help with the ID please
Location: Nagpur City,Maharashtra State,India
August 14, 2010 4:41 am
Hi again.
WTB has helpd me to start observing the beauties of nature again.so whenever i come across something that catches my eye i click it.used to do it earlier but kinda lost touch.thanks to WTB that i felt like starting with it again.
yesterday i came across this pretty moth.need your help with the identification.does it belong to the Catocala family?
thanks a lot.
Abhishek Sagar
Unknown Moth from India
Hi Abhishek,
We need to do some research on this moth, but we do not believe it is in the genus Catocala, but it may be in the family Erebidae that includes Catocala, or possibly in the Owlet Moth family Noctuidae. At any rate, we do believe it can be classified in the superfamily Noctuoidea which includes both Erebidae and Noctuidae. We will post your letter and photo and request assistance from our readership.
Karl provides another identification
August 15, 2010
Hi Daniel and Abhishek:
I am fairly certain that the genus is Dysgonia (Noctuidae: Catocalinae) but there are a number of species in India and many of them look similar. D. stuposa looks like a close match and it ranges though much of Asia (India to Japan and Indonesia). Regards. Karl.
¶ Posted 14 August 2010 § Moths ‡ ° Also tagged: unknown grasshopper
Location: Beja, Portugal
August 13, 2010 12:22 pm
Hello from Portugal. I need help identifying this grasshopper. I don’t know if it is a nymph (juvenile). It was found in Beja, Portugal, near water. Lengh was aproximately 1,5 cm.
Thanks in advance.
Best regards,
Filipe Caetano
Immature Migratory Locust
Hi Filipe,
We don’t get many requests from Portugal, so we are very determined to identify your grasshopper. It does appear to be a nymph, both because of the size of the wings and the size of the specimen. We tried a web search of grasshopper Portugal and found a nice Flickr page posted by Valter Jacinto, but your individual does not appear to be represented among his numerous photographs. Two of his images in particular have similarities to your specimen. The first is labeled Gafanhoto // Toad Grasshopper (Eumigus ayresi), female. The second is labeled Gafanhoto da família Pamphagidae // Toad Grasshopper (Acinipe sp.), male nymph. We wonder if your specimen might be classified among the Toad Grasshoppers in the family Pamphagidae. We will post your letter and photo in our featured section and we hope one of our readers can supply some assistance.
Piotr Naskrecki provided an inentification
Hi Daniel,
Incidentally, the unknown grasshopper from Portugal is a nymph of the migratory locust (Locusta migratoria.)
Cheers,
Piotr
Leech
June 30, 2010
Hi Bugman,
I found this crawling across the yard and thought it was a worm. The nearest water source was at least 75 feet away. I’m thinking a bird or something dropped it. My husband informed me it was a leech. Did not know leeches were here in Chesapeake, VA. I did not kill but placed it in a ditch the farthest from the house. I was looking up a bug the other day on WTB and noticed you only had one pic of a leech posted and was reminded of mine. The pics are of it “stuck” to a rock when I wet it to keep it moist while I took pics. You could not pull off. Can you tell me what type it is? Thanks! ps I have more pics!
Dawn in SE VA
Southeast VA
Leech? or other Annelid Worm???
Hi Dawn,
Though we are inclined to agree that this is a Leech, we are not certain. We hope that by posting your letter and image, we can get a confirmation from an expert in Leeches and Annelid Worms.
aussietrev Master of Disguise
June 27, 2010
Hi guys,
I have to date been unable to get an ID for this spider which appears to be an Oxypid but is unlike any other. It has a raised ‘crown’ with the eyes set in and unlike other oxypids which like to hang around green foliage it prefers to hide on dead sticks where it camouflages very well. One shot is of its egg sac with the spider sitting close by, if you look carefully. The others shows the raised crown and eye pattern. If anyone has an ID I’d be happy to hear about it.
PS. Can’t believe photography teachers went on a holiday without a camera, have to give you a D- on that one.
aussietrev
Queensland. Australia
Unknown Spider
Hi Trevor,
We will post your photos and hope one of our readers can provide some answers. We agree that this might be a Lynx Spider in the family Oxyopidae. I made a choice to not take a camera so I could better relax after a very difficult semester.
Unknown Spider
¶ Posted 27 June 2010 § Green Lynx ‡ ° Also tagged: larva eats snail
June 25, 2010
On 22 June morning I went to shoot macro.
I made these interesting images of larvae feeding on a snail.
It looks like a grave-digger of the larva or grub of Firefly, but I’m not sure.
Please help to identify the larvae!
