A Herd of Zebras

After enjoying a meal in the park a few weeks ago with my girlfriend, I stopped by a sweet gum tree (Liquidambar styraciflua) to check for any insects. The sweet gum is abundant in Ohio and is one of my favorite trees. It reminds me of when I was a kid and would throw the seed balls at my friends. Good times.

I noticed an orange bug near the trunk of the tree and stooped down to investigate.

Success! I had found Pselliopus barberi, a species I like to refer to as the zebra-striped assassin bug. I kept looking and found another one. Then another. And another....all in all, I counted 29 in total! There were about six pairs which were mating, though I disturbed a few (as you can see in the above photo).

It's not every day that you find so many insects in one place. So what was going on?

The answer lies in the season. This species overwinters as adults, so when it starts getting colder in the fall, the adults band together to find hiding places under bark and wrinkly crevices on trees. Sometimes it results in a little hanky-panky as well. It's for the good of the species, of course.

SCATTER GUYS, SCATTER!

On a related note, this was a time I was glad to have my Droid X with me. I didn't have my camera, but thankfully I was able to snap a few photos with my phone instead. They're not as high quality, but they get the job done and allowed me to identify the species of these bugs. And people say technology removes us from nature... Pro tip: it's all about how you use it.

Now, when will the assassin bugs come out again? That depends on when it warms up. Last year, I got my hands on an adult at the end of January. Last year was an abnormally hot winter, however, so (I hope) it won't be until early next Spring that we'll start to see the adults emerge from their hiding spots.

References:

Heteroptera of Eastern North America. 1926. W.S. Blatchley. The Nature Publishing Company.

Winter's Zebra Assassins

If you live in Ohio, you would probably agree that this winter has been a strange one. In the southeast, we haven't gotten much snow (much to my own chagrin). While this stops me from sledding down the available hills on campus, the mild weather at least means that you're more likely to encounter insects than you would be under two feet of snow.

A few weeks ago, on January 27th, a friend brought me a nice little surprise:

This little dude clad in zebra stripes is the assassin bug known as Pselliopus barberi. This species, like other assassins, is predaceous (just check out that beak!) and this one overwinters as an adult, explaining why it was found in January. It's not too large, just about 14 millimeters, but it's quite striking.

There are two species in this genus that you're likely to encounter often in Ohio: P. barberi and P. cinctus. P. cinctus is slightly smaller, and is a duller orange color. Before getting this one, I hadn't bothered too much with identifying them to species because it can be subtle differences that distinguish them, but the easy way to go about it is this: P. barberi is larger, brighter, and doesn't usually have a dark spot on its anterior pronotal lobe. Another character: the back margin of the pronotum on P. barberi is straight, while P. cinctus has a bisinuate margin. Let's use some pictures to explain those terms.

Pselliopus barberi

The back of the pronotal margin is straight, that's pretty easy to see.

Pselliopus cinctus

Now you can see the difference and understand what bisinuate actually means (I wasn't sure at first myself): the back margin of P. cinctus looks slightly flared out. You can also see the dark spot.

I've seen both species and one of their nymphs: their orange color really makes them stand out. My yard seems to be a pretty good place for them, as I've found the nymph on Queen Anne's Lace (Daucus carota) and an adult P. cinctus prowling around on Smooth Sumac (Rhus glabra) near some leatherwing beetles.

Keep an eye out during the warmer days of winter and you might spot a few. I've been keeping mine alive on fruit flies and will set it free during Spring if it can stay alive until then--I have high hopes!