Let's Look At Some Bugs

I spent too much time blogging the last two nights, and now I am blogged out, so let's just look at some bugs.

Backyard Bug of the Day:

 Some kind of hopper nymph

Other Bugs:

 There were new syrphid larvae among the ants and aphids today, smaller ones, and several of the ones that had been there the last couple of days were gone. I don't know if the ants finally got rid of them, or if they left on their own, perhaps to pupate.

 There were two small ones in this clump of aphids.

 Tent caterpillar. This week I have been seeing these, either solitary or in small groups, but what is interesting is they are obviously nearing pupation, and probably wandered off from their caterpillar community to find a place to become a moth, but I never saw any of their tents this year, or the groups of them... Actually, I should look this up, because one of the species of tent caterpillar I get in my backyard is not social... Okay, I looked it up, and this is a forest tent caterpillar, and they don't build tents. I don't know why they are called tent caterpillars in that case, but there you go.

 This larva reminds me of a recurring nightmare I had as a child. Eek.

 Bee

 Moth

 Looper caterpillar

 Weevil

 Shield bugs? I don't want to look it up.

 Caterpillar

 This caterpillar's twig impression is pretty impressive.

Arachnid Appreciation:
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 I think this is a spider egg mass

 Bowl and doily spider, I think, but there was no web nearby.

These two were on adjacent plants, less than a foot apart:

I was walking along one of my wooded paths and came across this web that stretched across the whole path. Sighing, I decided not to wreck it, and backtracked to go along that trail from the other end. Then when I got there, there was another spider web at that end. I was able to go around that one, started down the path, and was blocked by another spider web. Giving up, I said to myself, "Fine! I never find any bugs around here anyway," which is mostly true, but then I realized that I sounded like the disgruntled fox in the fable about the Fox and the Grapes.