Types of Mosquitoes in Arkansas: 6 Species Every Homeowner Should Know
Anyone who has spent a summer evening on an Arkansas porch knows the whine and bite of mosquitoes all too well.
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Delve into the fascinating world of insects — the most diverse group of animals on Earth, covering beetles, butterflies, ants, bees, and thousands of other six-legged creatures and their behaviors, habitats, and roles in ecosystems.
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Anyone who has spent a summer evening on an Arkansas porch knows the whine and bite of mosquitoes all too well.
A caterpillar chewing through a milkweed leaf in a Nashua backyard and one wrapped in a silk web on a coastal shrub near the Isles of Shoals are both New Hampshire natives to this story, but they could not be more different in what they mean for the people who find them.
Illinois backyards, prairies, and woodlots host far more caterpillars than most residents ever notice.
Walk through any Kentucky backyard, park, or hardwood stand between April and October and there’s a good chance a caterpillar is nearby, whether it’s munching on milkweed, spinning a silk tent in a cherry tree, or disguising itself as a dead leaf.
Beetles outnumber nearly every other group of animals on the planet, and Kentucky’s mix of hardwood forests, farmland, and river valleys gives them plenty of room to spread out.
Colorado’s caterpillars range from harmless woollybears wandering across hiking trails to spiny stingers best admired from a distance.
Pennsylvania’s forests, gardens, and roadside meadows are crawling with more caterpillars than most residents ever notice.
Walk through an Ohio backyard, park, or woodland between May and September and there’s a good chance a caterpillar is nearby, whether it’s tucked under a leaf or crawling across a sidewalk in plain sight.
Slap at a whining insect on a humid Florida evening, and there’s a decent chance it isn’t even interested in your blood.
New York’s oak forests lost more than 680,000 acres of leaves to a single caterpillar species in 2021, then barely registered damage four years later.
Step into a Maryland meadow on a warm June afternoon and you’ll likely see more than one kind of butterfly working the same patch of milkweed or joe-pye weed.
Mississippi’s warm, humid climate supports a surprising range of wasps, and most Mississippians only recognize two or three of them on sight.
Step outside on a humid July afternoon in Iowa and the air fills with a sound that seems to come from everywhere at once.
More than a dozen caterpillar species turn Northern California’s oak woodlands, coastal gardens, and mountain meadows into a seasonal nursery for future moths and butterflies, though most people never notice them until an oak tree loses half its leaves overnight.
California’s caterpillars turn up in the most ordinary places: a milkweed patch, a fennel plant left to flower, a coast live oak shading the backyard.
New Jersey’s backyards, meadows, and hardwood forests support a surprising amount of biodiversity, and one online database tracks 156 caterpillar insects documented in the state.
Reach into a shrub in your Texas backyard without looking, and you might come away with more than a scratch from a branch.
Not every whine near your ear at dusk comes from the same insect.
Not every caterpillar climbing across an Arkansas porch screen is destined to become a butterfly.
Tennessee’s mix of Appalachian forest, farmland, and suburban gardens supports an enormous range of insect life, and caterpillars are some of the easiest to spot if you know where to look.