It’s bug season in Colorado, and this spring’s plentiful rains have brought out the many-legged critters, from aphids to ants and miller moths.
“The flowers are just incredible, and when the plants are happy, insects are. It should be a great butterfly year,” says Deane Bowers, an entomologist at the University of Colorado museum.
This month, watch for aphid-tending ants on thistle plants, maples and aspens, Bowers said. These ants help protect aphids, chasing away ladybugs and other potential predators.
In return, ants get to drink the sweet “exudate” of the aphids – drops of sugary liquid from the aphid’s, uh, backside.
Many of Colorado’s ants also stage mating flights in June, when workers push winged males and females out of the nest for midair meetings, said Whitney Cranshaw, an entomologist at Colorado State University.
Baby grasshoppers, newly hatched last month, are popping around Colorado’s grasslands munching tender shoots, Cranshaw said.
A truly lucky hiker might even spot a rare dung beetle, he said. A Colorado resident for 23 years, Cranshaw caught his first dung beetle on film last month. He won’t say where, exactly, only allowing that if you want to see one yourself, you should take a hike in a place where livestock wander, a day or two after a rain, and look for big poop.
The critters roll up a chunk of dung – often from cattle – stuff the packet into a hole in the ground and lay eggs in it, Cranshaw said.
Tent caterpillars are already out on many trails in the Front Range – look for their silky tents woven into the crotches of mountain mahogany, aspen, gamble oaks and other trees, according to the Colorado State Extension Service.
The caterpillars of four moth species weave tents in the state, and they occasionally damage their host tree by eating too many leaves.
June is also miller moth season in Colorado, when the dusty brown moths wing their way from the Eastern Plains to the mountains for the summer.
There are so many nectar-rich wildflowers in bloom this year, miller moths are likely to stay away from people’s gardens and homes.
Colorado’s state insect – the hairstreak butterfly – is a gorgeous creature, but Bowers admits she’s more drawn to strange bugs than beautiful.
“I’m really into the checkerspot butterflies, which store nasty chemicals from their host plants and make themselves taste bad,” Bowers said.
Checkerspot caterpillars hold onto those chemicals while undergoing metamorphosis, so the taste of adult butterflies can dishearten a hungry mantis or bird.
Staff writer Katy Human can be reached at 303-954-1910 or khuman@denverpost.com
BIG BUGS AT GARDENS
What do bugs love besides crawling under your shirt and scaring the daylights out of you? They love plants. So the Big Bugs exhibit at the Denver Botanic Gardens makes perfect sense.
Stroll around the Botanic Gardens’ outstanding maze of plants from around the world, and gawk at the enormous bug sculptures temporarily planted there, including a 1,200-pound praying mantis and a 7-foot-tall assassin bug.
You haven’t been? You must. The exhibit closes June 24. Even if you have seen the exhibit, it’s time you returned. New flowers are blossoming every day. The Botanic Gardens is a different place today than it was merely two weeks ago. And it transforms again in two more weeks. And so on. Until it all goes into hibernation, which fortunately is a long time from now. -Douglas Brown, Denver Post staff writer
Where: 1005 York St., Denver,, 720-865-3500
ART AND ARTHROPODS AT SWETSVILLE ZOO
What’s a bored farmer to do during long winters but go after cast off implements and fuel canisters with a cutting torch and a welder? The result is the super-kid-friendly, admission-charge-free Swetsville Zoo, a crazy menagerie of prehistoric and imagined characters that populates Bill Swets’ yard.
Get there on a windy day and you’ll be enthralled by kinetic sculptures, like grasshoppers flying on a carousel and a tightrope walker with dragonflies at the ends of its balance.
The Louise Bourgeois “Spider” sculpture looming at the entrance to the Denver Art Museum’s got nothing on Swets’ giant bug sculpture, which looms over a picnic table at the edge of a lovely little stream.
So bring your lunch. We guarantee that the line of ants fashioned from rusty railroad spikes will leave you alone. – Dana Coffield, Denver Post staff writer
Where: 4801 E. Harmony Road, Timnath (one-quarter-mile east of Interstate 25 on East Harmony), 970-484-9509
PAVILION BUTTERFLIES ARE GLEE
You dig bugs: centipedes, millipedes, Japanese beetles. Even stink bugs. Your friend, though, wants nothing to do with things winged, small, many-legged and strange-eyed. So compromise. Head to the Butterfly Pavilion in Westminster.
Yes, butterflies are bugs, but only the coldest heart could dismiss them. They are floating murals, gliding fragments of impressionism, soaring, delicate, graceful animal machines straight outta’ Willy Wonka’s factory, only they’re not. They’re from your backyard.
And at the Butterfly Pavilion, thousands of them come from Malaysia, the Philippines, Costa Rica, El Salvador and a bunch of other places tropical. Wear a brightly colored shirt and one of the winged beauties may mistake you for a blossom and land for a close-up moment.
Sure, you can check out spiders at the Pavilion, but you don’t have to do that. Just hang out with the butterflies. You and your friend will dig it. – Douglas Brown
Where: 6252 West 104th Ave., Westminster,, 303-469-5441
MAY’S INSECTS LOOM LARGE
There’s something truly magical about descending through a windy canyon, it’s entrance marked by a giant Hercules beetle, and discovering a nearly century-old collection of bugs gathered from all around the world, at a time when it took a Herculean effort to travel all around the world.
May Natural History Museum of the Tropics, located southwest of Colorado Springs, is a collection of more than 100,000 invertebrates of which around 8,000 are on display at any time. The emphasis is on giant insects, like the 17-inch stick bug and an assortment of enormous Brazilian butterflies.
The exhibit changes from year to year, so even if you think you’ve seen it all, you’ll see something new if you go again. – Dana Coffield
Where: Rock Creek Canyon Road, 8 miles southwest of Colorado Springs, off of Colo. 115. 719-576-0450 or 800-666-3841 maymuseum-camp-rvpark.com
