High in the canopy of an old black walnut, a black squirrel is eating a pendulous catkin -- the male flowers of the tree (tree: "Juglans nigra", squirrel: melanistic eastern grey, "Sciurus carolinensis").
This is one of my favourite insects in our biodiversity garden. First, it is a bumble bee mimic. Second, it is a predatory fly, and it's eating a Japanese beetle, a notorious introduced plant pest that feeds on an unusually wide variety of plants -- and always your favourite one! (robber fly: "Laphria" sp., family Asilidae; beetle: "Popillia japonica", family Scarabaeidae").
Caterpillars themselves are not pollinators, but they grow up to be pollinators. Most cats* feed on fresh green leaves, and many are highly specialized on native plants. If you want beautiful moths and butterflies flying around your garden, you'll need to plant the food plants of the caterpillars, and those are largely native species. Caterpillars are fascinating animals in their own right, and a major food source for birds. Native plants attract the insects, insects attract the birds. This is what biodiversity gardening is all about. The image shows the defensive display of a papilionid caterpillar. All papilionid cats have an osmeterium (forked red structure), or an everscible gland behind the head that emits a foul odor, warding off potential predators (Cat: Papilionidae: "Papilio cresphontes"; plant: Rutaceae: hop tree, "Ptelea trifoliata"). *those of us that love caterpillars refer to them as "cats" for short!
