8.16.26 Volo Bog (prairie), Ingleside, IL

 While coming back to the parking lot from your journey in the bog, you come across some prairie. Distracted by the lawn mushrooms and lichens, you rushed past it to see the bog. Before you go back to the parking lot, you decide to check out the grassland a bit. There are so many beautiful flowers, and elegant Big Bluestem grass towers above you. Bees, beetles, and butterflies go from flower to flower, while hungry caterpillars munch on the eaves below. What things are there to see on the last stop on your journey?


Goldenrod Soldier Beetle

Milkweed Tussock Moth caaterpillar not on milkweed

Milkweed Tussock Moth on milkweed

Milkweed Tussock Moth on even more milkweed

Two Milkweed Tussock Moth caterpillars!

Four milkweed tussock moth caterpillars o the same leaf

Royal Catchfly, a threatened species of plant! And just in the parking lot

Goldenrod Bunch Gall Midge gall

Unidentified bee

Can ya spot it?

Widow Yellowjacket

Eastern Pondhawk

Dead Monarch Caterpillar, which probably died from a Baculovirus. The virus genetically modifies the caterpillar into climbing to the top of its host plant and then melting, spreading virus-filled goop for other caterpillars to get contaminated by

Black-margined Loosestrife Beetle, a non-naive species of beetle that was purposefully introduced to control the population if the invasive Purple Loosestrife plant


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