Male Goldenrod Crab Spider
This crab spider was on the kitchen counter on July 5[1], strolling along just as bold as you please.
It appears to be a male goldenrod crab spider, Misumena vatia.
Posts tagged ‘found in house’
Assassin Bug Nymph
This week we have a bonus bug, courtesy of my daughter
So, while I was finishing off the posting yesterday about the western conifer seed bug, my daughter came charging into the room with something in her hand, announcing “Take picture, Dada! Take picture!”[1] So, I did. This is what she had:
Western Conifer Seed Bug
Assassin, or innocent bystander?
Last week, we had an assassin bug. So, what’s this one? At first glance, it doesn’t look all that much different from the assassin bug, other than coloration[1]. It even looks like it has a neck. If we look closer, though, there is a key feature that gives it away: the middle section of the hind legs (the tibia) is flattened and enlarged, kind of like a leaf.
Assassin Bug
This one is an assassin bug. It’s actually in the same family (Reduviidae) as the Thread-Legged Bug from last week, but it certainly doesn’t look like it:
Specifically, I think it is Reduvius personatus, commonly known as the “Masked Hunter”.
Click Beetle
I was picking up apples in the side yard[1], and found this grub burrowing into one.
These are commonly referred to as “wireworms”. Unlike most other insect grubs, they have a hard exoskeleton that makes them remarkably durable. They are hard to crush, hard to pull apart, and all in all have about the consistency of a piece of wire. They do have legs, which you can see above, but they barely use them and for the most part their behavior is quite wormlike.
Larder beetle
I’m sure everybody has seen these:
This is obviously a larder beetle, Dermestes lardarius. It is a little fellow, only about half a centimeter long or so. They get into decomposing garbage, stored foods with bad seals, and similar things[1]. Since they find our garbage so appealing, they have been carried by us pretty much around the world.
Housefly and Pitcher Plant
The Fly
The first picture I posted in the arthropod project was a blurry image of what was, probably, a housefly. Here is a much better picture, which even shows the wing veins, which make it possible for me to say that it is, probably, a housefly [1]
Well, obviously, since it was in the house, making a nuisance of itself, then of *course* it was a housefly. The only question is whether it is the “real” housefly, Musca domestica, or just some related fly that got into the house. I think it is the real thing, based on comparing some diagrams of wing venation that Bug Guide connected to, so we’ll go with it. Supposedly you can tell if it is male or female depending on the space between the eyes, but there are surprisingly few pictures of houseflies on Bug Guide[2], and I don’t really have much to compare it to.
Eupithecia moth
Back in April, this moth was on our front window, and didn’t show any inclination to move. It had a wingspan of a bit under an inch, and as near as I can tell, it is in the genus Eupithecia, based on the way that the wings are held splayed out when at rest, rather than folded over the back. These overwinter as pupae, and so are one of the moth species that appear as adults very early in the season.
Jumping Spider
Little Brown Job
When birdwatching, there are a lot of what S. calls “little brown jobs”, little nondescript brown birds (sparrows and the like) that an amateur doesn’t have a prayer of identifying on-the-fly. Well, there is the same problem with jumping spiders, like this one:
This is in the family Salticidae, which is a huge group of arachnid “little brown jobs” (about 4,400 species identified). There are at least two species around here (brown ones like this one, and black ones with white stripes that I hope to get a picture of later). Whether this is just two species, or two groups of umpteen species each, I don’t know.
These little guys don’t build webs, instead they charge around pouncing on things. As you can see in the next picture, they have really good eyes for a spider:
Isn’t that a sweet face?[1] They are believed to have full binocular vision (depth perception is so important when you are planning on pouncing on something), and they can jump a couple of inches. This particular one sat for the photos, and then abruptly leapt completely out of the dish and scurried off. They’re kind of like the ant lions in that they either don’t move at all, or move so quickly that they almost seem to teleport from point to point.
Greenbottle Fly
Well, this one has disturbing implications:
We had a sudden infestation of these flies in the house, to the point that we had to vacuum them off of the windows:
