Tag Archives: Unidentified

Orbweaver from Rwanda

We live in Rwanda and saw this on a walk in Kibuye. Is it a golden orb weaver? It was BIG!
Location: Kibuye, along Lake Kivu, Rwanda
October 26, 2010 4:57 am
Hello,
We saw this yellow and black orb weaver on a walk near Lake Kivu in Rwanda. It’s abdomen was about the size of a small chicken egg. The silk on the web was golden coloured. The whole spider and legs would have nicely spanned an opened hand. It was beautiful. Our kids were fascinated (as were we!) I wish we could have gotten better scale for you. The web was between two hedges, about 5 feet off the ground. The spider was eating something at the time, so we enjoyed observing for a while. Sorry about the dark and blurry photos. We’ve tried searching online, but haven’t quite found much like it! We’d appreciate your help!
Signature: The Jelsma family in Rwanda

orbweaver rwanda 300x221 Orbweaver from Rwanda

Orbweaver

Dear Jelsma family,
Based on the color of the silk and the size of the spider, we suspect this Orbweaver is one of the Golden Silk Spiders in the genus
Nephila, but its coloration and markings are unfamiliar to us.  We will attempt a proper identification, but we will post the image and letter first in the event our readership is able to provide any clues.

Thanks so much for your quick reply! What a beautiful spider!
I took some video of it, with my hand as near as I felt gutsy enough to put it! (With the kids in the background saying: “No, mom, No mom…NOOooo…” Just to show some scale. It is one of the largest spiders we’ve seen here, as well as one of the most beautiful!
Thanks Daniel!
Jocelyn Jelsma

What's That Bug? does not endorse extermination

Hemipteran Nymphs: Burrower Bugs?, Ebony Bugs? or other???

Little red guys near ant hills
Location:  Lake Forest, CA (South Orange County)
October 17, 2010 10:46 pm
We found these tiny guys hanging out around ant hills on a trail on a foggy day. They’re so small that at first I thought they were seeds, and I think the only reason we noticed them was because we were studying the ant hills. They were slow and varied in size. The biggest ones were about 1/3 the size of a lady bug. They seemed to cluster together but the ants did not seem to take any interest.
Signature:  Jason and Lizzie

hemipteran nymph ants jason 252x300 Hemipteran Nymphs:  Burrower Bugs?, Ebony Bugs? or other???

Unknown Hemipteran Nymph

Hi Jason and Lizzie,
The identification of unknown Hemipteran nymphs from blurry photographs is a difficult venture, but the information you provided about the ant hill should prove very helpful.  Right now we are confident that your Hemipterans are in the superfamily Pentatomoidea, which is well represented on Bugguide.  The likeliest candidates are Ebony Bugs in the family Thyreocoridea (see BugGuide) or Burrowing Bugs in the family Cydnidae (see BugGuide). We have been unable to quickly locate any symbiotic relationships with ants.  Perhaps our readership will be able to uncover additional information since we must rush off to work for now.

hemipteran nymphs ants jason 300x225 Hemipteran Nymphs:  Burrower Bugs?, Ebony Bugs? or other???

Unknown Hemipteran Nymphs

Unknown Moth from Ecuador

Ecuadorian hawkmoth
Location:  Ecuador
October 17, 2010 6:38 pm
I photographed this stunning hawkmoth at Cabanas San Isidro on the east slope of the Andes on July 4, 2002. Any idea what species it might be?
Signature:  Allen Chartier

moth ecuador allen 300x192 Unknown Moth from Ecuador

Unknown Moth from Ecuador

Dear Allen,
This is a stunning moth, but we are not certain it is a Hawkmoth in the family Sphingidae.  The head appears different from most Hawkmoths.  We have an important writing deadline to meet this evening, so we need to stop trying to identify this moth for the moment.  In our initial attempts, we were unable to identify this species on the Sphingidae of Ecuador web page on Bill Oehlke’s awesome Sphingidae of the Americas website in a quick search.  We will contact Bill Oehlke to see if he can provide any information.  Our readership might have ideas as well.

Thanks! No hurry…I’ve had this photo for three years. I also have a number of other unidentified moths on my website from the same locale and trip to Ecuador. If anyone is interested in identifying them too, at their own convenience, I’d really appreciate it and would be willing to upload any of them to
What’s That Bug?
Go to: http://www.amazilia.net/images/Inverts/Lepidoptera/Moths/moths.htm and scroll down to the South America section…
Allen T. Chartier

What's That Bug? does not endorse extermination

Assistance Requested from our Readership: What are the Mysterious Droppings???

Ed Note: It is impossible for our tiny staff to respond to every email, but if a person writes back indicating that a previous email was unanswered, we will attempt to provide a response.  In this particular situation, when a new email was sent two weeks later, there were no images, so rather than to sort through hundreds of emails, we responded accordingly, and then we received additional written information, but no photos.  Now our curiosity was truly piqued, so we tracked down the original letter which contained the images on this posting.

mysterious droppings 300x225 Assistance Requested from our Readership:  What are the Mysterious Droppings???

