The nymphal spittle bug is a wondrous creature. It sips plant juices and processes the waste into a bubbly foam with which it surrounds itself. If you’ve ever gotten the stuff on your hand you know it is sticky and gooey. I understand it is unpleasant tasting as well. (I’ve not done that experiment.) It […]
spiders
Posted inLife + Outdoors
HumBug: Spiders in a Car
What do you do when you’re driving and a spider runs across the inside of your windshield? Like any good entomological photographer, I pulled over at a safe place and took its picture, of course. Done with the photo shoot, I hearded it onto an envelope and ushered it outside. Really, spiders are nothing to […]
Posted inLife + Outdoors
HumBug: Halloween Spiders
With Halloween in mind, I set about looking for something creepy to photograph. According to some recent research, we humans are apparently programmed from a very early age to react to spiders and snakes. Looking for something dramatic to shoot, camera and flashlight in hand, I took a nocturnal tour of my backyard. This the […]
Posted inLife + Outdoors
HumBug: Butterfly vs. Spider
Some time ago, I mentioned in passing that butterflies and moths are covered with scales and fine hairs. They are easily dislodged and I theorized that these easily discarded structures might serve them as a release mechanism from sticky traps like a spider’s web. Last night I noticed a small cross orbweaver (Araneus diadematus) in […]
Posted inNews
HumBug: Come Closer, Said the Fly to the Fly
Recently, scientists have calculated that spiders devour between 400 and 800 million tons of insects annually. Right now in my yard, though, on the fence where the white clematis chokes out everything else, there is a massacre going on and spiders are not the center stage players. Golden haired dung flies are chasing and eating flower […]
Posted inNews
HumBug: Black Widows
I spend a lot of my outdoor time looking for and at bugs. Especially ones that are dramatic looking or interesting to photograph, so when I noted a medium sized spider on the front of the Carlotta post office, I automatically got closer, tilted my head to use the reading portion of my bifocals and […]
Posted inNews
Black Widows Found at Carlotta Post Office
Officials are investigating an apparent infestation of poisonous black widow spiders at the Carlotta Post Office. Carlotta resident, Journal columnist and bug enthusiast Anthony Westkamper was picking up his mail on Saturday when he noticed a black spider by the post office entrance and, being a bug enthusiast, took a closer look. He spotted the […]
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HumBug: Who’s Your Daddy?
Late last night, I took the dogs out for their final walk when I noticed a small member of the arachnid family of Opiliones on a rhododendron leaf. This is what I learned as a little kid as “daddy long legs.” Sometimes known as harvestmen, they look like a spider with unusually long legs and a […]
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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 […]
Posted inNews
HumBug: Good Mothers
In grammar school I learned that only the birds and mammals cared for their young. Later I learned that crocodiles and alligators build and protect nests, but largely the “lower lifeforms” do little after laying their eggs. Aside from the social insects that feed, protect and rear the young into adulthood, parental care is relatively rare […]
Posted inNews
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 […]