Insects and More at Sandy Hook - Sandy Hook, NJ - Ocean Institute

(Above) Kids "bugging" the instructors at Ocean Adventures camp!

Many insects are residents and transients at Sandy Hook. After a game of charades, there are plenty of insects to be sudied.

Painted ladies, hackberry butterflies, buckeyes and red admirals are some of the species you can expect to find migrating along with monarch butterflies. (See map below)

Mourning cloaks (right) are regularly seen in the spring and fall and occasionally on warm winter days. They are one of the few butterflies that hibernates. This specimen is one of several feeding on sap from an injured tree.

Swallowtail butterflies feed on members of the carrot family like the Queen Anne's lace (above). Ambush bugs lie in wait for insect prey (above right).

Other migrating insects include bee-flies and dragonflies.

Beeflies migrate through in great numbers in the spring and are concentrated at the beach by offshore winds in early June. They are a fly that mimics a bee to fool predators.

Spiders are common at Sandy Hook. Some like the crab spiders sit on flowers and ambush prey, others like the wolf spiders hunt their prey and rarely build a web.

Many are preyed upon by wasps (Below)

Inland and coastal migration paths and concentration points for monarchs and other butterflies and insects like dragonflies carried by West winds in the Fall .
(Adapted from: Wings in the Meadow - Jo Brewer) ............................................................................................