The rove beetles are incredibly speciose, and I don't know them to sub-family level at all, so take that suggestion with a grain of salt, but I thought that guy looked pretty similar.
edit: I realize after posting that suggestion that the second guy isn't a rove beetle, but a blister beetle that looks a lot like one. I'll go with that, then.
Foolproofthats what my hearts becomein that place you dare not look staring back at youRegistered Userregular
I have a friend who with an interest in beetles, she is looking for some to keep as pets. She had some kind (hissing) roaches some time back and handled them well even as they died from age.
I live in NE Indiana. Can I get some tips for finding her some local beetles? I am already on the lookout for horned fungus beetles using the information from this site.
If you give me a name I can do the research for it specifically or if you give me general tips then I can look and ID what I find. How are beetle populations studied? Are there traps or do you just look under and around things?
She may just enjoy study of them in the wild more than keeping some as pets.
Metzger MeisterIt Gets Worsebefore it gets any better.Registered Userregular
I saw an ant! It was huge compared to the little carpenter ants that live in our deck.
+1
Options
Metzger MeisterIt Gets Worsebefore it gets any better.Registered Userregular
B-B-B-BONUS ANT PIC *airhorn*
+2
Options
BugBoyboy.EXE has stopped functioning.only bugs remainRegistered Userregular
it's getting to be bug season, folks!
recently I was lucky enough to come across one of the insects I've wanted to see most of all, the twice-stabbed ladybeetle
I thought I saw one a year or two ago, but it flew away too fast for me to be sure that it was this guy as opposed to an asian multicolor, which can have a similar color pattern
What a terrifyingly evocative (and visually accurate) name.
+6
Options
Metzger MeisterIt Gets Worsebefore it gets any better.Registered Userregular
Our neighbors have a bee box and the other day they were smoking it out and giving it a good spring cleaning, and all the bees were buzzing around this big shrub on our property and it was so amazing to see an entire hive just as this massive swirling cloud. And the local birds enjoyed it too!
Then they gently moistened the bees after they'd calmed down a bit, and scooped them into a box. The nice old Russian folks who keep the bees promised us a jar of honey!
Thought there was this cool spider web outside my work and I was wondering what kind of spider made it, but then today I saw a bunch of caterpillars walking on it and realized what it was.
all clematis have a somewhat more distinct beam pattern in the petals, but it's probably related
bwanie on
0
Options
Foolproofthats what my hearts becomein that place you dare not look staring back at youRegistered Userregular
edited May 2015
Nothing special but I spent sometime chasing a dragonfly so I wanted to use the pictures. I know little about these insects but would be interested in knowing more if anyone has something cool to tell about them.
Foolproof on
+5
Options
Foolproofthats what my hearts becomein that place you dare not look staring back at youRegistered Userregular
edited July 2015
This moth ran me all around but I got the shot eventually. Trigrammia quadrinotaria maybe
Some kind of thing on some other kind of thing.
A nice close up of the black dragonflies that live where I hike.
Wood ants and their princesses ready for a mating flight. Red ants nearby were picking them off. Also found strange yellow egg masses very near but neither nest of ants were going near them.
The egg masses. do you think they are insect or amphibian? Very small, maybe the size of an ant's head.
Edit: It is a mature plasmodium of a slime mold
spider!
Foolproof on
+3
Options
valhalla13013 Dark Shield Perceives the GodsRegistered Userregular
CYCLOPS SPIDER!!!!! I think I saw that in a Harryhausen movie.
0
Options
Sir FabulousMalevolent Squid GodRegistered Userregular
edited June 2015
So my sister got me a new pet for my birthday. We've talked about getting each other tarantulas for a while now.
Well, everyone say hello to my friend, Ungoliant.
Ungoliant the Rose-Hair Tarantula joins Three-Point-One-Four-One-Five-Nine the Ball Python and Snoobit the Mali Uromastyx in the Fabulous house of pets.
Sir Fabulous on
Switch Friend Code: SW-1406-1275-7906
+8
Options
BugBoyboy.EXE has stopped functioning.only bugs remainRegistered Userregular
Oh my god
It's so cute and tiny
+5
Options
Sir FabulousMalevolent Squid GodRegistered Userregular
According to the woman my sister bought it from, you have to train them to not be handshy from an early age.
Nothing special but I spent sometime chasing a dragonfly so I wanted to use the pictures. I know little about these insects but would be interested in knowing more if anyone has something cool to tell about them.
MY TIME HAS FINALLY COME
um... what would you like to know
According to the woman my sister bought it from, you have to train them to not be handshy from an early age.
So a spiderling is the way to go.
Just FYI even if you handle it a lot there is no guarantee it will be tolerant of being held. Rosies are generally pretty good but you do get difficult ones. And it could even be fine with being held for years, then have a radical change of temperament after a moult and no longer be 'tame' (happened with one of mine).
