Insect Picture of the Day

Hi Gang,

“Time is a system designed to keep everything from happening at once. It does not work.”

Just a quick note to let you know that the post for today (and Sunday) will be up later today. My schedule is not my own today…. :-/

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Dragonflies are quite possibly my favorite thing about Summer. You druids can keep your solstices and equinoxes (equinoxi?), I say Summer is here when the dragonflies roar by, doing their level best to decimate the flying insect population.

Michael Bailey sends in this photo, and wants to know what kind of dragonfly this is. I am pretty sure it’s a “green dragonfly¹”, but beyond that I am at a loss. I am saving up for a dragonfly/damselfly guidebook, but if and when I buy one it will no doubt be localized to some part of North America, and Michael took this picture in Lawshall, Suffolk, UK.

Any takers on an ID?

Also, and this is gonna bug me all day, how do you pronounce Lawshall? “Laws Hall”? “Law Shall”? Wait, this is England; it’s probably “Lozzle” (which incidentally is the same pronunciation as “Lawshallfordhamcestershire”).

I love the scope of this shot. Great photo, Michael! Thank you!

¹ All of you waiting for a D&D reference to green dragons can just keep waiting.

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Sometimes the best identification you can make is “it’s a bug!”… but sometimes you can expand very slightly on this. Mahala Johnson sends in this picture of a mystery bug that I am upgrading to “it’s a cool looking bug!”

She suggests perhaps that it might be an aphid, but online research turns up no such beastie that would wear striped socks like this one.

Any takers on an ID?

Thanks, Mahala!

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Sometimes the best identification you can make is “bugs!”

This picture isn’t as sharply focused as I’d like but after I took it I realized that it does capture the feeling of the shot nicely. About ten centimeters above the top of this photo is where I took the picture of the ceiling spider just moments earlier.

These are the bugs that the ceiling spider was noshing on. The average size of the bugs in this picture is about 3mm long.

Hi gang,

Thank you to everyone who wrote in concern about the posting schedule, and the missing posts over the last two weekends. Things have been a little crazy in InsectPOD land, and I guess the nicest thing was that you noticed.

Sorry about not having pictures up the past two weekends, at least without announcing that I was going to do so. I needed to drop back to 5 days for a couple of weeks to catch my breath.

Things are finally getting back to an even keel here, though, so come back tomorrow–we’re resuming the 7 days a week schedule (that we in theory never left, but in practice, did).

Thanks again. See you tomorrow!

-David

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Lolcats have a ceiling cat and a basement cat (and loldogs have a walldog). It’s only fitting that InsectPOD should have a bug for some side of the room. I like the thought of combining the spiritual loftiness of ceiling cat with the sinister schemings of basement cat into a single entity, so I give you: ceiling spider.

Also, it was actually on the ceiling when I took the picture.

This spider has moved into my house following the cloud of gnats, beetles and midges that came in last week. He’s about 4mm long (2cm legspan). The short “fifth pair” of legs by his face are actually his pedipalps, which is how we know this little guy is a, well, a guy.

He really gets around; I saw him in the kitchen last night and 20 minutes later he had returned to his station by the living room light. He moves fast when he wants to. His hunting style is pretty straightforward: he goes and stands still in a well-lit area, and when a gnat lands within about a centimeter of his face, he lunges forward and grabs it. This means that although he can’t see very far, he hunts by eyesight. This ambushy behavior combined with the long legs and fair¹ eyesight lead me to believe that it is a cousin to the crab spider family.

Either way, he’s in my house, eating my bugs, and that makes him a Good Guy™.

Addendum:

Sharp-eyed reader tceisele notes: Hey, this might be a three-fer! It looks like there is a mite on the abdomen of the doomed gnat!

I started to write this reply in the comments, but it’s so full of Gratuitous Educational Content that I figured I’d merge it into the post proper. Also, I get to talk about poop, so you know it’s extra postworthy. My response:

Oooh, you may be right!

My first thought was that it was gnat poop: spider prey often “let go” when eaten. This dot is on the side of the abdomen, however, so unless this gnat had a colostomy beforehand….

Another possibility is that it could be a puncture wound. I’ve seen wounds like that ooze when jumping spiders miss their killing bite. Jumpers usually try to envenomate at the back of the neck, most insects are incapable of attacking something holding onto the back of their head, and the venom goes right into the spinal ganglia causing quick brain death at best and paralysis at worst. Sometimes they miss, and end up biting the abdomen. They’ll hold onto the bug as the venom works its eventual way through the innards; once it’s dead they’ll turn it around and bite it in a more convenient spot for feeding.

I see three problems with my second theory as well: first, that drop of ooze is way too big for the size of bite this spider can inflict; second, there is no matching drop on the other side of the bug (remember that chelicerata have opposable, scissoring jaws); and third, the bug is translucent green: extrails² would tend to be clear or green as well.

So… yeah! I think you’re probably right. The size and specularity of the dot is also consistent with the kinds of mites we get around here, so it is indeed entirely possible. Thanks!

¹ I say fair eyesight, but remember that we’re talking about spiders here. Many web-dwelling spiders are mostly blind and hunt by vibrations, while wolf and jumping spiders have the best vision of spiders–they can see clearly up to a meter away and can see movement from several meters out. This is a spider that can see and hunt by eyesight, but can’t run or jump, only pounce–so it can only see a centimeter or two away.

² entrails that have failed to stay en.

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Jeremiah Fargo sends in this picture of an interestingly-spotted ladybug. I’m not sure on the exact species, but I think it’s either Guernsey or Holstein.

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A few nights ago I noticed something trundling across the carpet into the downstairs bathroom. I grabbed my camera and a flashlight and snapped this shot of an assassin bug nymph. I’m not really sure if it needed to go potty or if it was just up to get a glass of water.

If you haven’t seen these nymphs before on the site, they’re actually jet black: the white coating is lint and dirt that they glue to themselves with spittle to form camouflage. When they molt into their final adult form, they’ll discard the camouflage as well and be a beautiful, shiny blue-black.

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Last night I was up late, with a single light on in the living room. It’s Summer now, so we had all the windows open, and even though there are screens a good number of bugs find their way into the house. At one point I noticed this small beetle (about 5mm long) trundling across the carpet. When I got down close and took some pictures, I noticed a small gnatlike bug walking across the carpet. Suddenly I became aware of tiny movements all around me: in the square meter of carpet around this beetle, there were perhaps two dozen gnats, beetles, and assorted other bugs. Yikes!

Then something plopped on my head. It bounced immediately to the carpet: another tiny beetle! What on Earth…?

I looked up. I was directly under the only light still burning in the house, and it was aswarm with tiny flying bugs. Every once in a while one would hit the glass cover with a solid tik sound and fall, stunned, to the carpet below.

The other day tceisele mentioned that he planned to do a “square foot” project, and count all the bugs he can find in a square foot of his yard. I think this is a fascinating project idea. Is it cheating if I bait them like this?

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Here’s a mystery moth for your identification pleasure.

I was intrigued by the fringes on its wings, and when I got the pictures out of the camera I was surprised to see such long antennae.