March 18, 2012 was an unusually warm day (the temperature was around 75F), so I went out with an insect net to see what could be found. And I found this little (about 5-6 mm long) black beetle swimming in a large puddle out back. The net wasn’t really designed as an aquatic net, but it worked well enough to catch the beetle and transfer it into a small jar of water. It preferred to float on the top of the water while careening crazily about like some demented motorboat, making it really hard to get a sharp photograph.
But, once out of the water it became comparatively subdued.
Sandy came back from grouse[1] hunting on October 23, 2011, and said that while she hadn’t seen any grouse, she had found a nice hornet’s nest in the woods to the northwest of the house. So, we all trooped back to find this huge hornets nest. There was no hornet activity, so I sawed off the branch it was attached to with my Leatherman[2], and brought it back to the house for pictures. That’s Sam holding it there, for scale.
OK, here’s a bug you don’t see in the house every day:
Yes, this is the sort of thing that happens when one has too many Potato Head Family parts available, and somebody notices that some of the potato-bodies have six mounting holes on the sides rather than four.
One thing you can say about arthropods, is that they’ve got legs. Oh boy, do they have legs.
And other appendages. They have crazy numbers of legs, wings, antennae, various mouthparts, you name it. It makes us poor tetrapods, with only four main appendages, look kind of short in the limb department.
This moth was on our house siding on July 16, 2011.
Those long wings held in a T-shape are pretty distinctive, this is certainly a plume moth, in the family Pterophoridae. Unfortunately, it is one of the white ones.
Rosie brought this home from preschool back at the beginning of March, 2012 (just a couple of weeks ago). She said that it was from Mrs. Fezzey (one of her teachers), who knew about this blog and thought I would like it. It was dead of natural causes (and therefore perfectly safe to handle[1]), fully intact, and very nice.
We found this caterpillar on a tag-alder leaf on September 1, 2011. It was a bit cold that day, and the caterpillar was practically comatose. Until we carried it into the house, that is. Then it rapidly warmed up, and suddenly became very active. The whole time I was trying to photograph it, it ran and ran and ran and ran. It was pretty fast for a caterpillar.
Happy St. Patrick’s Day![1] Today of all days we obviously need greenness, so here I’ve got your green caterpillars[2]! Of course, green caterpillars are very, very common and come in many species that all look a lot alike, so I don’t have much idea as to what any of these are.
First, here’s a little one from May 3, 2010, food plant unknown:
There is a legend that there is a legend [1] that St. Urho once saved the Finnish grape crop[2] by killing a plague of grasshoppers by either striking them dead or driving them into the sea. He is reputed to have attacked them with his pitchfork while crying out, “”Heinäsirkka, heinäsirkka, mene täältä hiiteen” which translates literally to “Grasshopper, Grasshopper, go from here to the Devil!” (which has essentially the same meaning as “Grasshopper, Grasshopper, go to Hell!).
(image from sainturho.com)
So, since today (March 16) is St. Urho’s Day, I thought it would be a good time to present to you a special bonus post with . . . some drowned grasshoppers![3]
Well, heck. I’ve been posting dragonflies for the last week and a half, I might as well use up my last relevant picture set and make it a full two weeks. On June 19, 2011, we all went fishing at the Otter Lake dam, which is where the lake drains into the Sturgeon River. On the downstream side from the dam (which is only about five feet high), there is a concrete walk that is a really nice fishing spot[1]. So, Sam was sitting on the edge of the concrete, reached down for some reason, and came up with one of these hanging on her sleeve.
