This is George
Location: Northeast Ohio
September 15, 2010 7:21 pm
This guy has spent the summer vacationing in the upper left corner of our bedroom window. I dubbed him George and told him as long as he stays outside he can be my friend. I do believe he is an orb weaver, although I’ve been unable to find any orb weaver that looks quite like him.
Signature: Lisa Insana
Orbweaver
Hi Lisa,
While we may not be able to identify this member of the genus Araneus to the species level, we can tell you for certain that you might want to consider renaming her Georgina or Georgette.
Horse fly (with Lady Gaga shades)
Location:Tampico, Tamaulipas, México
September 15, 2010 1:18 pm
Hi there! What a great site you have here. This is my first post, i’m a bug fan myself and i’m constantly taking pictures of different bugs and looking for their scientific names. Sometimes I cannot find them, this is one of them.
I found it outside one of my classrooms at the university. The first thing that caught me were the fantastically multicolored eyes on this (a Tabanidae, I believe), but I wanted to know If there was a more specific name to it.
I took the pictures with my cellphone, so they’re as close as I could get to this fashionista fly.
Thanks!
Signature: Rexnatus
Horse Fly
Dear Rexnatus,
WE agree that this is a Horse Fly in the genus Tabanus, but we believe attempting to identify it to the species level may be beyond our capabilities. Perhaps a Dipterist with a specialization in Tabanidae will write in. Once the climate gets warmer in the southern portions of North America and close to the Central American divisions, there are certain species that are not as well documented on the internet and perhaps may not even be properly identified. Not only are the eyes on this female Horse Fly (notice the space between her eyes) quite spectacular, but she has on black leggings. We would love it if this was a new species that could be called Tabanus rexnatus. Maybe she is not a distinct species, but rather a southern subspecies. In that case she could be Tabanus unidentified gaga.
Karl has some thoughts
Horse Fly from Mexico
Hi Daniel and Rexnatus
Similar color patterns of the eyes and legs appear in a number of nearctic and particularly neotropical horse flies so I can’t be absolutely certain, but this really looks like a female Striped Horse Fly (Tabanidae: Tabanus lineola). I don’t know if the species is named for those amazing eyes or the prominent white dorsal stripe on the abdomen, a feature that is unfortunately not visible on the photo posted by Rexnatus. The species is found in the eastern and southern USA, as well as the Gulf Coast of Mexico. There are numerous images on the Bugguide, and a set of photos have been posted by Thomas Shahan on flickr. The latter photos are quite spectacular and show the striking differences between the female and male eyes. Regards. Karl
¶ Posted 16 September 2010 § Flies ‡ ° What is it?
Location: NW Oregon
September 15, 2010 6:37 pm
We’ve lived in the same place for 20 years and never seen one of these? We found this one drowning in our pet’s water dish. It came back to life, sort of. Since then, we saw another one flying around some fire wood that we recently brought on to our property. We suspect it may have come with the wood, but have no idea what it is? Can you help us?
Signature: Lisa E.
Wood Wasp
Hi Lisa,
This is a Wood Wasp in the genus Urocerus.
wasp or horney
Location: waco, texas
September 14, 2010 9:09 pm
found this in texas
Signature: Leona Garrett
giggles76692@yahoo.com
Giant Ichnuemon
Dear Leona Garrett of Waco Texas,
We do not tolerate plagiarism or cheating from our students, and we are shocked that we may have discovered it in a letter submitted to our website. With all the publicity currently in the press regarding the claims of a lost negative trove attributed to Ansel Adams and the possibility that the glass plates were actually taken by Uncle Earl, we are most sensitive to claims of authenticity. Kindly explain: How is it that this exact image that you sent to us and claim to have taken in Waco, Texas in 2010 was identified as Megarhyssa nortoni on BugGuide after being posted by Sandy Mallet with a 2007 copyright in Warwick Massachusetts? We eagerly await your response.
What kind of bug is this
Location: Vancouver, BC, Canada
September 15, 2010 12:57 am
I was vacuuming my room and i came a cross these little bugs that i’ve never seen before. At first i thought they were bed bugs but i did some research and i came to the conclusion that they weren’t, i continued to search to find out what they were because i wanted to know if they will be a problem.
