Love This Site!!
July 27, 2009
Just wanted to say thanks for this AWESOME site! Everyday at work I spend all day (between customers of course) looking at and reading about the fascinating bugs on your website! My co-workers try to avoid my desk, complaining that the bug pics give them the heebeejeebees. I admit, I used to be one of them. That was, until my mom introduced me to WTB when she wanted a wasp identified. I have always been curious about creatures (big and small), and you have an endless supply of information to satiate my appetite! Now when I see a bug, instead of smashing it or ignoring it, I just try to figure out what it is! I can’t wait to visit my folks in Ohio next week, and share with them all my newly aqcuired knowledge any time we run across an interesting bug! Thanks for all that you do!
Cassie Shaw
Cleveland MS

Hi Cassie,
Thanks so much for your kind letter of support.

June 15, 2009
Hello. I just wanted to say that I enjoyed your site even though it made me feel itchy. :OP. It’s nice to see teachers spread thier knowledge. Lord knows we need more of that these days.
May

reddish brown bugs with antennas and wings                         Inbox        X

Reply

Marie to bugman
show details Jul 13 (1 day ago)
a form has been submitted on July 13, 2009, via: http://www.whatsthatbug.com/comments-and-questions/ [IP 98.167.236.8]
reddish brown bugs with antennas and wings
Monday, July 13, 2009
My house is infested with these red bug that have wings and antennas. They look like specs. Some you barely see.
They are in the carpet, sofa on my bed sheets. I even found them in my linens closets. I thought they were bed bugs, but read that bed bugs are nocturnal and only feed at night. These bugs are biting all day and night. I can’t see them when they bite me, but can feel them. Then I itch like crazy. It feels like I rolled around in fiberglass. I walk around with spray bottle filled with alcohol to spray on my.
They wake me up at night. I turn the lights in my bedroom and inspect the sheets. Then I see red specks all over my sheets. I remove them with clear packing tape. Then spray my sheets with alcohol. This has been going on for a couple of months now.
I live in a new subdivision in Chandler Arizona. Since the housing market failed, there were no homes on each side of me or in back. Now that the interest rates have gone down, business is picking up for the builder. They have dug a home on each side and back of me – all at the same time.
Our state is known for dust storms and monsoons. I think during a bad dust storm, these bugs may have come in thru the vents of my home. Because now they are blowing in thru the a/c vents. I tested this by placing a white sheet on my bed during the day. I checked the sheet for any bugs. Then when the a/c comes on, I go back into my bedroom and check the sheet again and found alot of tiny red bugs. So whoever is laying the eggs must be living in the attic.
I had the exterminator spray in my home, but they are still biting me.
They are supposed come out on Wednesday and bomb my house and I will have to leave for 5 hours.
I’m now in the process of asking the builder to reimburse with these fees.
I had to throw out sheets, towels, pillows, clothes because they were loaded with these red bugs.
I am sick and tired of this infestation!
Marie
p.s. I will try and upload some pictures to you

Please send photos Marie.  In the meantime, we are putting you on the Worst Bug Story Ever page.

A Cool Site!
July 11, 2009
I wished to thank you for such an amazing and informative site; this from a non-bug lover who would have to honestly admit to some unnecessary carnage in her lifetime especially a creepy, crawly anything…
butterflies, (caterpillars of course) lady bugs (the only one loved out of the beetle family) and a few others I’ve never murdered, though lets not go into carpenter ants and the wealth of stories there!
Either way, I began to research a funny looking beetle I have come across both last summer and this summer and though I did have a beetle farm (I am an adult) last summer, I could not find one informative answer to what type it was. Having Googled ‘Common Household Canadian Bugs’ early this morning, your site came up and yet I do not see this beetle here either:( No worries I’ll take a photo at some point.
By providing such an incredible site however, you have educated my mind and I won’t be so quick to tissue squish a harmless insect the next time, afterall God created all even if some of what he created isn’t all that pretty! If bugs had a voice, I’m certain they’d agree:)
Lastly I was very much amused in finding your Nasty Reader Award in the uncaterogized section and laughed heartily over a response to someone named Johnathan by a ‘loyal bug fan,’ in the reason his pictures were not sent by e-mail of his bug, was simply because said bug ‘was up his arse.’ The explanation and vivid imagination with which one of your loyal bug fans winged into their response was delightful reading at best. Simply a great way to begin my day.
So again thank you and I have bookmarked your site to begin an adventure into learning while one day I may be able to report that ‘I am now A Reformed Bug Squisher.’

Dear Reformed Squisher,
Thanks for your awesome letter.  We are happy that we amused you.  We have been without a computer for two day and were unable to make any new posts, but our fast new computer is allowing us to expedite the response process.  Though we doubt we will ever be able to respond to all of our mail, at least we will be able to respond to more of it.  Your letter will have a permanent home on our fanmail page.

digging bee/wasp green stripes on back metalic green eyes
Sat, Jul 4, 2009 at 9:55 AM
Was hoping you could indentify these bees. there are at least 30 to 40 that just stared showing up and digging in our flowerbed.
act1guy
madera, CA (central valley)

Sand Wasp

Dear act1guy,
This is a Sand Wasp in the genus Bembix.  We look forward to seeing these wasps each summer.  The two places in Los Angeles where we encounter them are in the Los Angeles River near the Glendale Narrows and near Union Station downtown at the freeway underpass when we walk to a film lab.  The Bembix Sand Wasps or Digger Wasps. according to Charles Hogue in his wonderful book Insects of the Los Angeles Basin, are:  “characteristic inhabitants of dry sandy areas such as beach bluffs and mesas, sand dunes and arroyos;  I have seen them working in the long jump pit on the track at the University of Southern California.  They fly low and rapidly over the ground seeking prey and tending their burrow nests.  The nests are shallow tubes running obliquely into the soil;  each contains a single larva, which the female keeps supplied with a diet of fresh flies and other insects.  In practicing this form of continuous provisioning of the larvae, sand wasps differ from spider wasps, mud daubers, and many other digging wasps, which provide only a single cache of food that must last throughout the larva’s development.  Sand wasps are not social insects, as are hornets and yellow jackets; yet, as a result of the tendency of individuals to nest in the same area, a type of colony develops.”  So, Sand Wasps help to eliminate an overabundance of flies which often plague us humans during the hot summer months.

What’s That Bug?
Sat, Jun 27, 2009 at 6:06 PM
I love your site. I check it every day to for the new wonder of the day. Not only do you give information and ID, but the photos submitted by your other fans are usually fantastic! So much beauty out there. And yet there are people who hate “bugs.” I always refer them to your site and tell them to say they hate the beauty and variety of the insects they see
Mary Thorman