Garlic Mustard
You can usually spot invasive plants in the spring by seeing what is greening up and flowering first, especially in warmer than usual seasons. The continuing high temperatures have a lot of non-native and/or invasive plant life springing up despite the fact it is winter, and Garlic Mustard (Alliaria petiolata) has been one that I noticed plenty of right now. It has been downright creepy to see so much green all over the ground, from the grass to species like this one conquering the leaf litter that has yet to decay. In certain locations in Connecticut, where there has not been a hard freeze...
Read MoreSuzuki’s Promalactis (Promalactis suzukiella)
Happy National Moth Week! We will be showing you many cool species over the next week so we can all appreciate these incredible insects even more. I have a bunch of individuals that I still have to key out from mothing during the past couple of months, and I have tried to do some field work at least every week or two with them. This was one of my first finds last night, and I swear that I knew immediately when looking at it that it would be a non-native species. It seemed divergent to me in some way. Even though many North American moths are staggeringly beautiful, with vibrant shades, odd...
Read MoreEuropean Skipper
This was one of an abundance of European Skippers (Thymelicus lineola) that Twan recently noted while conducting some field work, hopefully the first of many actual native skipper species that will be emerging in our lands soon. The European Skipper has only been on our continent for about a century after its accidental introduction. They are still expanding their range. I wonder if the fact they come out so early in comparison to some other skippers helps them survive, as is the case with many non-native and/or invasive plants that have success here. Scott Kruitbosch Conservation &...
Read MoreMonk Parakeet
Are we sure Monk Parakeets aren’t native? They certainly look right at home sometimes…and they often make me think of the extinct Carolina Parakeet that we never had the opportunity to see outside of a drawer in the RTPI archives. We as naturalists and conservationists must be working hard every single day so that our currently threatened species do not end up solely as parts of museum collections. Scott Kruitbosch Conservation & Outreach Coordinator
Read MoreCabbage White
Here we have the Cabbage White or Small White (Pieris rapae) butterfly feeding on a clover. While they are an introduced species and abundant, sometimes a pest to the crops they are named after, they still do have a beauty on a late spring day among the green and rapidly diversifying colors.
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