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We relish insect life during the growing season, monarchs on milkweed and bumblebees on bee balm. The adult phase of insects is shockingly brief, only one to ten percent of an insect’s life is as an adult, but are we managing our landscapes to protect animals over the many months when they are out of sight?
We do not see them because the insects and spiders have evolved spectacular ways to hide during their off seasons, they disguise and secret themselves away so that they can make it to another short-lived adult phase when they reproduce and start the cycle over. Eggs are camouflaged and hidden under leaves, chrysalis lie in the fallen leaves and can look for all the world like just another leaf, larvae mimic bird droppings, cocoons mimic sticks or silk threads tie on pieces of leaves, pupating insects hide amongst the leaves, nestle in the soil, in tree tops, in hollow stems, sequester in rock piles, in decaying branches, in bark crevices.
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