceans & Myriapods)

Additional Resources

Photographic Credits

Glossary

Index

About the Authors

Key to Color Groupings

Wingless, Soil-dwelling Hexapods p. 34

Aquatic Insects p. 44

Small Insect Orders p. 70

Orthopteroid Insects p. 88

True Bugs p. 120

Antlions, Lacewings, Dobsonflies, Snakeflies & Scorpionflies p. 160

Beetles p. 176

Flies p. 250

Butterflies & Moths p. 276

Ants, Bees, Wasps & Sawflies p. 358

Other Athropods p. 384

Glowworm Beetle (Phengodes sp.)

Acknowledgments

We have tried to create a unique guide to a diverse fauna that will hopefully serve a wide audience. It was however not done alone. We have many influences, but would like to recognize particularly Eric Eaton and Ken Kaufman’s Kaufman Field Guide to Insects of North America, Seabrooke Leckie and David Beadle’s Peterson Field Guides to Moths and Richard Bradley’s Common Spiders of North America. We use them all often and tried to incorporate what we consider to be the best elements of each in this book.

We would like to thank the following people for reviewing various chapters of this book and providing valuable feedback: David Baumgardner, Ernie Bernard, David Bowles, Jerry Cook, Christopher Dietrich, Dan Hardy, Joshua Jones, Boris Kondratieff, Joe Lapp, Katrina Menard, Jack Neff, John Oswald, Ed Riley, Chuck Sexton, John Stidham, Brandon Woo and Diane Young. Valerie Bugh, James Kennedy, and Benjamin Schwartz graciously read over the entire book for us and provided valuable comments and feedback.

We are also thankful to Alysa Joaquin, Maryanne Rodriguez, and Diane Young who provided assistance with the collecting of specimens for us. Charlie Covell and Andy Warren (McGuire Center for Lepidoptera & Biodiversity), Rachel Hawkins (Museum of Comparative Zoology), and Alex Wild (University of Texas Insect Collection) provided access and/or loaned us specimens needed to complete the book.

The BugGuide.net and iNaturalist.org communities are a tremendous resource and collectively provide an amazing wealth of knowledge. Without help from the members of this community, this book would have certainly suffered. Many users on one or both of these sites assisted us in providing locations and identifications of species.

We thank the many individuals that we have spent time with chasing bugs throughout Texas. This book would not have been possible without the many friendships we have forged in Texas over the years. We continue to be grateful for all these friends sharing their tremendous knowledge with us.

Finally, we would like to thank Casey Kittrell, Lynne Ferguson, Linda Ronan, and the entire team at the University of Texas Press for all their help in seeing the book through its final production stages.

Introduction

Clouded Skipper (Lerema accius)

CLASSIFICATION & NOMENCLATURE More than 90% of all animal species belong to the phylum Arthropoda and the vast majority of arthropods are insects. With such diversity, it can be difficult to categorize groups with specific characteristics; the takeaway being that there are almost always exceptions to generalities. Having said that, the Arthropoda are a group of animals that have a segmented body (head, thorax and or abdomen), exoskeleton, and paired jointed appendages.

In order to study, communicate, and better understand the relationships within such diversity, we use a binomial system of classification. This system, first established by the eighteenth century Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus, groups organisms hierarchical by similarity. The fundamental unit in this system is the species, made up of a genus and specific epithet. You can think of these as a first and last name. A species is a group of organisms that, at least theoretically, are reproductively isolated and are similar in appearance, genetics, and ecology. One or more similar species are grouped together in a genus, multiple genera in a family, multiple families in an order and so on. While it can be frustrating, it is important to understand that because the evolutionary process is constant, resulting in continual change, species are not fixed. In addition, our understanding of the relationships of species and the tools that help elucidate these relationships is constantly changing. All of this means that the names themselves are not static. Remember that in the end, the goal is to communicate and to show the relationship among species and groups.