Mysterious Droppings

On Sun, Oct 17, 2010 at 7:02 AM
I haven’t heard anything from you,did you get my e-mail?

There are no photos attached.

I sent three but its hard to them they look like coffee grinds they are ale=ways in the same to places in the house. they accumulate on a white wooden box that covers our water heater, the other is on a glass and wood coffee table.  My boyfriend and i will clean theses ares and in a day or two the tiny brown specs will come back. they are smaller then coffee grinds. I video monitored it one night and nothing happened for two days i stopped and they appeared again.  I soaked wood over water heater with a very strong bug killer and in a day they cam back.  There are no holes in the ceiling so its not dropping, it not falling from ceiling fan because it would be spread out more.  We are losing our minds because we don’t know what it is so we don’t get rid of it. the house was built in the 1940′s we do see termite fras brown or black on the wood floors here and there.  Could something be picking up the fras and dropping it in the same two places.   I sold pest control in the 90′s so I know a little about it.  But this is mind boggling , we joke and say a ghost is doing it,lol  but we are really getting upset with it.  the economy does not allow me to hire someone right now.  I just heard my company is going to lay people off, so i have to watch every dime.  Please if you could just tell me what to do or a website that could help me i would so appreciate it.  Thank you for the time in reading this short novel.

Ed. Note:  Original Letter located
mysterious bug droppings
Location:  St .Augustine fl
October 3, 2010 11:46 am
We are losing our minds over this and so is all our friends. we have a wooden box covering a short hot water heater. On the top we wake up to find tiny brown spots in the same circle we look up no holes in the ceiling we inspect box no holes we clean it off and it always comes back. And get this on our glass coffee table in one corner always the same. So I said I know i will put down glue sticky traps and you won’t beleive this but brown dots smaller then coffee grinds on the glue traps an no sign of whats putting them there. Please help us we rent here and we are finally happy where we live but this is so annoying. we live in st.augustine ,fl
Signature:  jersigypci

mysterious droppings 2 300x225 Assistance Requested from our Readership:  What are the Mysterious Droppings???

Mysterious Droppings

Dear jersigypci,
We can see from the time stamp of February 1, 2006 that this unimaginably disturbing phenomenon has been plaguing you for more than four years and we cannot fathom how you have managed to endure it, but tragedies are all relative.  We cannot identify anything in your photographs and we are unable to provide you with any explanation for this horrific occurrence.  We would recommend professional help or perhaps just rent Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining and be thankful that your situation isn’t worse.  We actually can suggest one additional alternative that may provide closure.  Since we are posting your emails along with all of your photos, which we were able to locate, our readership may be able to help solve your mystery before your minds are totally lost.  Gentle Readers, please post a comment if you have any suggestions.

mysterious droppings 3 300x225 Assistance Requested from our Readership:  What are the Mysterious Droppings???

Mysterious Droppings

oh well thanks any way i thought if anyone could help us it would be you, since i heard how awesome you all were. i guess we’ll just have to live with iy.

Had you checked back, you would have seen that our readers have been posting comments.

Just What are these Woolly Bears Doing?????

Pebble Encased Caterpillar

pebble caterpillar dorinda 300x224 Just What are these Woolly Bears Doing?????

Woolly Bear Mystery

Pebble Encased Caterpillar
Location:  Southwestern Montana, at about 5,000 feet in a mixed pine forest
October 10, 2010 9:48 am
Daniel:
Here is the mystery: the small and large caterpillar working together to encase the larger caterpillar in a pebble cocoon. My friend captured them in the act on a rock in a road near a campground in Western Montana in late August. The larger caterpillar began to coat itself with a sticky excretion. The smaller caterpillar climbed up and down the rock to find little pebbles, carry them to the larger caterpillar and stick them on, until the larger caterpillar was completely encased. The photographer then removed the caterpillars from the road for safety. I wrote about them in my nature column in the local newspaper, have not had any luck identifying them, and have promised my readers that I would let them know when I knew more.
We all really appreciate your help.
Signature:  Dorinda in Montana

pebble caterpillar dorinda 2 300x256 Just What are these Woolly Bears Doing?????

Woolly Bear Mystery

Hi Again Dorinda,
Thanks for taking the time to resend this unusual occurrence.  We are mystified and we cannot even begin to explain what these images appear to document.  We know of no cases of Caterpillars combining forces for any such activities, nor do we know of any Tiger Moth Caterpillars, commonly called Woolly Bears, using pebbles in the construction of a cocoon.  Perhaps our readership will be able to provide something in the way of an explanation.  The pink background in the final image is curious.

pebble caterpillar dorinda 3 300x249 Just What are these Woolly Bears Doing?????