They were all located on the floor around my bed. Most of them were dead. Some were black other had white and brown stripes. they look kind of furry and have many legs.
Signature: Warren
Carpet Beetle Larvae
Hi Warren,
Now that you know you have Carpet Beetle Larvae, you should be able to find plenty of information on our own website as well as elsewhere on the internet.
¶ Posted 15 September 2010 § Beetles ‡ ° Centipedes from the Philippines Part 5
Tropical Centipede
Centipedes from the Philippines Part 5
Location: Cebu, Philippines
September 15, 2010 2:29 am
Please help me ID these… Thank you!
Signature: JY
Tropical Centipede
Dear JY,
Each of the fourteen photographs of individual Centipedes you sent to us in five different emails are Tropical Centipedes in the order Scolopendromorpha. We suspect that they are color variations of the same species or subspecies, and we are posting a representative sample from your photographs that demonstrate the diversity of coloration and markings. We tried to search the internet and found a Scolopendromorph from the Philippines on the Arachnoboards forum, but the species is not identified. Scolopendromorpha.com has a photograph of a specimen from the Philippines identified as Scolopendra subspinipes. In our research, we did stumble upon a Philippine Tattoo Revival web page that indicates that headhunters from the Philippines had stylized Centipedes tattooed upon their bodies based on the number of human heads they had taken. The site states: “Kalinga men who killed two or more men had elaborate patterns applied to their arms and chests called biking, comprised of khaman (“head-axes”), ufug (“centipede scales”) and bodies of the centipede (gayaman), which were protective and spiritually charged symbols. The khaman design also covered portions of the torso, back, and thighs and centipede scales crossed the cheeks of the most successful warriors.”
Tropical Centipede
Your final image, labeled A4, is not a Centipede, but a Millipede in the class Diplopoda. Unlike predatory Centipedes, Millipedes feed on decaying plant material and they have two pairs of legs on each body segment while Centipedes have on pair of legs per segment.
Millipedes
Oh….. Hehe! I am really looking forward to i.d. these because my buyer from germany wants to buy some of them but he will only buy them if i get it identified hehehe
Dear JY,
Now we are concerned that you may be a poacher. Is it legal to collect exotic Tropical Centipedes in the Philippines? Is it legal to export living Philippine Centipedes to Germany? We were so incredibly touched by the image of the female Centipede cradling her brood that we fear that illegal collection may contribute to the demise of this noble creature in the wild on your island.
little beauty
September 14, 2010
I don’t have any questions, but thought you might like these pictures. Honestly, pictures do not do this guy justice. He is fluorescent blue, green, purple … amazing!
Enjoy!
Sharon
Eastern Highlands
Papua New Guinea
Unknown Hemipteran Nymph
Hi Sharon,
We can’t help but wonder if you don’t have any questions because you know what species this is or because you don’t care what species this is. This appears to the the immature nymph, probably an early instar, of a Hemipteran, probably a Stink Bug in the family Pentatomidae or a Shield Bug in the family Scutelleridae. We hope we are able to correctly identify it using the internet.
Unknown Hemipteran Nymph
Death’s Head Hawk Moth
Hi Daniel
Kate has asked me to send you the photos I took of the moth (not great I’m
afraid). We put the caterpillar into a box with earth on 17th August and
it immediately burrowed. It emerged at around 10pm on Saturday 11th
September. Unfortunately the lighting was so bad it was difficult to take
decent photos (plus I’m not a great photographer).
Death's Head Hawkmoth Pupa
I also have a short film which I uploaded to Youtube. I can either send you
the film direct or the link to Youtube if you would like it.
Thanks for your help.
Kind regards
Jan
Death's Head Hawkmoth
Hi Jan
Your photo is most interesting to us because most photos of the Death’s Head Hawkmoth show the signature skull pattern on the thorax, but it is rare to have an image of the undersides of the wings. If our memory serves us correctly, the original photo Kate sent of the caterpillar was from Portugal.
Thanks Daniel. You’re right about the caterpillar being found in Portugal, which is where we live. More precisely just north of Loulé in the Algarve.
Kind regards
Jan
I like This