Domain Eukarya

Kingdom Animalia

Phylum Arthropoda

Class Hexapoda

Order Odonata

Family Libellulidae

Genus Plathemis

Specific epithet lydia

Author & Year (Drury, 1773)

The genus and specific epithet are combined to form the species name that is latinized in its spelling and italicized. Only the first letter of the generic name is capitalized. The original author and year that a species was described also often accompanies the species name. If it is determined that the species belongs in a different genus from the one it was originally placed in, the author and year are placed in parentheses. So in the example above, Drury described Libellula lydia in 1773. A subsequent author determined the species was best placed in the genus Plathemis, so it is correctly written as Plathemis lydia (Drury, 1773).

In addition to the above categories, intermediate groups are often used. Some of these, such as subphylum or superfamily are obvious in their placement. Others, like tribe (a designation between subfamily and genus), are not as obvious. Families always end in the suffix -idae, pronounced dē and subfamilies end in the suffix -inae pronounced nē. The broad groups that most enthusiasts are familiar with when it comes to insects, are orders. There is no set suffix to designate orders, but within insects, most of them end in -ptera, which means wing.

Common or English names are common for birds, mammals and even reptiles and amphibians. They are often used more frequently than the scientific names in these groups. Most insects do not have common names, though more and more are being coined, in large part to facilitate the interest of enthusiasts. As a result, it is the more common and readily identifiable groups (butterflies and dragonflies, for example) that have been given these names. Even for those groups that have them, they are not very well standardized. In this book, we have tried to use common names wherever possible because we feel it best serves our primary audience. We tried to use the most widely accepted common name, usually represented in BugGuide. net or iNaturalist.org. An additional resource is the Entomological Society of America’s Common Names of Insects Database (www.entsoc.org/common-names). We however encourage the use of scientific names because while they do change, they are governed under a set of official rules and show the relationship of the insects they are naming. In this guide, we capitalize common names of species.

Within the Arthropoda, five subphyla are generally recognized:

Subphylum Trilobitomorpha – trilobites (extinct)

Subphylum Chelicerata – spiders, scorpions, horseshoe crabs & sea spiders

Subphylum Myriapoda – centipedes & millipedes

Subphylum Crustacea – shrimp, barnacles, lobsters, crabs & woodlice

Subphylum Hexapoda – insects

TRILOBITOMORPHA

WHAT IS AN INSECT? This field guide focuses on the Hexapoda and more specifically, the class Insecta within it. Insects are the largest group within the phylum Arthropoda and the most diverse group of animals on the planet. In addition to the features mentioned uniting the phylum, they posses a three-part body, three pairs of jointed legs, compound eyes and one pair of antennae. Most also bear a pair of wings.

Insects have an open circulatory system, which means hemolymph (blood) flows openly within the body, bathing tissues and organs. They respire through the simple diffusion of gasses across the body membranes and through a series of tubules called trachea that are connected to the outside via spiracles. They exhibit a dazzling array of feeding habits (fluids, solid, plant, animal) and can be found in nearly every habitat imaginable. The single exception being the open ocean where only a few species have managed to invade.

INSECT DIVERSITY It is hard to say how many species of insects are known, much less how many actually exist. Digital databases have made it easier and the numbers more accurate, but for the large groups, they are still just estimates. It is also the case that insect species are still being described on a daily basis. The numbers in the table to the right are taken from various sources and in most cases provide approximations. Insects are most diverse in tropical regions with about 10%, or just under 100,000 species, occurring in North America (N.A.), north of Mexico. As much as 30%, or nearly 30,000 species, of the North American insect fauna occur in Texas making it likely the most diverse state. This is due to its large size and geographic positioning. Like no other state, it has a true mix of eastern and western species and temperate and tropical species.

