{"id":2500,"date":"2010-08-01T19:42:29","date_gmt":"2010-08-02T01:42:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.kabt.org\/?p=2500"},"modified":"2010-08-02T19:41:27","modified_gmt":"2010-08-03T01:41:27","slug":"something-to-do-with-grass-clippings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kabt.org\/?p=2500","title":{"rendered":"Something to do with Grass Clippings"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.kabt.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/07\/Yellow_Soldier_Fly_2.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-2519\" src=\"https:\/\/www.kabt.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/07\/Yellow_Soldier_Fly_2.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"288\" height=\"216\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Early this morning, before the full heat of the day, I mowed the lawn.\u00a0 Having left it to grow for two weeks, I had to stop more frequently to empty the bag onto our compost heap in the back yard.\u00a0 Like many times before, I noticed that some flying insects were attracted to the new piles of grass clippings.\u00a0 They\u00a0hovered around like the hymenoptera in a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kabt.org\/?s=hovering+hymenoptera\" target=\"_blank\">recent post<\/a>, but on a much smaller scale.\u00a0 So,\u00a0after finished my duties, I decided to observe for awhile and learn a little bit.\u00a0 Here is what happened&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>This is what this swarming looked like&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Grass Clippings Swarm I\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/CVDrRxZIoWk?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Then I\u00a0witnessed this&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.kabt.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/07\/Yellow_Solier_Flies_Mating.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-2515\" src=\"https:\/\/www.kabt.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/07\/Yellow_Solier_Flies_Mating.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"288\" height=\"241\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>In this video you will see a mating pair just above the center of the screen.\u00a0 After moving around a bit you will notice another individual pester the couple.\u00a0 Not long after the couple parts.\u00a0 What I believe to be the male, flies off, while the female can be seen wandering through the grass clippings.\u00a0 In one instance you may be able to make out that her abdomen in curled.\u00a0 I hypothesize that she was laying eggs amongst the grass.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Grass Clipping Rendezvous\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/vgSuQ8Z8Mx8?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Here is another, longer, mating video.\u00a0 If you watch long enough, after the female is mounted and released a second time, it appears that the male\u00a0might be\u00a0guarding her from other males.\u00a0 It makes me want to research an easy method of capturing, marking, and releasing these insects to be more certain about what is going on.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Grass Clipping Rendezvous II\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/seE0Kduz9o8?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>In this final image it appears we\u00a0may possiblly have a sneaker male.\u00a0 Interestingly enough,\u00a0this additional male\u00a0appears to\u00a0be smaller than the male that is mounted upon the female.\u00a0 Look at the cicrumferance of the eyes (although I know that the perspective is not the same).<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.kabt.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/07\/Yellow_Soldier_Flies_Mating_with_Tormentor.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-2518\" src=\"https:\/\/www.kabt.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/07\/Yellow_Soldier_Flies_Mating_with_Tormentor.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"288\" height=\"287\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.kabt.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/07\/Yellow_Soldier_Flies_Mating_with_Tormentor.jpg 288w, https:\/\/www.kabt.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/07\/Yellow_Soldier_Flies_Mating_with_Tormentor-150x150.jpg 150w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 288px) 100vw, 288px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>There you have it.\u00a0 I imagine that this could be quite an easy observation to reproduce, all you need is a pile of grass clippings, and some of these insects in the vicinity.\u00a0 In fact, students could most likely\u00a0complete such an observation from home on their own.\u00a0 I did notice that these flies were amongst the grass clippings the whole day and were even there in smaller numbers the following morning as well.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Furthermore, it was quite easy to figure out what insect species these are using Insects in Kansas Field Guide published by the Kansas Department of Agriculture.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>So, what is the Order, Family, and species of insect\u00a0imaged in this post?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Early this morning, before the full heat of the day, I mowed the lawn.\u00a0 Having left it to grow for two weeks, I had to stop more frequently to empty the bag onto our compost heap in the back yard.\u00a0 Like many times before, I noticed that some flying insects were attracted to the new<br \/><a class=\"moretag\" href=\"https:\/\/www.kabt.org\/?p=2500\">+ Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_s2mail":"","_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[109,1,9,38,8],"tags":[225,226],"class_list":["post-2500","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-id-challenge","category-kabt-news","category-labs","category-student-research-ideas","category-teaching-resources","tag-diptera","tag-grass-clipping"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kabt.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2500","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kabt.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kabt.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kabt.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/30"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kabt.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2500"}],"version-history":[{"count":24,"href":"https:\/\/www.kabt.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2500\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2531,"href":"https:\/\/www.kabt.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2500\/revisions\/2531"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kabt.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2500"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kabt.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2500"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kabt.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2500"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}