June 14th, 2006
silver eggs
This morning, I had been planning to post some more photos from last Sunday’s hike at Murphy’s Point Provincial Park. However, something came along and bopped the dragonflies out of the way. Yesterday afternoon, while walking in the meadows here at the farm, I came upon these weird little spiny silver eggs atop a Common Milkweed leaf (click on image to see larger view). I must confess that they were so very small that I had no idea that they had crown-like spines until I had a look at them on my computer screen. Once enlarged, they looked so bizarre that I actually started to laugh. They reminded me more of something out of a sci-fi movie than the kind of thing one might find on a milkweed leaf in a meadow. Of course, I had no idea what they might be. They didn’t resemble any of the butterfly eggs that I’m familiar with. However, yesterday was a busy day for me, so I didn’t have time to look around for a possible ID.
Last night, I got to wondering about the eggs again, and posted a note about them to a regional nature listserv to which I belong. One of the other members recalled having read that stink bug or shield bug eggs had a circle of spines. That set me off looking around for stink bug egg photos on Google. It seemed that most of the stink bugs have typical rounded or barrel-shaped eggs, but then I found a page with photos of eggs of the Spiny Soldier Bug, et voila… a match.
Spiny Soldier Bugs, also known as Spiny Stink Bugs, are the predatory members of the Pentatomidae Family which includes all Stink Bugs. While many species of Stink Bugs feed on plants, a number of them (mainly species of Podisus and Brochymena) use their pointed proboscis to stab and feed on the body fluids of insects (as illustrated in the gory photo above). The plant feeding Stink Bugs can usually be distinguished from their predatory kin by their lack of humeral spines (sharply pointed “shoulders”). Also, many predatory Stink Bugs have decidedly armor-like appearance compared to the smoothly rounded appearance of the plant feeders. By the way, I photographed the above Spiny Stink Beetle while it was feeding on an insect larva yesterday afternoon – I believe the little black larva was that of a Trirhabda Beetle. I’m seeing huge number of the predatory Stink Bugs around the meadows — which is probably not such a bad thing as there are immense numbers of Trirhabda Beetle larvae eating the leaves of the goldenrod plants absolutely ragged. It seems that the insect world always finds its own way to enforce balance.
Tags: silver eggs with spines, Spiny Stink Bug, Spiny Soldier Bug, Podisus, predatory stink bug, Trirhabda Beetles
June 14th, 2006 at 1:06 pm
Those are beautiful egg pics – I had no idea that mere animals could do something like that! They’re every bit as exquisite as any sort of trichome-decorated fruit or seed a plant could make!
I’m going to have to watch out for these predatory stinkbugs. I see nothing spiny about that Spiny Soldier Bug (armor plated, yes). Do you suppose they’re named after their eggs?
June 14th, 2006 at 1:23 pm
Wayne – Aren’t they quite something?! I’ve never seen anything like them before – but now I’ll be looking at more eggs. I have a 15X loupe that I’m going to start examining eggs with when I’m out and about. Perhaps there more interesting things to be seen if we just look.
That particular stink bug wasn’t all that spiny, but here is a pair that are actually more typical of the predatory type. They look quite spiny.
June 14th, 2006 at 1:38 pm
Cool picture. Do predatory stinkbugs feed on mature beetles?
June 14th, 2006 at 2:18 pm
Mark – I think predatory stinkbugs will probably feed on anything they can get their nozzle into. They feed by stabbing into things and draining body fluids. They do seem to prefer softer bodied larvae though. I’ve seen them feeding on the fat larvae of Swamp Milkweed beetles, caterpillars of Monarchs, etc… However, they seem to leave spiders alone. The predatorial stink bugs such as the ones in the photo I posted here in the comments are often found in some hop vines here at the farm. The vines are full of large spiders as well, but I’ve never seen a stink bug attacking one of them.
June 14th, 2006 at 2:50 pm
Those spiny silver eggs are just incredible, Bev. They are so other-worldly. I love looking at them.
Isn’t it amazing how quickly you could identify these eggs? That you could google stink bug photos and find a match? It’s the best use of the internet.
June 14th, 2006 at 7:05 pm
Those eggs look like anemones to me. I saw a stink bug of some type in the garden a day or two ago and, not being able to remember how to tell the good guy from the bad guy, I left it alone. The good guys have spines, the good guys have spines, the good guys have spines. Thanks for another interesting (and timely!) post.
June 14th, 2006 at 11:10 pm
Very interesting eggs. I will start looking closer at the milkweed after supper. Meanwhile, back on the Ontario Wanderer Blog, I have a few mysteries of my own. Hope you can find time to have a look and help me out.
June 15th, 2006 at 2:02 am
RA – I keep thinking that the silver eggs have a very ethereal quality. A few people have mentioned the same after looking at the photos. I love looking at them too — there’s just something so weird and cool about them that they are fun to look at. And yes, it’s really quite amazing how quickly one can find an ID for something — between belonging to listservs with people who have similar interests, and then the blogs, and then being able to google up some images to look through. That’s really what I like best about the net — the incredible amount of reference material that abounds.
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Leslie – In my garden, they’re all good guys… but then, you have to remember that I regard everthing in my yard and gardens as “foodplants” for insects! (-:
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O.W. – I did take a look at your mystery insects. I’m afraid that I could only solve one of the mysteries, but perhaps others will wander over and take a look as well.
June 15th, 2006 at 2:47 am
COOL! You solved a mystery that I have as well…I found these eggs in my yard…now I know. Thanks.
June 16th, 2006 at 12:11 am
Jimmy – That’s interesting that you’ve seen them too! I often find that around the same time as I’m trying to ID something, I’ll come across someone else who is trying to figure out the same thing — especially when it comes to insects as they seem to be fairly consistent in a phenological sense.
June 8th, 2007 at 6:01 am
[…] Last year, some of you may remember that I wrote a series of posts about a cluster or silver eggs found on a milkweed leaf on June 13th (see image of eggs below). About a week later, the eggs began to hatch, and several of us discussed the “blue lining” seen on some of those eggs. I wrote a follow-up report about the eggs here. As you will recall, the eggs were identified as being those of some species of predacious Stink Bug — a group commonly referred to as Spined Soldier Bugs for their pointed “shoulders”. […]