Woolly Bear Mystery

The last picture had a pink background due to moving the rock out of the road to keep it safe from traffic. The friend who took the series (I’ve attached a couple of others), swears that she and her husband watched the smaller caterpillar bring the pebbles to the larger one. She was absolutely amazed. She and her husband are pretty simple folks, and love to camp out, which is when they spotted this pair. I’d really don’t believe that they staged this in any way. She actually brought the rock back with to her house in town, and put it in her garage for shelter.
As I said, I’m a writer with a nature column going on 25 years in our local newspaper, called Bird Seed, and I get told a lot of stories about birds and animals. This story was brought up casually, and took some work on my part to get the photos sent to me digitally, as they did not know how to do it. She initially showed them to me on her camera at the farmer’s market where she has a booth, and asked me if I knew what they were, or had heard of anything like it before. I sure hadn’t, but thought of you. She told me that her husband lay down in the road to take the pics with his brand new digital camera, and had to move a couple of times due to traffic.
I know that the photos are not quite good enough to show the smaller caterpillar and the pebble he is carrying clearly, but one of the pic number 4 does show that.
I really appreciate any help you can be with this little mystery.
Dorinda Troutman

pebble caterpillar dorinda 2.5 224x300 Just What are these Woolly Bears Doing?????

Woolly Bear Mystery

Hi again Dorinda,
The new photo you included seems to chronologically fit between the final two images you sent earlier, and it does not provide any additional information regarding this mystery.  Again, hopefully our readership may provide some clues.

Probably NOT Foreign Grain Beetle

Please help me identify this bug
Location:  illinois
September 21, 2010 10:42 pm
finding many of these little bugs all over my house. This is the first year this has happened. Please help me identify this bug, thinking it some sort of beetle. Also, looking for best solution to getting rid of these little guys.
thanks for your help. sorry for poor quality pics.
Signature:  beetle help identify

new house beetle 300x168 Probably NOT Foreign Grain Beetle

Probably NOT Foreign Grain Beetle

We had a bit of trouble with this one, and we are not certain that our identification is correct, but it is possible that you have an infestation of Foreign Grain Beetles, Ahasverus advena, also called the New House Bug because it is”common in homes (esp. newly built) and grain storage facilities” according to BugGuide, which also indicates it feeds on “Molds and fungi growing on damp grain, grain products, and other materials.”  Sadly, we realized our identification was incorrect the minute we found the University of Arkansas Arthropod Museum website which has a nice page devoted to the Foreign Grain Beetle and which indicates:  “They have two conspicuous and diagnostic round lobes on the prothorax right behind the eyes.“  Those lobes are missing in your beetle, so alas, we have drawn a blank on the species identification unless the lobes are just not visible because of your camera angle.  There are a multitude of insects that will infest stored foods, and we believe this must be one of them.  If the actual identity is critical for you, and if none of our readers come to our rescue here, we suggest you begin scouring the internet for potential Grain Beetles like those profiled on the Grain Beetles page of the Pest Products website.

Unknown Ant from Egypt

Ant in Luxor Egypt
Location:  Luxor Egypt
August 19, 2010 6:24 pm
My wife and I were walking around the Karnak temple in Luxor Egypt and kept running into these vicious looking ants. They seemed to have rather long legs and liked to keep their abdomen up in the air, looking more like a little scorpion than an ant at first sight. Couldn’t get a really good look at what it was trying to pull up from the ground there, but it was engaged in a mighty struggle to wrestle it from the ground. Please let us know what species of ant this might. Many thanks!
p.s. we saw the same ant near the pyramids in Giza as well.
horizon hunters

ant egypt 300x223 Unknown Ant from Egypt

Unknown Ant

Dear horizon hunters,
We are posting your image prior to securing an identification and we are hoping our readership may be able to assist.  Though we are running late and cannot browse at the moment, we suspect the Ants of Egypt website may contain the answer.

1

Unknown Caterpillar from Japan

red hairy caterpillars devouring my plum tree
Location:  Yamanashi, Japan
August 20, 2010 10:25 pm
I found these red, hariy caterpillars devouring my plum tree. I live in Yamanashi, Japan, and haven’t been able to identify these guys. They are about 3 cm long,”stand at attention” when threatened, and loved the leaves on my plum tree. They seem to be able to make a sliken thread to hang on to the leaf if I try to knock them off. On the same tree, on the reverse side of a leaf, I also found some peculiar red and black beetle-like bugs, surrounding what appear to be a groupf of very small, pearly white eggs. My concerns are: are the caterpillars dangerous, and what are the names of my bugs? I’d so appreciate any help you can give! I can send more pics if needed.
Thanks, Melony Ward

unknown caterpillar japan melony 300x206 Unknown Caterpillar from Japan

Unknown Caterpillar from Japan

Hi Melony,
We do not recognize your caterpillar and we were unable to identify it in a quick internet search.  Perhaps one of our readers will have better luck.  Your other bugs are newly hatched Stink Bugs.


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