With over 1.7 million species currently described, the above pie graph shows the relative proportions of major groups. Seventy-five percent of described species are invertebrates; it is estimated that this number is probably closer to 95%. Sixty-five percent of all described species are arthropods and nearly 60% are insects. The numbers used above are extracted from The World Conservation Union (IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2014.3. Summary Statistics for Globally Threatened Species. Table 1: Numbers of threatened species by major groups of organisms, 1996–2018).

*Indicates an approximation. All world species numbers are approximate.

INSECT GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT Insects grow by shedding their exoskeleton through a process called molting. With each molt, they shed their outer body linings as well as the linings of the fore- and hindgut and respiratory tubes. It is a precarious time that may happen nearly instantly or can take hours depending on the species. It is not uncommon to find the shed skins, called exuviae, of insects clinging to vegetation, rocks and man-made structures. Right after molting, the insect is usually soft-bodied, pale or even white in color, and very fragile. Each molt that an insect goes through is called an instar.

One of the keys to the success of insects is their ability to radically transform themselves, a process called metamorphosis. Insects metamorphosis is either simple (Ametabolous and Hemimetabolous) or complete (Holometabolous). Ametabolous development occurs in primitively wingless Hexapods (springtails, two-pronged bristletails, bristletails and silverfish). Nymphs (the immature stage) hatch from an egg looking like a smaller version of the adult. Unlike all other insects, they continue to molt after reaching sexual maturity. The nymphs and adults are often found living together.

Insects that develop external wings as nymphs go through Hemimetabolous metamorphosis and include the dragonflies, mayflies, stoneflies, grasshoppers, mantids, walkingsticks, true bugs and a few other related orders. The nymph hatches from an egg and goes through a series of molts (5 to 20 or more, depending upon the species) until reaching a winged, sexually mature adult. With each molt, the external wing pads visible on the nymph get larger and larger. In some groups the nymphs and adults are found in the same habitat (e.g., true bugs and grasshoppers) and in others the nymphs may be aquatic, while the adults are not (e.g., dragonflies and mayflies).

Complete metamorphosis is the type of development most familiar to those just getting interested in insects. It involves an additional stage called the pupa that occurs between the larva (immature) and adult stages. During this stage, the insect undergoes a complete tissue breakdown and rebuilding. This type of development is found in the most familiar of insect groups (butterflies, beetles, wasps and flies). Insect species with complete development have larvae that look remarkably different from the adults. They do not develop external wing pads and often have different mouthparts and feeding habits. They go through fewer (usually three to five) molts than insects with simple metamorphosis. The evolutionary development of the pupa is responsible for a species radiation in insects. This is evident by only one third of insect orders undergoing this type of metamorphosis, yet 90% of all species are holometabolous. There is no doubt that holometaboly has been responsible for much of the success in insects.

STUDYING INSECTS One of the best ways to learn about insects is to make a collection. Before the age of digital photography, this is how every insect enthusiast and professional invariably got started. We don’t encourage collecting and killing insects just for the sake of killing, but one of the reasons that insects are so popular is their accessibility. They are literally everywhere, in all terrestrial and freshwater habitats that can you imagine. This, along with their reproductive strategy, which typically results in dozens, to hundreds or even thousands of offspring per individual, makes them the perfect subject for every naturalist. Additionally, entomology is a field in which enthusiasts and non-professionals can make serious contributions. There are likely new species waiting to be discovered in your own yard or local park.

Physical collections are critical for the discovery and description of new species. They are also required for genetics studies that have proved so important in understanding the relationships of insects. If you do choose to make an insect collection, we encourage you to take it seriously and consider collecting for a local university or museum collection. A discussion of the proper curatorial techniques is beyond the scope of this field guide, but there are lots of resources online and in print available to guide you through the process.

