Insect Picture of the Day

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If you look carefully at all that battle damage, you might see a cricket in there somewhere.

I have to wonder what happened to this cricket that she lost a leg, most of one wing, part of the other, and even part of her… um… whatever those butt-spike thingies are called? Whatever it was, she survived, so you can make the case that she is, at the end of the day, actually pretty lucky. Here she is, looking pregnant and ready to inject some eggs with that huge ovipositor of hers.

It rained a couple of days ago, and this little lady decided to stop into our new office building to dry off. Her run of good fortune held true, as I was there to stop a coworker from squooshing her. In fact, I made said coworker trap her under a cup while I got a camera to take her picture.

I love her eyes. It looks like she’s wearing a helmet and peeping out from behind dark lenses. With all that battle damage, it’s not too hard to imagine a tiny little respirator going shkoooo-PAAAA as she relentlessly tries to hunt the cricket jedi order to extermination….

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Jeremiah Fargo sends in this great shot of a cricket taken at, of all places, the Baltimore Aquarium.

I am not sure the Baltimore is clear on the concept of “Aquarium”, but hey, we get bug pictures out of it so okay.

(Jeremiah says it’s actually partly an open zoo as well, but that’s not as funny.)

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Jeremiah sent this in a couple months ago. I haven’t got a clue what it is. He has this to say about it:

“I think it’s kind of cool looking, and at the same time looks Photoshopped, but it isn’t!”

So, yeah; he doesn’t know either.

I see wings back there, and a really long dangly bit on her bu–on her posterior. (Let’s not start that again.) Ovipositor, maybe? Is this some species of wasp that overwintered inside the house? Or maybe some kind of mutant cricket?

Either way, it’s a gorgeous photo, Jeremiah. I’m tentatively filing it under wasps–no, wait.

Hmm.

Look at the antennae. They’re straight. They don’t show any fork or bend; this is more common with crickets and katydids and somewhat rare with wasps. Okay, change of plan. I’m tentatively filing it under crickets. Hopefully someone will jump right in and prove me wrong. That seems plenty likely, too; that thing doesn’t even jumping legs like a proper cricket or gr’opper. Any takers?

Thanks, Jer!

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When my subdivision was built four years ago, they converted a few hundred acres of lakefront ranchland into streets, houses, and parks for the kiddies. They also displaced a lot of wildlife to do it. What this means in practical terms is that if you live in an urban apartment, you have no idea what kind of monstrosities will casually wander into your home.

This black cricket is one of the tamer specimens of “intrusive native fauna”. As long as they don’t get into your bedroom you really don’t even notice them as they really don’t seem to do any damage. They don’t gravitate towards the pantry, for instance. If they do get into your bedroom, however, you’ll know it, because as soon as you turn out the lights they are in a warm, dry, dark place and to a cricket that means it is time for lovin’.

Crickets in a closed room are unbelievably loud. I mean, we’re talking 80, maybe 90dB of sound here. Not painful, but not ignorable by any stretch of the imagination. Imagine somebody in a minivan in the closet honking the horn, or the smoke alarm going off in the hallway. You will get up and ransack the bedroom looking for it.

And you know what’s fun? As soon as you turn on the light to look for it? It shuts up.

Until you turn out the lights again and try to go back to sleep….