C’mon birds, your not the only thing out there giving hope to a seasonal change.
Simple enough, what are some of the earliest bug sightings that mark the end of the winter season where you live?
Example? For me, I have to include these guys:
Hypogastrura springtails.
Though technically, these ones lack *functional springs, they sure are a fun opening act for the season of the same name.
So what are some of yours?
*Thanks for the correction, macrotim!
Bear with me, there is an insect at the end of this.
So we have less of a delineated winter/spring/summer. We have a dry season, rainy season, HOTTEST season, a time when the Saharan dust arrives, etc.
One way to tell the passage of time though here is the Ceiba pentandra, which we just call ceiba.
Ceiba drop their leaves for the dry season, but this is not fall! Because most other trees here do not lose their leaves, nor is it followed by winter as thought of elsewhere.
After they drop their leaves, the ceibas flower. At the base of each flower, is a potential fruit.
Then the flowers drop off leaving dangling fruit.
Then the fruits mature and split to show kapok, which is how we call the cottony substance. It is tightly packed in the fruit and as the winds blow the kapok begins to be distributed, in orbs, in the middle of each of which is suspended a seed as if by magic. These blow everywhere, into buildings, into corners, everywhere. and young Ceibas take FIRM root and must immediately be pulled up or they quickly develop the defensive spikes, Here is one that is about 4-6 weeks: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/58163751
So in order it is: leaves drop, flowers with potential fruits at base, just fruits, fruits split to show kapok, kapok blowing everywhere, seeds planting in ground, new plants with spikes, so if you want to know the season, just look for Observations of ceibas in Yucatán and find the most recent, but fair warning, I do not think it is a 12 month growth cycle.
We are currently at dangly fruit o’clock.
But a year ago @michaelpirrello asked me to keep an eye out for an insect I had never observed, one drawn to the kapok, and so this year I plan to do just that. (Wildly though, I observed my first just last week.)
Aside: my favorite traffic circle (our city planners are madmen) is Glorieta La Xtabay that features a Ceiba currounded by a statue of Xtabay that I think has the legend inside but I have not stopped to see. (You would likely die trying to get to it, which is appropriate for the legend.)
edit one: to add links
edit two: to fix hideous typos
It’s a beauty, too! Kapok!
Besides a fun word to say, didn’t I hear once that its seed fibers were used for life jackets in WWII? I know it’s still used for cushion and other stuffing stuff.
This I do not know, nor their buoyancy, but I added links to Observations by other users (sorry, it took me a minute because I wanted to make sure to use ones that were not all rights reserved) to show some of the stages. I did not mention it but in some places, where the seeds in their kapok blow up in piles against walls, they look a bit like snow. Sadly I could find no Observations of this phenomenon.
(I do know the henequen industry here has a long history in ropes for naval fleets.)
Sorry if I come off as a bit of a pedant, but Hypogastrura do in fact have a “spring” (furcula), just reduced. :)
Anyways, I think one organism that shows up at the first sign of Spring, is Deuterosminthurus. They usually come out about mid March to early April, and stick around until Summer hits. Such beautiful springtails, you’ll usually find them crawling around on leaves of all sorts, even decently high up in trees sometimes.
There I was enjoying the timid end-of-winter sun, and there he/she/it was doing just the same. I know that one harbinger doesn’t make Spring. It’s early days and anything could happen, but it was enough to make both me and a nearby blackbird sing 
(Pisaura mirabilis and a smiling photographer).
Well, for most of us up here in Alaska, spring doesn’t really officially start until late March-early April, but there are certain arthropods that start appearing more frequently the closer we get.
Flat-bodied moths, like this one, have started appearing already. They’ll get more and more common the closer we get to summer.
Oh boy, no – thanks for that clarification, and your addition to the ‘Springtime for Springtails’ casting list! (It should be a musical, right?)
The closest I have in appearance to yours is this little one I once found hiding in a pit on the surface of a little rock on the ground just outside my front door step. (One of my neighbors saw me laying down with my head over the edge and nearly called emergency!)
Only it wasn’t early spring at all.
Nice! Looks like Deuterosminthurus, although the antennae are a bit short (not sure what species you have, though). In Western NA, you’ll find them as early as February (at least I’m seeing obs occasionally when identifying).
‘Springtime for Springtails’ casting list! (It should be a musical, right?)
I should add this one:
Isabella Tiger Moth cat. One of the few that can freeze solid for the winter and then thaw out again. Cryoprotectants – mind-boggling stuff. I mean, as if metamorphis isn’t such enough already, right? All the internal freezing is to stuff external to body cells interiors.
Caught this one mid-March, still bits of ice clinging to it and yet moving – very slowly – along.
Now why didn’t I also think of the caterpillars of the yellow belted burnet (Amata phegea) which, like @broacher’s Isabella Tiger Moth, can even withstand a touch of frost…
All my observations of Arctiinae have been in fall; my first was a woolly bear found on the tent when I took it down after Sukkot.
Water beetle?
Water bug (similar).
I guess that just almost any bug after the worst part of winter is over is a harbinger of spring, but I have been noticing more moths and crane flies lately! And here is an adorable young grasshopper I found recently!
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/334984588
Here’s a good explanation of the common name, Early Leafhopper. Taken on Feb 28/2024. Perching on a very windy, icy day. (Southern Ontario, Canada)
Wow. What a beauty!
Is this the Giant Water Beetle? I’ve seen them very early too on some beaches.
is that LETHOCERUS? that’s one of my favourite genus names ever
