Boogie-Woogie Aphids!

Visiting my hometown, Columbus, Ohio, is always a pleasure.  Getting to reminisce about places and memories from my past.  On a recent trip to Columbus, I had the pleasure of visiting a few of the places I enjoyed so much as a kid.  Franklin Park Conservatory (maybe a subject of a later post) and Blacklick Woods Metro Park.  Blacklick Woods is a place I have visited many times.  Starting when I was just a small child, my grade school made annual field trips to the park and later, after graduate school, I lived in nearby Reynoldsburg, Ohio.  During this time, I made numerous trips to Blacklick Woods.  Multiple times per week I would go there for hiking, bird watching, or running on the trails.  Although I haven't lived in the Columbus area or even in the state for over a decade I still enjoy getting back to my hometown.

On a recent trip to Blacklick Woods I saw something really cool, something I had never seen before, Beech blight aphids (Grylloprociphilus imbricator).  Also commonly called Beech woolly aphids because of their covering of long waxy filaments.  As the common names imply, they are found on and live off of the sap of American beech trees (Fagus grandifolia).

Figure 1.  Beech blight or Beech woolly aphids (Grylloprociphilus imbricator) on an American beech (Fagus grandifolia) branch.

When I first saw these little guys I had no idea what the heck I was seeing.  I wasn't even positive it was an animal until I looked very closely to see it wasn't just something blowing in the wind.  They were moving independently and they seemed to have legs hiding under their strange white coats.  They also exhibit an interesting behavior when disturbed.  They do a cool little dance where they stick their butts in the air and kind of bob back and forth (see video below).  Apparently this behavior has given this species another common name, the "Boogie-Woogie Aphid".  No matter what you call them they are very interesting little critters.