Further Serendipity With Wheel Bugs

Wow. I went back outside to see if the hatchling wheel bugs had dispersed away from the egg clusters yet, and found that new eggs were hatching...as I watched!

As you can see, the newly hatching wheel bugs come out a light, bright orange. When I first saw them, I wondered if they had been parasitized or if something else had laid eggs interspersed with the wheel bug eggs. Evidently, though, that's just the color they come out. Then, as they harden, they turn black with a red abdomen.

It also intrigued me to see how they came out of the egg - head first through the whitish top of each egg. It's like a well-packed box, the kind where once you unpack it, you have to wonder how it all actually fit neatly inside the original dimensions. Try as you will, you can never pack it all back in.

I checked to see if any other egg clusters were hatching, and in a short time I found a total of 4, all with newly emerging babies amid a group of already emerged ones. It amazes me how insect lives can be so closely coordinated, despite seemingly great distances separating them.

It reminds me of how the termite colonies all emitted their winged reproductive termites on the same day, at basically the same time, around Mobile. Of course, I can understand how the timing of that event would be critical - for proper genetic recombination, reproductives from multiple colonies need to be flying (and mating) at the same time.

I'm not sure that I understand why it would be so important for the wheel bugs eggs to emerge in such a closely coordinated event...but whether I understand it or not, it's evidently what occurs.