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August 24th, 2018
                                                                                          What I Saw On My Hoary Mountain Mint Plant                                                               
                                                                                                            --100 Different Insect Species!--
 
            A couple of years ago my sister put one small plant of hoary mountain mint into our flower bed. It has now spread about a square foot at the base, and I love its display of white flowers and silvery foliage. But my favorite part about is how many bugs it attracts! Recently, out of curiosity, I decided to try to photograph the different species that I saw coming.
            Over the course of a few days, I periodically checked the plant and took pictures of all the species I found on it. Paying close attention made me notice how many insects were depending on this single plant, from big, showy butterflies to tiny gnat-like flies and other bizarre-looking critters that I've never seen before. Each and every species had its specific purpose for visiting the plant. Most were drawn by nectar, but some came for other purposes. I saw grasshoppers eating leaves, weevils sucking juice from the stems, predatory bugs and spiders searching for prey, and a few insects simply seeking shelter beneath the leaves.
            When I collaborated the images together, I was shocked. Over only a few days, one hundred different species were in some way using a single plant of hoary mountain mint! It made me realize just how important a single plant can be and that by adding one more native plant, we can help to make a big difference for so many insects!

**The 5 collections of photographs below are numbered with a corresponding key where we labeled the insects to the best of our knowledge. Feel free to share your thoughts about their names. 
 **I'm sure there are dozens more visiting too that I somehow overlooked or wasn't present to photograph!

Insects on Hoary Mountain Mint


1. ----
2. Flower Fly
3. Wasp
4. Bee
5. Thick-headed Fly
6. Grasshopper
7. ----
8. Halictid Bee
9. Ambush Bug with Moth
10. Sweat Bee
11. Honey Bee
12. ----
13. Silver Spotted Skipper
14. Juvenal’s Duskywing
15. Ripiphorid Beetles
16. Bumble bee
17. Thread-waisted Wasp
18. Flower Longhorn
19. Carpenter Bees
20. Planthopper
21. Silvery Checkerspots
22. Dwarf Spider
23. Burrower Bug
24. Tarnished Plant Bug
25. Tachinid Fly
26. ----
27. Sand Wasp with Flower Longhorn
28. Chafer
29. Long-legged Fly
30. Fly
31. ----
32. Eastern Tiger Swallowtail
33. Grey Hairstreak

34. Slender Flower Fly
35. Goldenrod Crab Spider with Silvery Checkerspot
36. Silver Mouth Wasp
37. Great Golden Digger Wasp
38. Weevil
39. Tumbling Flower Beetle
40. Wasp
41. Mayfly
42. Cranefly
43. Damselfly
44. Wasp
45. Bee
46. Planthopper
47. Bee
48. True Bug with Ant
49. Moth
50. Ailanthus Webworm Moth
51. Ant
52. Black and Yellow Lichen Moth
53. Skipper
54. ----
55. Assassin Bug
56. Sedge Moth
57. Thread-waisted Moth
58. Celery Webworm
59. ----
60. ----
61. Ants
62. Jumping Spider
63. American Copper
64. ----
65. ----
66. Sand Wasp

67.  Leafhopper
68. ----
69. Robber Fly
70. ----
71. Spotted Cucumber Beetle
72. ----
73. ----
74. ----
75. Two-Lined Spittlebug
76. Braconid Wasp
77. ----
78. Mexican Bean Beetle
79. Common Buckeye
80. Scolops
81. Seed bug
82. Crocus Geometer
83. Antlike Scavenger Fly
84. Fly
85. Warty Leaf Beetle
86. Spotted Lady Beetle
87. Flower Fly
88. Ant
89. ----
90. Tumbling Flower Beetle
91. ----
92. Striped Cucumber Beetle
93. Vespidae Family
94. Spider Wasp Family
95. ----
96. ----
97. Eastern Tailed Blue
98. Potter Wasp
99. Sharpshooter
100. Grape Leaf Skeletonizer