Spiders do not have brains like mammals and their behaviour is therefore not as easy to assume.
Also I hope you are patient because Rosies are sloooow growers so your littlun is going to be little for a long while.
Tarantulas are awesome though. And I can almost guarantee you won't stop at just one. Enjoy!
+1
Options
Sir FabulousMalevolent Squid GodRegistered Userregular
Oh sure.
If it never learns to be tolerant of being handled, that's fine. I don't like being handled either.
I'd just prefer it if I had that option.
Switch Friend Code: SW-1406-1275-7906
0
Options
Foolproofthats what my hearts becomein that place you dare not look staring back at youRegistered Userregular
edited July 2015
I'vebeen more interested in slime molds than anything else lately but I noticed these guys (or a guy and a girl) near a red raspberry slime mold sporangium. I don't know if they were feeding, fighting, or mating. I saw more than a few near the slime molds so I think they were feeding at least.
here is a better shot of the slime mold sporangium.
I'm sorry BB, but I might kill it if I see it again. I don't feel great about the idea that it could hang out around here for years.
0
Options
Jacques L'HommeBAH! He was a rank amateur compared to, DR. COLOSSUS!Registered Userregular
On the subject of not killing things that you feel naturally compelled to kill, I have recently caught and released two wasps.
Whether or not I am right in doing so has been a subject of debate between the folk among me for the past couple weeks, but after an entire life time of absolutely no one in my immediate family having been stung by any bee, wasp, or hornet, I have decided that it is more satisfying and appropriate to spare them than to just straight up ice the poor confused buggers with my military grade fly swatter.
+5
Options
Foolproofthats what my hearts becomein that place you dare not look staring back at youRegistered Userregular
edited July 2015
Here are a few butterfly photos and the obligatory spider photo. The mosquitoes are badenough that the spiders should get huge very soon.
Foolproof on
+2
Options
Captain Marcusnow arrives the hour of actionRegistered Userregular
Not a spider. A harvestman! Opiliones instead of Araneae. They can't bite you (at least that species can't) so it's fine if you want to pick them up. Their legs are ticklish.
This is a Sea Sapphire! And when it doesn’t look amazing it’s invisible!
This is a type of crustacean called a copepod. It’s back is covered in guanine crystals. If it weren’t for these crystals the Sea Sapphire would be transparent, but these crystals are spaced in such a way that they strongly reflect certain colours of light. The colour of the light that’s reflected is dependent on the angle that it comes in.
Usually, it reflects blue light, but when the light hits the Sea Sapphire at 45 degrees, the reflected light shifts into the ultraviolet. And since we can’t see that it becomes invisible!
Question for @BugBoy or someone else. I saw a brightly-colored green beetle the other day. It appeared to have a green shell with gold or yellow tips, perhaps where the wings came out. This was in Eastern Massachusetts. Looking up pictures online, it seems like it might have been a Green June Beetle, but according to that website they're normally seen in the Southeast. Is it possible it could have made it this far north? It was very pretty, whatever it was.
"Simple, real stupidity beats artificial intelligence every time." -Mustrum Ridcully in Terry Pratchett's Hogfather p. 142 (HarperPrism 1996)
Question for BugBoy or someone else. I saw a brightly-colored green beetle the other day. It appeared to have a green shell with gold or yellow tips, perhaps where the wings came out. This was in Eastern Massachusetts. Looking up pictures online, it seems like it might have been a Green June Beetle, but according to that website they're normally seen in the Southeast. Is it possible it could have made it this far north? It was very pretty, whatever it was.
I'm not BugBoy, but if I had to guess I'd say it's a hitchhiker from someone's summer road trip rather than a particularly intrepid bug that made it's way north.
They apparently show up in Connecticut and New York too, according to a PennState website, so doesn't seem too far-fetched that one could end up in Massachusetts.
Edit: In related-to-bug-stuff-ness, I've had some entomologically exciting nights in Arizona lately. Spotted what I think is the biggest Huntsman Spider I've ever seen at nearly three inches legspan, hella Palo Verde beetles (which are also huge) and Black Widows, and a Black Witch Moth that I thought was a bat when it flew at my face while walking to work (maybe a 5 inch wingspan when I spotted it with my flashlight when it landed on a wall). Got a couple pictures but they're all terrible cell phone ones so I won't sully the thread with them.
Marshmallow on
0
Options
BugBoyboy.EXE has stopped functioning.only bugs remainRegistered Userregular
My favorite bug website also has listings in the states to the east of Mass, so it wouldn't be too surprising to find one there. It's a really pleasant species, isn't it? I found one trying to bury itself under fallen plant material the other day and it was just too cute.
