Sam spotted this crawling on a wall in the house on July 5, 2015. She thought it was a tick at first, since it was about the size of an unengorged deer tick. Then, on the second look, we thought it was a beetle. And then, finally, after getting a picture that could be magnified, we saw that it was, in fact, some kind of True Bug, and not a beetle at all.
Sandy found this little green bug with black stripes in her basil patch on July 19, 2015. When she brought it in, it kept flying away from me until it ended up on the window, so I took the pictures there. It probably would have been a lot better camouflaged in the grass than on our white window frame.
Rosie caught this little robber fly for me on June 18, 2015.
It was fairly lethargic, and was willing to perch on my fingertip for photographs.
Large Moth that Resembles a Cicada – Carpenter Moth
I was walking on campus with Sandy and Rosie on June 25, 2015 when Rosie spotted this on the outside wall of the library. I thought it was an early cicada at first, but on closer examination saw that it was something else entirely.
On June 26, 2015, Sandy found that one of our young balsam fir trees[1] in the yard was infested with these little pupae embedded in the needles at the tips of the branches. They were only about half an inch long, if that.
This pair of spiders was hanging out under the eaves near our front door on June 25, 2015. The one on the right is a male, trying to get the female (who owns the web) to take a non-culinary interest in him.
Male Spiders: Thick-Jawed Orb Weaver, and Cobweb Spider
I found this moderately orange spider prowling around the wall near our porch light on June 15, 2015. His body was about 4 mm long.
Like a lot of the spiders I’ve been photographing lately, he has the enlarged pedipalps that mark him as a male.
I’ve got two spiders for you today, that I think are both the same species, but that were found at different times. The first was caught near our porch light on June 13, 2015, and looks to be a fairly substantial male spider (the body was about a quarter of an inch long).
I found this little spider hanging around the porch light on June 13, 2015. I’m not sure he was actually drawn to the light, though – he more likely was drawn by the other insects that were coming to the light (or maybe by the female spiders that were drawn by the insects that came to the light).
Well, since Halloween is coming, I guess it would be appropriate to keep going with the spiders for the next couple of weeks. This little black spider was in the kitchen sink on July 26, 2015. That’s a water drop on his back, at the “waist” between the cephalothorax and the abdomen, because he got a bit wet before I noticed him running around the sink drain. He’s not very big, his body is only maybe 4 mm long.
