Here are a variety of insect finds for today.
Here is a male black swallowtail (Papilio polyxenes).
He is a bit tattered, maybe a bird has nipped off one of his tails.
Here is one of the many Midwest skippers possibly Peck’s skipper (Polites coras).
This is a larger silver-spotted skipper (Epargyreus clarus). The white patch on the underside of the wing is a good distinguishing feature of this skipper.
This on looks kind of like a Pearl Crescent (Phyciodes tharos). But I could be wrong there are many tiny orange butterflies with subtle pattern differences around here like this.
Here is a Common Sanddragon (Progomphus obscurus). These guys can be found near rivers and moving water, not so much near still water lakes.
It was kind of cold out in the morning and I was able to pick him up without him flying away. Once he heats up in the sun he will get more flighty.
I found a monarch as well. Sadly this guy had his abdomen knocked off by a car. He was still trying to feed off the wildflowers though. Poor guy.
I also found a kind of rare millipede aka Pleuroloma flavipes. They are rare to me since they are mostly buried deep within the grass and leaves. I tend to find the larger red millipedes more.
Now for a strange first find for me. These are Golden-backed Snipe Flies (Chrysopilus thoracicus). When I looked them up I found little information about their life-cycle or what they do. Probably just typical fly stuff but their golden back is interesting.