This one was divebombing some teenaged girls outside an ice cream shack near where I live, so I stepped in to rescue them only to discover how pretty it was. Wish I got a picture, but my phone was dead at the time.
"Simple, real stupidity beats artificial intelligence every time." -Mustrum Ridcully in Terry Pratchett's Hogfather p. 142 (HarperPrism 1996)
Posts
Perhaps something like this?
The rove beetles are incredibly speciose, and I don't know them to sub-family level at all, so take that suggestion with a grain of salt, but I thought that guy looked pretty similar.
edit: I realize after posting that suggestion that the second guy isn't a rove beetle, but a blister beetle that looks a lot like one. I'll go with that, then.
I live in NE Indiana. Can I get some tips for finding her some local beetles? I am already on the lookout for horned fungus beetles using the information from this site.
If you give me a name I can do the research for it specifically or if you give me general tips then I can look and ID what I find. How are beetle populations studied? Are there traps or do you just look under and around things?
She may just enjoy study of them in the wild more than keeping some as pets.
Mostly talking about how fragile populations of native crayfish are when faced with invasive American species
Certain American Procambarids are insanely durable organisms, and it makes them astonishingly good as competitors
I saw an ant! It was huge compared to the little carpenter ants that live in our deck.
recently I was lucky enough to come across one of the insects I've wanted to see most of all, the twice-stabbed ladybeetle
I thought I saw one a year or two ago, but it flew away too fast for me to be sure that it was this guy as opposed to an asian multicolor, which can have a similar color pattern
It's going to be a good bug season, I think
Then they gently moistened the bees after they'd calmed down a bit, and scooped them into a box. The nice old Russian folks who keep the bees promised us a jar of honey!
Any help with the ID on flower or bee?
edit: looking at it again, apart from the color and it having 5 petals it's not even close.
lots of wild buttercups are up in my local. the bee is a native not honey and they service the early wild flowers. you may be closer than you think.
I had clematis once. Some meds cleared it right up.
all clematis have a somewhat more distinct beam pattern in the petals, but it's probably related
Edit: It is a mature plasmodium of a slime mold
Well, everyone say hello to my friend, Ungoliant.
Ungoliant the Rose-Hair Tarantula joins Three-Point-One-Four-One-Five-Nine the Ball Python and Snoobit the Mali Uromastyx in the Fabulous house of pets.
Switch Friend Code: SW-1406-1275-7906
It's so cute and tiny
So a spiderling is the way to go.
Switch Friend Code: SW-1406-1275-7906
MY TIME HAS FINALLY COME
um... what would you like to know
they had some seriously huge dragonflies back then
If insects that large existed I'd have just gone mad from terror a long time ago.
Just FYI even if you handle it a lot there is no guarantee it will be tolerant of being held. Rosies are generally pretty good but you do get difficult ones. And it could even be fine with being held for years, then have a radical change of temperament after a moult and no longer be 'tame' (happened with one of mine).
Spiders do not have brains like mammals and their behaviour is therefore not as easy to assume.
Also I hope you are patient because Rosies are sloooow growers so your littlun is going to be little for a long while.
Tarantulas are awesome though. And I can almost guarantee you won't stop at just one. Enjoy!
If it never learns to be tolerant of being handled, that's fine. I don't like being handled either.
I'd just prefer it if I had that option.
Switch Friend Code: SW-1406-1275-7906
here is a better shot of the slime mold sporangium.
I didn't kill it because @BugBoy taught me well
Then I found out they can live for up to 7 years
That giant thing could hang around for 7 years.
I'm sorry BB, but I might kill it if I see it again. I don't feel great about the idea that it could hang out around here for years.
Whether or not I am right in doing so has been a subject of debate between the folk among me for the past couple weeks, but after an entire life time of absolutely no one in my immediate family having been stung by any bee, wasp, or hornet, I have decided that it is more satisfying and appropriate to spare them than to just straight up ice the poor confused buggers with my military grade fly swatter.
Not a spider. A harvestman! Opiliones instead of Araneae. They can't bite you (at least that species can't) so it's fine if you want to pick them up. Their legs are ticklish.
Now I have a tool to fight back
I'm not BugBoy, but if I had to guess I'd say it's a hitchhiker from someone's summer road trip rather than a particularly intrepid bug that made it's way north.
Edit: In related-to-bug-stuff-ness, I've had some entomologically exciting nights in Arizona lately. Spotted what I think is the biggest Huntsman Spider I've ever seen at nearly three inches legspan, hella Palo Verde beetles (which are also huge) and Black Widows, and a Black Witch Moth that I thought was a bat when it flew at my face while walking to work (maybe a 5 inch wingspan when I spotted it with my flashlight when it landed on a wall). Got a couple pictures but they're all terrible cell phone ones so I won't sully the thread with them.