Reader Nancy Weidman (who supplied the Wind River boudinaged basaltic dike images from earlier in the week) sent me this interesting note: Your ichnoanalogue post reminds me of the insect or pillbug tracks I found in Mt. St. Helens ash deposited in Missoula, Montana. At least some of the tracks, if I recall correctly, ended … Read more
A basalt flow in Iceland shows both enticing pahoehoe and fractures with a Y-shaped intersection pattern. Comparisons to bread loaves and east Africa suggest a reason why.
Here’s a look at some of the wild critters that have been visiting my yard this year: [youtube=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hh8muzLOE54″] The video’s organized in alphabetical order, so it starts with bears, and ends with a walking stick insect. See how many you can identify! Plus, here’s a compilation of 125 still photos of black bears from June … Read more
Back in the fall, we saw a lot of sexy scenes among the stick insects on our land. Everywhere, it seemed, the smaller males were searching out larger females, and put gametes together to make the little zygotes that would grow into the next generation of these extraordinarily well-camouflaged insects… Here’s a pair on the … Read more
Recently, I bought a microscope for home use. This has been a longtime goal for me. I’ve dreamed of having my own microscope the way some guys fantasize about a Porsche 911. It’s an AmScope model, and it has an attachment for a small digital camera that comes with the scope. While the scope is … Read more
After yesterday’s 4+ inches of snow, I doubt we’ll be seeing a praying mantis this big again for the better part of ten months…
We were out on the deck the other day when Baxter spotted a wheel bug. He can say “bug” now, and this was such an occasion. The kid’s a chip off the ol’ block! He has a good eye for the bugs.
Monarch butterflies aren’t the only insects that like visiting milkweed…
The Monday macrobug is a juvenile beetle with an odd means of locomotion.
Here’s a recently hatched clutch of stinkbug eggs seen in September on a houseplant that we let live out on the porch for several months: The cute little bugs there are juvenile brown marmorated stinkbugs.
I found one of these moths last week while moving some logs around out in the woods. It was a female (based on its antennae), and had a gorgeous color scheme of black and white with a wide yellow ^ on each of its wings, and lovely orange knees. I brought it back to the … Read more
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.
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
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.
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…