The term “venom” is used to refer to any poison that certain animals (or, I suppose, even some plants[1]) inject into their victims. This couples a toxin with some sort of injection system, like a stinger, or a hollow fang, or poisoned hairs. While there are a lot of venomous animals in the world, arthropods (and particularly insects) account for the vast majority of the ones that humans are actually likely to encounter. Which raises a bunch of questions:
1. What benefits do arthropods get from venom production that makes it so popular? and
2. How does one go about evolving venom?
Sandy planted some broccoli in one of our raised beds in the spring of 2015, and by the end of June we started seeing a combination of tiny caterpillars eating tiny holes in the leaves,
bigger, green caterpillars eating big holes in the leaves,
I found this wingless insect hanging on an outside wall at work on October 30, 2015. Its body was just about half an inch long.
Aside from the complete lack of wings, its body looks like some kind of moth.
I found this moth near our porch light on August 4, 2015.
I was struck by how “bat-like” his antennae were.
Sam and I found this rather striking woolly caterpillar on one of the alders out back on September 10, 2015.
Being so woolly, it is pretty clearly a caterpillar of one of the Tiger Moths.
Rosie spotted this freaky-looking fly on our windowsill on October 3, 2015. It has unusually strong legs, peculiar “toes”, and an oddly-shaped head with its proboscis pointing straight forward.
The body is kind of flattened, as if it is adapted for squeezing into tight spaces.
On July 9, 2015, Sam came over and showed me three little orange skippers that she’d caught, and were now tamely sitting on her hand.
They were kind of beat up, so they were most likely sitting there because they were old and tired.
Sam spotted this big pile of tiny ants at a crack in our sidewalk on July 27, 2015.
It appeared to be a free-for-all, with everybody wrestling with everybody else. Although, since ants tell each other apart by scent, I expect that they all knew pretty much who they were fighting with.
I think it was Rosie that found me this click beetle on June 18, 2015.
I don’t know where she found it, but judging from how filthy it was, it was most likely in the garbage somewhere.
Rosie found this half-inch-long beetle on the swingset on June 27, 2015.
It has the body shape, legs, and antennae that I’ve come to expect from the many kinds of scarab beetles.