Gaillardia World: Welcome!

Greetings, everyone!  Welcome to Gaillardia World--at least the glimpses I had of it by "noticing" Gaillardia pulchella, aka "Blanket Flower," for several hours a day this past summer.   

Gaillardia pulchella, Bird Runner Wildlife Refuge, October 15, 2022

Some temporary ailments were keeping me from long hikes here at Bird Runner Wildlife Refuge (a native-prairie preserve in the Flint Hills of Kansas, where I live with my husband).   I opted to see what I could learn closer to home.  (In the 17 "Gaillardia World" entries that follow, I document the wild creatures that came to Gaillardia, while in a Substack essay, I muse about what I learned and what it might say about us humans and our relationship to nature.  That essay is at  https://margystewart.substack.com/p/at-home-in-the-land-welcome-to-gaillardia .) 

Patches of Gaillardia pulchella, a native annual, had sprung up nearby, thanks to my having thrown out some seeds left over from a prairie restoration.  "Paying attention" is a long-standing spiritual practice in various traditions.   I decided to "pay attention" to those patches--one in our front yard, one by the barn.  

  Here is the Gaillardia in our front yard in June:

The Gaillardia has grabbed some bare spots in an existing garden, 

planted over 50 years ago by the farm wife who lived here before me.  

The green above the limestone is some rock cress,
also planted a half-century ago by that 

same skillful gardener.

And here is Gaillardia by our barn in September:

Gaillardia by our barn, with volunteer Maximillian Sunflowers

and Gray-headed Coneflowers.  September 2022.

While some blooms are going to seed, forming

puffy white balls, others are just opening.  

Blanket Flower is native to  the Lower 48, but most common 

in hot, dry areas.    It is the state flower of Oklahoma.

The "a-r-d-i" in the middle of "Gaillardia" must stand for "hardy!"  Gaillardia bloomed month after month, through dry spells and rain, hot winds and early frosts.

But Gaillardia impressed me even more with the force-field around it, the dynamism of its interactions.   Gaillardia-world was alive with creatures flying, buzzing, crawling, feeding, dying,  hiding, searching, mating, resting, growing, and other activities that were part of their lives.

The posts that follow this one (under the heading "Gaillardia World") show glimpses of this co-flourishing--Blanket Flower's inter-being with butterflies, bees, flies, spiders, dragonflies, wasps, grasshoppers, moths, damselflies, and bugs.   For me, these "noticings" were openings to growth, as they allowed me to learn more about the many invertebrate species with whom I share the prairie world. 

I was an English major with no scientific background so my method of ecological learning may be of use to others.  This was my routine:    I would sit in a lawn chair near the Gaillardia and watch for shapes or movements on the blossoms, stems, and leaves.  I had my Samsung phone-camera in hand and an inexpensive  Sony on a tripod nearby, ready to record.      If I didn't recognize the subjects, I would send their photos to bugguide.net or  iNaturalist.org--both sites where experts generously help amateurs identify their finds.  Once the experts steered me in the right direction, I could delve into field guides and follow Google trails to learn more about these creatures' lifeways.  In addition, I could post questions to Kansas Arthropods, a Facebook group where experts also counsel amateurs.  

These conversations, albeit virtual, were deeply rewarding, as all participants shared the recognition that "noticing" something small can connect us with something large--indeed, the largest--Creation at work, alive in our world.  

The posts that follow are each named for a kind of creature, such as "Gaillardia World: Bee Flies" or "Gaillardia World: Moths"; or for a scenario, such as "Gaillardia World: A Doomed Love Affair" or "Gaillardia World: A Promising Love Affair."  

Every name I was able to put to Gaillardia's residents and visitors opened the door to more questions.   Similar explorations are available to anyone who pays attention to local  wildflowers.    It is thrilling to grow in knowledge while encountering the mysteries of the world.  As more spaces, tiny or huge, are devoted to native plants, exhilarating discoveries and humbling wonder become accessible to all.    

 

Gaillardia World: Moth Caterpillars (Including Con Artists)

              A "Camouflaged Looper."   Can you tell what's flower and
              what's bug?

Camouflaged Loopers are ingenious caterpillars that lived on Gaillardia pulchella all summer long.   They are the larvae of the Wavy-Lined Emerald Moth, Synchlora aerata, 

I first noticed these caterpillars while watching some beetles.   Suddenly, I was distracted by the disk flowers rising up and waving around.   I watched, astonished, as the flowers moved across the disk. Birnam Wood was going to Dunsinane!  But unlike MacBeth, I looked more closely and saw that some nebulous creature, her outlines hidden under pasted-on flower-parts, was the prime mover.   Other Gaillardia plants also boasted such costumed beings!   A few Google searches later, I learned their identity--Camouflaged Loopers.  

Indeed, they are masters of disguise.

While some insects have evolved to resemble their host plants, Camouflaged Loopers have a more flexible strategy to hide from predators.   They choose a plant to feed on and then adorn themselves with parts of that plant in order to blend in with those particular flowers.  Thus, they can feed right out in the open, hopefully unnoticed.

Unless they move, they look just like a bit of flower detritus: 

Here they are in action:

How do they create their costumes?  Mineralized "spikes" grow along their backs, sort of like horses' teeth or our own fingernails. The Loopers chew flower parts and inject them with a glue-like liquid from a special gland.    Then they fasten the sticky mass to the spikes.  And there they are--all dolled up!  

The caterpillars were in no hurry to metamorphose.   We had them with us from the heat of June to the freezes of October.   Camouflaged Loopers overwinter in the ground and don't metamorphose to moths until warm weather returns.   So as frost killed the flowers, these little guys went down into the soil to await further transformation in the spring.

Synchlora aerata is part of a moth family called Geometridae, Greek for "Earth Measurers."   Following this theme, the caterpillars are called "Inchworms," "Measuringworms" or "Spanworms."   They are also called "Loopers" because of their anatomy and peculiar locomotion.   Loopers have legs on their thorax, but no legs on the abdomen--just two pairs of prolegs at the rear.    To move, they raise up their legless middle to form a U and then bring their hind end up to meet the thorax.   Once the "loop" is formed, the front end stretches out into new territory, measuring the earth by "inching" forward.   

Here are some more Loopers from the family Geometridae, difficult to identify further, as the caterpillars of numerous species resemble each other.   The green ones were especially common on Gaillardia, throughout the summer.    

A green Inchworm, July 31, 2022

A mauve Inchworm, July 29, 2022

(These caterpillars are all from the family Geometridae, but not all inchworms are Geometrids.  Caterpillars of Noctuidae can also be "loopers.")