Not everyone is going to want to physically collect insects and that is fine. As already mentioned, digital photography has resulted in a resurgence of interest in insects. That is because nearly everyone now carries around a great camera with them, on their phone, everywhere they go. If you want to take it to the next level, there are a host of more advanced digital cameras available. More importantly, but as a result of all of the photos of insects that have been generated, there are numerous resources and communities available online to help with identification. Social media platforms like FaceBook (FaceBook.com) are home to numerous groups that post and identify photos. Flickr (flickr.com) is a photo sharing site that is also great for finding, posting and discussing, identified photos. The best place to get help with identifying photos of insects from North America is BugGuide.net. This is a community of knowledgable professionals and enthusiasts dedicated to making the most accurate identifications possible.

Curated collection of beetles at The University of Alabama.

There are also many citizen science initiatives focused on insects. There are too many to list here, but try searching the internet for a specific group of interest and citizen science (e.g. bumblebees citizen science or Odonata citizen science) and you will likely find opportunities to contribute. Most citizen science is done through the contribution of photos to a project, but not always; some solicit physical collections of specimens or other data. iNaturalist (iNaturalist.org) is by far the most popular citizen science web site. This is because it has a beautiful, easy to use, platform and doesn’t focus on a particular group, but rather is one-stop shopping for submitting your natural history observations. It is a large and growing community of amateurs and professionals. It also uses some very impressive artificial intelligence to suggest possible id’s for photos submitted. Some of our other favorite on-line resources are OdonataCentral.com (for dragonflies and damselflies), Moth Photographers Group (MothPhotographersGroup.msstate.edu) and e-butterfly.org for butterflies. For any of these websites however, please keep in mind that photos, no matter how good they are, can not replace specimens and it simply may not be possible to make a confident identification. Never-the-less, all of these resources provide a fantastic opportunity for the insect collector and non-collector alike, to learn.

The senior author using an aerial net.

Mercury vapor bulb placed near a sheet for attracting insects.

Composite of different insects flying around a mercury vapor light.

Whether you are going to make a physical collection of insects or not, you may enjoy using some basic collecting techniques, as many are applicable to both physical and digital collections. The most standard piece of insect collecting equipment is the aerial or butterfly net. It is useful for collecting all flying insects, not just butterflies. It can be used as a catch-and-release piece of equipment as well.

Another popular and easy way to attract insects for collection or photography is black lighting. Many nocturnal insects use uv wavelengths of light for navigation and as a result, are attracted to lights at night. Simply turning on your porch light (just don’t use yellow or red light bulbs) will attract insects. If you want to up your game, try using a mercury vapor bulb (available from your local hardware store) or a black light, but make sure to get a bl vs. blb type bulb as the latter puts out a much narrower range of wave lengths. These lights put out a broad spectrum of uv light attracting many different types of insects. You can either put the attracted insects in a collection or photograph them and post them on the aforementioned sites. If you are interested in insect collecting or preservation equipment and supplies as well as a large selection of insect books, check out BioQuip.com.

You don’t need fancy equipment, however, to find insects. Simply walking around with a good search image will readily reveal the diversity that is out there. Good places to find insects include in and along cracks and crevices of homes and buildings, meadows and prairies with flowering vegetation, on fungi, carrion and dung, under rocks and logs, and in freshwater ponds and streams. If you are just getting into insects and a particular group has not already grabbed you, we suggest you consider starting with a relatively well-known group like butterflies, moths, and dragonflies and damselflies. This is just a practical recommendation, because there are many more resources available for identifying and learning about these groups. You might also find a pair of close-focusing binoculars to be a valuable piece of field equipment, especially if you are not photographing.

In Texas, you do not need a permit to collect insects in most places, but state parks, national parks, and many municipal parks do require permits before you do any collecting, so be sure to talk with appropriate administrators before making collections. There are also very few insects that are federally or state listed as threatened or endangered (see the next section on Endangered Arthropods in Texas for more information). It is unlikely that you would encounter these during the course of normal insect hunting.

We have made a list of Additional Resources at the end of this book that should prove useful to anyone interested in insects in Texas. It is not meant to be exhaustive, but comprehensive and largely focused towards the enthusiast. The resources are organized in the same way that we have grouped the orders in the book in hopes of providing