Hunter Gatherers

 There is still a door lying across the picnic table in my backyard, so once again I ate my lunch sitting on the back porch steps, which once again put my in proximity to the back porch tree, with a good view of the things living on it. As soon as I was done eating I went to get my camera (which was outside, but in the front of the house, because I had brought it out with me when we were working there, in case I saw any cool bugs. I didn't see a single bug the whole time, a couple of hours, that we were working) to take pictures of what I saw.

Backyard Bug of the Day:

Brown lacewing larva. Unlike the green lacewing larva, this one doesn't hide under a pile of fluff and debris. Like the green lacewing larva, it eats aphids, as you can see from the fact that it has one in its mandibles. It's interesting that for so many other predators it's a matter of skill and effort to catch something to eat, but if you're an insect that eats aphids, as you can see, they are just there for the picking.

Due to the leaves of the back porch tree being covered in aphids, there are also a lot of aphid-eaters:

Newly hatched lady beetle larvae. I have read that when they first hatch, all in a group, sometimes the first ones out will eat some of their newly emerging siblings.

To give you a bit of perspective on the size of these, there is an aphid for comparison. And not a fully grown aphid. Okay, that's not really a great way to explain the size. They are really small. The white things in both pictures are the eggs they have hatched from.

I did walk around the yard a bit, but didn't find any other bugs to photograph. Sigh.

Arachnid Appreciation:

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I went out to look for the spider I saw a couple of days ago, to see if she had laid eggs, and I didn't find her, but I did find this one.