black honeybee
Tag: insects
forficulidae
The tiny but mighty earwig packs quite a pinch. Don’t let one crawl up the leg of your pants.
neoconocephalus
I never really knew what a katydid was (as opposed to a grasshopper) until the other night. An easy-to-spot difference is the length of the antennae. Also, katydids are primarily nocturnal and grasshoppers are diurnal.
Insects in the family Tettigoniidae are commonly called katydids (especially in North America). More than 8,000 species are known. Many species exhibit mimicry and camouflage, commonly with shapes and colours similar to leaves.
The specimen we sketched is in the Neoconocephalus genus. Gotta love that cone head!
chrysalis vs cocoon
I am not sure how I got to be middle-aged before learning that butterfly caterpillars don’t spin cocoons. Moths do that. A butterfly’s chrysalis forms INSIDE its caterpillar-y skin. It sheds that skin and voila, it’s now a pupa. 🤯 Learn something new!!
Plecoptera
If you see stoneflies by a creek, you can be happy that the water’s clean and well-oxygenated.
scutigera coleoptrata
House centipedes (Scutigera coleoptrata) sometimes fall in the sink and can’t get out without assistance. Knowing what they eat, I’m always happy to see (and help) them.
pseudomethoca simillima
Justin Orvel Schmidt is an American entomologist, author of The Sting of the Wild, and creator of the Schmidt sting pain index. According to him, the sting of a velvet ant is a 3 out of 4, equivalent to having boiling oil poured all over your hand.
Just another fun fact shared by the irrepressible Trisha Nicols on Insectopia.
gynaikothrips uzeli
The closer you look, the more you see.
phyllocnistis citrella
The citrus leafminer is a very small, light coloured moth that arrived in California from Mexico in 2000 and has now spread throughout most of California. I’ve never seen an adult, but the larval action is very evident in my yard, especially on the young lime trees. They only infest fresh growth, which of course is just about all a little tree has!
I’ve been removing the affected leaves, but today I read that it’s not a good idea, because it just creates even more fresh growth for the larvae to mine. Apparently the insects will die off over the cooler months; here’s hoping, too, that natural predators come along to help create balance.
leaf galls
While waiting for our friends to arrive, I sketched the pretty galls on the gum tree by the gate.
hashiworks 