Eeeeooooh!

 One of the purposes of this blog is to convince people to look at bugs and say, "Oooh!" instead of "Eeew!" Having said that, there are definitely bugs that I think are pretty gross. I didn't do a bug walk today, per say, but I mowed the lawn, and took my camera outside with me so I could stop and take pictures of anything interesting that I saw while mowing. Well, I found some interesting things, and some that made me say, "Eeew!" And even worse, based on where the creepy bugs were, I may have actually brushed against them while I was mowing, before I saw them, and once I found that out I had to check carefully to find out if any of them were on me. My husband came home when I was just finishing up, and I asked if he wanted to see something creepy. He said, "Sure," so I showed him this:

Sawfly larvae. I think they are incredibly creepy, especially the ones that hang like this. There are some that are even creepier that kind of lie flat like normal, but then do this when they feel threatened. Shudder. And some that if you bump the branch they are on will drop off the leaf, which is a pretty horrific thing to happen if you are standing UNDER that branch. Which is why I wonder about what happened when I very likely brushed against this leaf. There is a lot of space where there could have been more of these...

Anyway, my husband's reaction to seeing them was something along the lines of, "Eeew!"

For the record, my husband and I both say, "Oooh!" about bugs much more than we say, "Eeew!" And I have to admit, creepy as they are, these are still pretty interesting.

Backyard Bug of the Day:

Lady beetle. I love lady beetles with blue eyes. If this one had been more cooperative I would look up what species it is, but it wasn't, so I am annoyed, so I am not going to take the trouble.

I will give you another picture of that cute face, though. Oooh!

I didn't get a good picture of the dorsal view. This is a TINY lady beetle, only a couple of millimeters long. It's on the leaf of a cucamelon plant in my vegetable garden, and as a predatory insect, that is just the kind of thing I want to see patrolling the plants in the garden.

Other Bugs:

These are some planthopper nymphs. Or treehopper nymphs, I can never keep them straight. Anyway, leaf/plant/treehopper nymphs secrete a sugary substance called honeydew, because they suck fluids out of plants, and the fluids have a lot more sugar in them than the hoppers need, so their waste product is this sugary liquid. A fair number of other insects feed on this liquid, including ants, which cultivate some species of hoppers and aphids almost like ranchers, so they can consume the honeydew they secrete. I have often seen them shoot a drop of honeydew out their back ends as I am looking at them through my camera. Sometimes they appear to be shooting it AT me, which I have come to think must be defensive. Either they are trying to get it in my eye (which won't happen while I am looking through the camera), or they think that I WANT the honeydew, and that if they give it to me I won't eat them. Well, I am not going to eat them, but looking at this pair of nymphs sort of confirmed to me that when they shoot it at me they are doing it on purpose, because both of them did it, but they aimed their back ends in my direction, curling their bodies to the side, before they shot out their honeydew.

And there's a droplet, aimed right at me. The good thing is, they don't shoot far enough to hit my camera lens.

Robber fly on hydrangea flower

Back to lady beetles... Lady beetles eat aphids. The back porch tree is covered with aphids. Some of them, certain species, are tended and protected by ants, but some are not. I don't know if this lady beetle knows about that leaf underneath the one its on that is covered with aphids, but there's a feast there for it.

Long-legged fly

Aphids, as I mentioned earlier, secrete honeydew, and because there are so many on this tree, many of the leaves are covered with it. Some have a black fungus growing on them, but some just have the honeydew residue, which I think you can see here. This fly is feeding on the residue (I accidentally spelled it residew just now), as I have seen many insects do.

Plume moth on black-eyed Susan

I didn't notice the fly when I was taking the picture.

Crane fly

I had plenty of time for my woods walk today, so I brought my camera with me. It was not the buggiest of walks, but I saw a few things:

Beetle and ant

Bumblebee resting on a leaf. It was interesting just watching it breathe.

Caterpillar on black-eyed Susan

I think this is a species of longhorned flower beetle. On a common mullein leaf.

 Backyard Amphibian of the Day:

American toad

It is a common species, and the one we see the most often in the backyard and the woods (which is where I saw this one).

And a cool mushroom:

To get a really good shot of this I would have had to be under the bridge. This will have to do.

Arachnid Appreciation:

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Hiding among the leaves...