What do you see in this photo? A bumble bee. A small brown spider. White flowers. Look closely: There’s a large crab spider front and center. If you have a garden, you may be familiar with the goldenrod crab spider (Misumena vatia), which is commonly seen on flowers from late spring through early fall on […]
spiders
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HumBug: Saps, Jumpers and Stingers
Lacquering a dowel, I found half a dozen tiny beetles waiting for the chance to entomb themselves in the artificial amber. These are sap beetles. They are usually minute like this one, and different members of the family (nitidulidae) feed on various things including rotten fruit. Some years ago my strawberry patch was infested with […]
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Parasites all the Way Down
Even parasites have nightmares Some experts assert that the most common lifestyle in nature is that of parasitism. (Read Rachel Nuwer’s interview with ecologist Kevin Lafferty “Parasitism is the Most Popular Lifestyle on Earth” for more on this.) The world of arthropods is no exception. I’ve mentioned before that mankind’s deadliest opponent in nature is the synergistic combination […]
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HumBug: Even Parasites have Nightmares
Some experts assert that the most common lifestyle in nature is that of parasitism. (Read Rachel Nuwer’s interview with ecologist Kevin Lafferty “Parasitism is the Most Popular Lifestyle on Earth” for more on this.) The world of arthropods is no exception. I’ve mentioned before that mankind’s deadliest opponent in nature is the synergistic combination of mosquitoes […]
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Best of the Bugs
After almost five years doing a weekly blog it had to happen. With rainy, cold weather and the fact that over the last several years I’ve already written about most of the noteworthy entomological subjects hereabouts, this week I didn’t see any new critters worth photographing or writing about. So I think I’ll do what […]
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HumBug: Revisiting Old (Poisonous) Friends
Back on Oct 2., 2016, I posted an article on the infestation of western black widow (Latrodactus hesperus) spiders at the Carlotta Post Office. Just this week my wife and I had occasion to visit the area again. Guess what? As we strolled along the walkway directly in front of the post office, I nearly […]
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HumBug: Late Butterflies, Hornets and Moths
A quick walk along the Van Duzen River turned up one each variegated meadowhawk and shadow darner dragonflies neither of which allowed me to get close enough to get a photo. It’s OK, I have hundreds of shots of the meadowhawk and dozens of the shadow. We got glimpses of a California sister butterfly, a […]
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Not What it Looks Like
A harmless imposter Being the local “bug guy,” I was recently asked about a spider that looked “almost exactly like a black widow” but lacked the distinctive red hourglass on the underside of its abdomen. This is a spider with which I am very familiar. They were nearly everywhere where I grew up in Pacifica, […]
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HumBug: Spiders at School
I recently did some walkabout lectures at a local middle school. The format was to walk around the campus for about 45 minutes and discourse on the various organisms we encountered. I did this six times with different groups. Aside from the stationary trees and plants, the organisms we encountered most reliably were the little […]
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HumBug: An Innocent Imposter
Being the local “Bug Guy” I was recently asked about a spider that looked “almost exactly like a black widow,” but lacked the distinctive red hourglass on the underside of its abdomen. This is a spider with which I am very familiar. They were nearly everywhere where I grew up in Pacifica, California. I hadn’t […]
Posted inLife + Outdoors
HumBug: Friends and Enemies
This week I started to write about spiders and ended up buying a book on mosquitoes. In the recently published book The Mosquito: A Human History of Our Deadliest Predator, author Timothy Winegard calculates nearly half the people who ever lived died of mosquito bites. To put things into a modern perspective, mosquitoes kill on average […]
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HumBug: Mayflies on the Van Duzen
Getting a late start, I made my way down to the river after the sun had gone from the canyon. I noted many tiny flying insects 6 inches on either side of the water’s edge. A spotted sandpiper (Actitis macularius) strolled up the minute beach pecking here and there as it went. The insects I […]