30 September 2021

Illinois Beach State Park: Expect the Unexpected

 I had two interesting experiences at Illinois Beach State Park during a hike in June of 2020:

The first was realizing there was yet another insect that is dependent on milkweed: Cycnia inopinatus, the unexpected cycnia moth. I found this one on Asclepias tuberosa, butterfly weed.


I actually thought it was a weird instar of the milkweed tussock moth, Euchaetes egle, initially. I certainly was not expecting this caterpillar! I love learning more about the nature around me.


The second was finding out dung beetles live in the same town I grew up in!



How cool are those?! I have hiked and volunteered in IBSP quite a bit and never knew about dung beetles!

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Keeping this one short and sweet because I'm working on the NC trip posts!

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