Night Surprise

I found more bugs today after dark than during the afternoon. Some of them were bugs you'd expect to see by night, but some of them are definitely not. But then, I have long since realized that I still know almost nothing about bugs, and I should not be surprised when they don't act according to my expectations.

Backyard Bug of the Day:

Weevil on autumn joy sedum. One of the night bugs I found, although I don't think that weevils are specifically nocturnal or diurnal. Rather a large one among the kinds of weevils I usually see in my backyard.

Other Bugs:

Assassin bugs on autumn joy sedum this afternoon.

There is some goldenrod growing among the autumn joy sedum, and it was a more popular flower today.

Cricket

What I saw the most tonight were mosquitoes feeding on goldenrod:

Male, as you can tell from the feathery antennae.

Female

What I expected to see after dark: moths pollinating goldenrod:

Earwigs:

Tree crickets:

You can also hear them. I can hear them right now from inside the house.

There's a male and a female on this plant.

 

What I did not expect to see after dark:

 A butterfly sitting on a leaf. I think this is a pearl crescent, and I had seen one in this area during the afternoon. But I have never seen one sitting on a plant in the dark.

Moth eggs on the deer netting over the blueberry bush

I think this is a crane fly.

I found an amazing variety of spiders for Arachnid Appreciation:

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The spider web on the living room window is pretty wrecked; about half of it is destroyed. I don't know what is all over it–it looks like pollen but this isn't the right season for that.

The rest of these spiders I saw at night, when I went out with my camera after dark:

Spider on the autumn joy sedum. I am not sure if this is a nursery web spider or something else. I think it's something else. It might be new to me, as I don't recognize the markings. I think it is a male, based on the club-like pedipalps.

 

I found a couple of goldenrod crab spider on, naturally, goldenrod.

This is one of the coolest spiders–an ant mimic. It looks like an ant, even more so when you are not looking at it magnified like this, because it's the size of a small ant, but look closely and you can see that it has eight legs, and has two body segments, not three. It also has chelicerae instead of mandibles, although you can't see its face very well here. But you can see that it has eyes like a spider, not like an ant.