Despite tipping over every rock and lifting every piece of peeling bark on my property over the years, I have yet to find a scorpion. So, for the last few evenings, when I take my dogs out I’ve carried a black light flashlight. Scorpions are known to fluoresce under UV, which is a curious thing […]
bugs
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HumBug: Skeletons in My Closet
Let me get one thing out of the way right off: I am not an entomologist in the sense that I have no degree in the subject, nor do I work at it as a profession. Like Sherlock Holmes, I like to think of myself as a talented amateur. I do it because I enjoy […]
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HumBug: Millipedes
The biggest land “bug” that ever lived was a one-foot-wide, 6-foot-long millipede called Arthropleura. The largest nowadays is the foot-long giant African millipede, which some folks raise as pets. The good news is that millipedes on the whole are inoffensive critters, content to dine on decaying vegetation and fungi. By nature millipedes are shy and […]
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HumBug: It’s a Bug’s Life
I should explain I am using the word “Bug” in the generic sense … any small creepy crawly critter born with more than four legs. There is another technical definition for the word: a member of the insect order Hemiptera. The “true bugs” are generally shield shaped, with front wings about half the size of […]
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HumBug: Scaly Protection
The order of butterflies and moths, Lepidoptera, gets its name from Greek words meaning “scale wings.” Like a mosaic, those scales make up each species’ distinctive markings. Listed in the literature are a number of ways those minute scales contribute to the animal’s well being. As a layer of insulation on their body, they help […]
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HumBug: Look What the Rains Brought
As the seasons change, the macro invertebrate fauna (aka bugs) change. It’s November, and it finally rained at my house. At night when my dogs take me out for a walk I’m finally seeing my long awaited friends, the glow worms. Rapacious slug hunters, these little firefly relatives are usually found on the ground amongst […]
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HumBug: Mantis Religiosa
Probably the insect’s world epitome of elegant lethality is the praying mantis. There are even a couple of branches of Kung-fu based on the mantis’ movements. Increasingly over the years I have seen adults of the 3- to 4-inch European mantis (Mantis religiosa) variety in the fall. They come in two different colors, pale green […]
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HumBug:Waiting for Rain
No one needs to tell us 2015 has been a dry year so far. Brown lawns, crops under stress, wild fire dangers all reveal our lack of recent rainfall. There is another group of organisms under stress as well. Although probably not high on any homeowner’s endangered species list, termites are facing a problem. Throughout a […]
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HumBug: New Spirals
I think the best and most frustrating thing about nature study is that one thing almost always leads to several more, and each one of those leads to still more. I have a particular fondness for glowing things, especially our local glow worms, Pterotus obscuripinnes. Studying them I learned they feed almost exclusively on small […]
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HumBug: Yellowjackets
Once, while recovering from shoulder surgery, I heard my wife scream from the backyard. Arm immobilized with a brace, I stumbled outside. She was under attack from dozens of yellowjackets. Before I could get her away from them she had accumulated nine stings. The scars she got from accidentally disturbing a nest in the ground […]
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HumBug: The Most Unlovely Insects
Butterflies and dragonflies can entrance us with their beauty. Praying mantises carry themselves with a slender, lethal elegance. At the other end of the insect spectrum, you can find the order of flies. Unlike all other winged insects, members of the order Diptera have only two wings not four. Di meaning two and ptera meaning […]
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HumBug: Jumping Spiders!
Even people who do not like spiders can find much to love in the red backed jumping spider. First of all they are cute.(well, cute for a spider). Stocky and fuzzy, with eight eyes positioned across a broad face, they are somehow a little less spidery-creepy than a black widow. If you are impressed by […]