Science Fiction?

I found a weird thing in the backyard today:

 I have no idea what it is. It looks sort of insectile, sort of reptilian, sort of alien, sort of like nothing. It's a small thing, about half an inch long, maybe.

If this was science fiction, I would bring it inside to my lab (because if this was science fiction I would have a lab), and leave it in an open petrie dish. None of my colleagues would know what it is. In a few days, one of my colleagues would notice that it was growing. Then a few days later it would be too big for the petrie dish, so I would put it in a larger container, maybe a large beaker. It would get bigger, and I'd have to put it in a fish tank, and even though it would by now be glowing and throbbing, I would leave only the flimsiest of lids on top. Later a colleague would ask me where I had put it, and I would say it's in a tank on the counter, and the colleague would say no, the tank is empty. We would both go check, and sure enough, the tank would be empty, and there would be a bit of slime on the counter and on the floor. Soon people would start disappearing. Then we'd start finding them - or parts of them. Eventually the thing, now the size of an elephant, huge, throbbing, covered in slime and spewing out barbed projectiles covered in acidic goo, and somehow roaring even without any obvious roaring anatomy, would attack, the lab would be in shambles, it would escape the building and get out in public, bullets wouldn't hurt it at all, just making it angry, it would be destroying the downtown, nothing could kill it, there'd be a lot of screaming and running, and then I would come up with some sort of solution - pour lemonade on it! My random tests show that lemonade will kill it! And it would be vanquished after a huge lemonade bomb that I whipped up out of items cobbled together from the dollar store where it would have cornered me. All will be well. Except that it has left spores behind somewhere nobody has noticed...

Anyway, no idea what it is.

Backyard Bug of the Day:

 This is a larva, of some sort of beetle I would guess.

Check the huge mandibles! The plant it was on was covered with aphids, so I would guess it was feasting on them.

Random Bugs:

 Every time I pass by this particular black eyed Susan flower there is a tiny bee on it. No idea if it's always the same bee, because sometimes when I try to photograph it it flies away, but it always has some bee on it.

 A bug hiding between the gills of a mushroom.

 When I took the picture of this tiny thing I assumed it was a springtail, but looking at this I think maybe it is a very tiny hopper nymph, the smallest I have ever seen. Newly hatched, perhaps?

 Note the tiny aphids between the two bigger aphids (big being a relative term).

 How many bugs do you see?

 Katydid

Katydids always look angry.

 Where were you yesterday when I was featuring all the hoppers?

 I happened to spy a white speck on a tree trunk, and came in with my lens to investigate, because a white speck usually means something that is not part of the trunk, which is often a bug. It took me a few seconds of looking at it through the lens to realize that the white speck was not a thing in itself, but part of a bigger thing (still small) - a moth.

 Gorgeous wings!

 Today was notable for the number of interesting bugs I didn't get a good picture - or any picture - of because they flew away too soon.

 Moth in the wild.

 I almost got a good picture of this.

Plume moths like other flowers besides milkweed.

Who's On the Milkweed Today?

Almost nobody. And this is the best picture I got of this Japanese beetle before it flew away. Everything else that was on the milkweed, which is almost done blooming, is something you've seen many times before.

Arachnid Appreciation:

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Jumping spider that has caught a crab spider.

If you look in the upper left of this picture you can see some of the many blue leaf hoppers this spider has caught.