Dean Petkov
Bulgaria, Burgas
Possibly Silphid Larva Feeding upon Snail
Hello Dean,
We believe you are probably correct, though we would not rule out the larva of one of our favorite immigrant beetles in Los Angeles, a Rove Beetle known as a Devil’s Coach Horse, Ocypus olens. Alas, the structure of antennae is not visible in your visually compellingly symmetrical photograph, a study in simplicity and circular composition, and the structure of antennae are frequently used to key out specimens into their taxonomic families, genera and even species. The Devil’s Coach Horse is a magnificent beetle that we believe feeds upon snails. A photo on Flickr identified as the larva of Ocypus olens does not look like your predator, so we would favor the Firefly hypothesis. Perhaps we will get some assistance on this identification.
On a more personal level, my paternal grandfather came from Bulgaria, but his name (hence my name) was changed at Ellis Island.
Probably Silphid Larva feeding upon a Snail
Update
Mardikavana provided us with a comment indicating that this is not a Coach Horse Larva nor a Firefly Larva, and that it might be a Silphid Larva. It has been our understanding that Silphid Beetles are not predators, but scavengers that feed upon carrion.
Under water worm
June 14, 2010
Found in New Caledonia in river flooded with sea water during high tide, moving slow, length more than 2 meter, looks like a rusty chain in the water, tentacles like a anemone
under water worm
New Caledonia
Unknown Aquatic Worm
Though we are uncertain how to classify this creature, we will start with Worms and hope one of our readers is able to provide additional information.
Unknown Aquatic Worm
Identified as Sea Cucumber
Identifying New Caledonian Sea Creature
June 15, 2010
In response to request for help identifying a sea creature posted on Monday, I believe this is a “sea cucumber” (a type of echinoderm) with the scientific name Synapta maculata. Doing a search of that name will bring up several sites where one can find more information about it.
Dee Warnock
Thanks Dee. Now we can create an Echinoderm category.
2″ LONG BLACK & YELLOW CASING WITH BUG EMERGING
June 9, 2010
Hi I live in Perthshire, Scotland and have just found this “thing” in my garden. The casing isnt like a chrysalis its too smooth and very very narrow – the colours are black with yellow stripes. Any Ideas??
Kay
Perthshire, Scotland
Thing from Scotland
Hi Kay,
Please provide more information. Where was this thing found? Underground? Inside a stump? On a branch? Underwater? Perhaps someone with recognize this thing and write in to us.
Thing from Scotland
The photo of the Mystery bug in Scotland looks like the dried up tail of some kind of flying insect, like a damselfly, dragonfly or even like a grasshopper. The post didn’t seem to have any responses so I just wanted to add my thoughts.
Daniel Fagan
Update from Karl
June 14, 2010
Hi Daniel and Kay:
I was initially unconvinced that this was actually an animate object, but it looks like it could be the abdomen of a female Golden-ringed Dragonfly (Cordulegaster boltonii). It looks very similar and the species does occur in Scotland. I haven’t checked out all of the possibilities, but this looks pretty close to me. Here is another example: http://www.brocross.com/dfly/species/boltonii.htm. Regards. Karl
Is this the kind of scorpian that can kill people?
June 10, 2010
Hello WTB,
This morning I found that one of my sticky traps caught a scorpian. But because it is so small and the light colored one I was concerned after reading through your web site index that it may be the bad kind that can kill people. Can you please verify the speciecs, what I should do with it, and is the sting harmful to my dog and cat as well? Thank you!
Amanda in West TX
Near El Paso
Bark Scorpion Perhaps???
Dear Amanda,
We have always understood that Scorpions with small pedipalps, which Scorpions are able to use as hands, and large tails are the most dangerous. Your Scorpion fits that description. We tried to match it so the images on BugGuide, but we don’t feel comfortable beyond the genus level, and even that is dicey. Our guess is family Buthidae, genus Centruroides, the Bark Scorpions. Sadly, your photo does not show the shape of the sternum. According to BugGuide: “The family Buthidae is easily recognized by the almost triangular sternum. The sternum is located on the underside just before the pectines (combs).“ The coloration of your specimen does not seem consistent with the description on BugGuide for the Striped Bark Scorpion, Centruroides vittatus, which is indicated as: “two broad stripes down back, with orange bars on each tergite (dorsal plate); hands and fifth metasoma (tail) segment are darker, especially in young and freshly molted specimens; broad stripe on the back of the tail.“ The Striped Bark Scorpion seems the likeliest candidate to us, but we would relish the opinion of an expert in Scorpion identification.
Striped Bark Scorpion maybe???
The defensive posture in your other photo is very interesting. It seems the Scorpion has retracted its pedipalps to protect its head. We alluded earlier to Scorpions using their pedipalps as hands. The mating activity of Scorpions, which we have only read about, but never seen, is called a Pas de Deux or Dance for Two. The male and female grasp one another by the pedipalps and move around the area as though dancing until the male finds a favorable place to deposit his sperm. He then guides the female to his gift of life.
Comment
did you free the scorpion?
steiv
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