Here’s a big plump female walking stick (“stick insect”) I saw last week… These bugs are all over the place right now. I frequently find them in flagrante delicto, with the smaller male mounted on the female’s back, and the tips of their abdomens pressed together.
Liquid jewels separated by green rubber bands – that’s what it looks like to me.
Found this lovely garden spider while working in the yard on the last day of August… It’s a big beastie; here’s a pencil tip for scale: I induced her to briefly face upward: …but she definitely preferred to be oriented head-down: I then crouched lower, and aimed the camera up, resulting in a different exposure … Read more
These “caterpillars” are the larvae of the pine sawfly, Neodiprion sp. They were grazing on a small pine in my front yard. Sawflies are relatives of bees, wasps, and ants – they’re members of the Hymenoptera. But their larvae look so much like the larvae of butterflies and moths (Lepidoptera) and flies (Diptera), don’t they? … Read more
I volunteer on Wednesdays at the Fort Valley Public Library. We have some bushes out front, and in the past month, I’ve noticed something about the bush closest to the library door… It’s having some trouble, and the trouble seems to be coming from… (( brace yourself )) … a colony of spiders! You’re seeing … Read more
In areas of soil protected from the rain, we find antlion pits in our yard… These are traps, dug and maintained and occupied by the larvae of the family Myrmeleontidae. When a passing insect stumbles in, the antlion will throw sand grains and cause the hapless bug to tumble down, where the antlion snags it … Read more
I’m pretty sure this guy is advertising himself as inedible…
My neighbor, the artist Diane Artz Furlong, photographed these extraordinary caterpillars in her garden last week. With her permission, I’m reposting the photos here… Diane writes that, Just when I thought I was done with the Japanese beetle onslaught (not!) I find these guys on my rose bush. I would never have found them, though, … Read more
Horseflies have such lovely eyes… …but man, they sure can open up a welt.
A few weeks ago, I started seeing a new kind of jumping spider around our house. It was distinctive primarily because of its iridescent green chelicerae (think of them as “jaws”). I took a couple of blurry shots, but nothing I considered good enough for “Monday macrobug” treatment… These spiders reminded me of the unique … Read more
Craneflies look like giant mosquitoes. They’re harmless to people – kind of like the giraffes of the insect world… In flagrante delicto…. Side-view portrait…
This lovely longhorned beetle was on my house last week. Bugguide.net helped me identify him as Sarosesthes fulminans.
Brood II. We gots ’em. The noise is so cool….
Found this fellow while weed-whacking thistles last week… A lovely iridescent purple – the photos don’t really capture it.
Spring is back in the Fort Valley, and that means many serendipitous bug encounters. I think it’s safe to say that the Monday Macrobug is back as a regular feature on Mountain Beltway for the foreseeable future! Today, I give you…. a weevil! You’re welcome.
Termites can fly. But not all termites. Around here, the only flying termites are the reproductives – the fertile males and females that a termites colony produces periodically. It seems to be associated with the advent of spring. I spotted this group a couple of weeks ago, when I noticed the sunlight catching in their … Read more
These guys are the bane of my existence lately. Now that the ladybugs are gone, we’ve got a dozen carpenter bees orbiting the house, seeking an opportunity to drill holes in it. Here’s one after an encounter with a tennis racket I keep on the porch expressly for the purpose of controlling their population: Look … Read more
Spring has arrived in the Fort Valley. We went from snow and sub-freezing nights to two 80°F+ days in a row, and then throttled back to normal springtime temperatures. The pulse of heat brought about a big release of ladybugs from our walls, and at times it was as apocalyptic a scene as it was … Read more
While the Monday Macrobug continues its official winter hiatus, we did have a fuzzy little jumping spider make an appearance in the house the other day: Did you see the @$#%ing ladybug hiding there in the background? Here’s a closer look at the spider: Jumping spiders are my favorite spiders – they seem like little … Read more