The Bugs in the Backyard: Weirdness

I am in high dudgeon this evening. I don't remember what I was looking up, but I found a link to something about how to get rid of stinkbugs, and it said that stinkbugs are an "eyesore and a constant assault against your sense of smell." Well, I am here to speak for the stinkbugs, because they are not able to speak for themselves. You don't have to like bugs. You don't even have to like butterflies, though pretty much everyone in the entire world will think there is something wrong with you if you don't. And I totally understand not wanting bugs in your house. I really like bugs, and I don't want bugs in my house.When I find bugs in my house I send them on their merry way outside, with the help of my handy bug vacuum. But to say that stinkbugs, or any other kind of bug, are an eyesore is just flat-out ridiculous. Really? An eyesore? Stinkbugs are small creatures. The biggest ones I have seen are a little more than a half inch long. There are a lot of them in my yard, and I have to look for them. I don't sit out in a chair on my porch and see stinkbugs everywhere. In order for something to be an eyesore, it has to be obvious. Obtrusive. Encroaching. Unless the writer of that article meant they have literally caused pain by stabbing their probiscides into his or her eyeball, calling them an eyesore is a ludicrously hyperbolic statement.

And then there is the issue of the stink. Stinkbug stink is a defense mechanism for the stinkbug. It will release its stink if it feels threatened. I personally have never smelled it. Yes, that's right. I have been up close and personal with hundreds of stinkbugs, some of which have been really uninterested in being up close and personal with me, and yet I have NEVER smelled their odoriferous defense. So I have to ask, what is this person doing to all these stinkbugs that his or her olfactory system is undergoing this constant assault? If this is a problem you are having, the fault lies with you! Leave the stinkbugs alone and they will do the same! (Beautiful irony - stinkbugs will stink if you squish them. Not helpful to the stinkbug at that point, but I like that they get their revenge).

There is no need to publish a list of twenty different ways for people to kill the bugs in their backyards.

Whew. I had to get that off my chest.

Backyard Bug of the Day today is one of the weirdest things I have ever encountered in the backyard. It may, in fact, be one of the weirdest things I have ever encountered anywhere.

Backyard Bug of the Day:

I do not know what this is. I am not even sure if it's a bug - or an insect, rather, because it's probably not a bug in the true sense of the word. It could be a slug, though. Here's what I know - it's alive. It moves. It's really freaking weird. The part on the right I am guessing is the head, such as it is. The other end moved around a bit, kind of waving about.

It has certain caterpillaresque qualities to it - it looks a little like it has prolegs. I don't see any real legs, though. And those two knobs on the front - eyes? Antennae? I don't know. It definitely seems to be a larva of some sort.

Here you can see that it has contracted a bit - the tail end pulled in.

Here's what you need to see to fully appreciate the bizarreness of this thing: A video of the weirdness. Click HERE to see it.

So, a few notes about the video:
1) Sorry about the bad focus. I am not good at this, and the macro lens makes it difficult.
2) You can hear me trying to blow aphids off my arm, because they kept crawling on me.
3) Aphids were everywhere today - one makes an appearance in this video, on the upper left.
4) You can hear how windy it was today.
5) This is a really weird organism.

Everything else I saw today was totally normal. Random Bugs:

Moth in the wild. And an aphid. They're everywhere.

There are two loopers on this plant.

Katydid. In case you're wondering about my comment yesterday about living in a geodesic dome, that's my house in the background of this picture and the next one.

I was holding onto the stem of the plant to steady it while I took pictures of this katydid, and it crawled onto my hand. Here it is biting my finger.

Here it is biting my knuckle. Don't worry, it couldn't break the skin. It tickled though, so I had to coax it back onto the plant.

Assassin, I think.

Earwig. Female, I think.

Aphid.

Today was the day for insects to crawl onto my hand while I was taking their picture.

Aphid on the march.

This is the first Woolly Bear Caterpillar I have seen this autumn. I saw a bunch of them in the spring, but nothing for a long time. Of course everyone knows the folklore about being able to tell what kind of winter we're going to have from the relative thickness of the black and brown stripes, but according to science it really just tells you what kind of winter we had last year, because it affects the growing time they have. Late spring = short growing time. Early spring = long growing time.

I am not sure how praying mantis eyes work, but I have always gotten the impression that the tiny, black dot in its eye faces whatever it's looking at. Which means that here it is looking at me, even though it is facing the other way.

Here, too.

I found this mantis exoskeleton in the bush where I have been seeing mantises for the last few weeks.

I saw very few bees today. I didn't take this picture for the bee, I was taking it for the milkweed seeds, and only noticed the bee when I finished taking the picture.