Wild NYC - Insects

**Brian Lehrer** (0:10)
Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Now it's time for July's episode of Wild NYC, our once a month, year long exploration of our connection to the natural world. Yes, even city dwellers need to pay attention to the other species we share this space with. Today, we're talking about insects, the moths, butterflies, ants, bees, beetles, other things, underfoot, overhead, and all around, if you look, and why their survival is human survival. This will be less about roaches and lantern flies which get a lot of attention, though they are in the group.
Urban botanist and ecologist, Marielle Anzelone is here as she is each month in the series, and today she's joined by Jessica Ware, Entomologist and Division Chair of Invertebrate Zoology at the American Museum of Natural History and co-founder of Entomologists of Color. She happens to have a particular interest in dragonflies, I'm told, so we'll give them some attention. Welcome back, Marielle and Jessica.

**Marielle Anzelone** (1:11)
Good morning.

**Brian Lehrer** (1:14)
Marielle, I said not so much on cockroaches and lanternflies, but do we need to say something about them first in the context of, I'm introducing a series on insects or a segment on insects, like it's a good thing, but most people think, oh, insects.

**Marielle Anzelone** (1:32)
Oh, insects are amazing.
You know, one way to think about insects is that when people talk about wildlife in the city, you know, they tend to think of vertebrates like squirrels and birds. But insects are wildlife too. And the ones you called out are not native to New York City. But we have so many different kinds of super cool insects that are native to New York in that they've lived in New York City for thousands of years and have evolved with the plants that live here too. And they're really critical. They do lots of things that we as humans overlook, but they're really important part of our local nature.

**Brian Lehrer** (2:12)
And I wonder if you each have a favorite insect to shout out. Are dragonflies yours? As I think I read, Jessica?

**Jessica Ware** (2:20)
Hands down. Dragonflies are pretty cool. They're an order of insects called odonata. Dragonflies and damselflies. They're the earliest things to fly, the earliest branching, you know, branch in the tree of life of insects that have wings.
They're top predators. They're colorful. What's not to love?

**Brian Lehrer** (2:40)
And Marielle?

**Marielle Anzelone** (2:43)
Gosh. You know, it's like asking me to like choose a favorite child or something. There's so many.
But you know, I'll call out that New York City has its own bee species. It's called the Gotham sweat bee, and it was first noted in Brooklyn in 2009 So that's pretty cool.

**Brian Lehrer** (3:05)
What is the Gotham? Did you even know about that, Jessica? Sounds like maybe you didn't.

**Jessica Ware** (3:09)
Oh, no, it did. There's also, I was just going to say, I mean, the Hymenoptera, that is a good, so the bees ants and wasps are good. And there's also the Manhattan Ant, Manhattan Ant, the Manhattan Ant. I have a hard time saying that one else would work. There are some cool ones that are just here in our little hamlet, in our sleepy hamlet.

**Brian Lehrer** (3:27)
What's the name of that bee again, Marielle? And what does it look like?

**Marielle Anzelone** (3:31)
It's called the Gotham Sweat Bee. So the genus is Lassioglossum, and then the specific epithet is Gotham, which was actually, I think, described by one of Jessica's colleagues at the museum, John Asher.
And it was noted in Brooklyn, it's a really tiny kind of sweat bee. So these are one of the really interesting solitary bees. I think most people think of bees, they think of like honey bees, which of course are not native. They're really like domesticated animals, kind of like cows, right? That were brought here by colonists. But we have a lot of super cool native bees that tend to be solitary and they make their nests either in the ground or in cavities. So this would be one of those kinds of bees and they only eat pollen from very specific kinds of plants and they're pretty small and they're very cute. Worth looking color, they come out in the spring.

**Brian Lehrer** (4:33)
Jessica, what?

**Jessica Ware** (4:35)
They're kind of colorful, right? They're pretty.

**Marielle Anzelone** (4:38)
Yeah, some of them definitely are.

**Brian Lehrer** (4:40)
Listeners, we can take a few phone calls about insects today and I'm going to throw a bonus topic out there in a second. You'll hear why. But listeners, do you have a favorite insect? Shout out your favorite if you do and why it's your favorite or maybe you have a question about insects and they're all in the ecosystem, which we'll get a little more into. Has anyone watched the leaf cutter ants at work in that very cool display in the new wing of the Museum of Natural History and want to talk about what that experience was like? Call or text 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692 with your favorite insect or your questions about insects. Here's the bonus question because Marielle, last month when the topic was wildflowers, I'm actually going to admit to you and the listeners that I regretted afterwards that we spent so much time on the environmental threats to wildflowers in our area, that I didn't leave enough time for you to simply glory in their magnificence and say what your favorite New York area wildflowers are. So listeners, you're invited on your favorite insects or your favorite wildflowers today, and then I'm going to feel better about closing that loop. 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692.