Dome Web Spider from Australia

On · Category: Orb Weavers Tagged With: · Add Comment

Subject:  Melbourne spiders
Geographic location of the bug:  Backyard
Date: 11/25/2017
Time: 04:49 AM EDT
One black spider.
One big colorful  spider.
How you want your letter signed:  Email

Dome Web Spider

Your colorful spider is a harmless Orbweaver, and we believe we have correctly identified it as a Dome Web Spider or Tent Spider, Cyrtophora moluccensis, thanks to images posted to Brisbane Insects where it states:  “Tent Spiders build tent-shaped webs between plants and bushes. Their tent shaped webs are easily recognized, up to 60cm in diameter” and “Unlike the other spider webs, the webs of  Tent Spiders and Russian Tent Spiders do not have sticky silk. The spiders rest upside down in the middle of the tent from day to night. Sometimes we can see a few of the Tent Spiders build their tent webs joined together and cover an area of a few meters.”  We also found images on Deviant Art and Bush Pea.

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Gossamer Winged Butterfly from China

On · Category: Gossamer Wings · Add Comment

Subject:  Interesting Lycaenid Butterfly in ShenZhen
Geographic location of the bug:  Shenzhen, China
Your letter to the bugman:  Dear bugman,
I came across this butterfly in the specified location. Upon closer inspection, it looks like some of its patterns has faded (see IMG_4434). For example, there seems to be 4 faded spots around the discal area of the hindwing, and I could see extremely faint tints of orange around the black eyespot. I would appreciate your help!
How you want your letter signed:  Jonathan

Gossamer Winged Butterfly

Dear Jonathan,
We have trouble distinguishing different species of Gossamer Winged Butterflies from one another in North America where there are actually very excellent sites devoted to insect identification.  There is not the same database for Chinese species.  We believe this is most likely a Tailed Blue, but we would not rule out that it might be a Hairstreak.  Several similar looking species that we have found on the internet include a Pea Blue, Lampides boeticus, that we found on My Butterfly Collection, and a Silver Forget-Me-Not, Catochrysops panormus, that we found on Butterflies of Singapore.

Gossamer Winged Butterfly

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Male Army Ant from Colombia

On · Category: Wasps and Hornets Tagged With: · 4 Comments

Subject:  Some kind of termite?
Geographic location of the bug:  Colombia, South America.
Date: 11/24/2017
Time: 12:56 AM EDT
Well, I guess you know the introduction to this story: this buddy just came flying through my window. He was acting… weird, I guess. Sort of like dying, lots of pointless moves, really fast though; not being able to climb even a cardboard or use his wings. I just took some pics and immediately set him free. However, I didn’t really know where to start looking to identify him, looks like some kind of hairy termit; so I just came straight to your blog. Not my best quality pictures, I know. Anyways, could you give me a hand, bugman?
How you want your letter signed:  More lost than ever, Daniel.

Male Army Ant Alate

Dear Daniel,
Unfortunately, we do not have a definitive answer for you at this time but we are certain this is NOT a Termite.  At first we thought this might be a flying Ant, one of the reproductive members of the colony, but the antennae just seem wrong to be an ant, but we still believe this is a member of the order Hymenoptera, the Ants, Bees and Wasps.  With that, we are left with this being some species of Wasp, possibly a Digger Wasp in the family Scoliidae, but that is just a guess.  Perhaps one of our readers will have a suggestion or comment.  César Crash of Insetologia might have encountered this species in his Brazilian insect identification history.

Winged male Army Ant

Correction:  Army Ant
Thanks to several comments from dchaves, we agree that this is a winged male Army Ant alate, which is pictured on Arkive, where it states:  “A keystone species, Eciton burchelliiplays a critical role in Neotropical rainforest ecosystems.”

Male Army Ant Alate

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Blue Eyes Lacewing from Australia

On · Category: Neuropterans: Lacewings, Antlions, and Owlflies Tagged With: · Add Comment

Subject:  Dragonfly like bug
Geographic location of the bug:  Australia
Date: 11/24/2017
Time: 05:46 AM EDT
There is this bug that looks like a dragonfly but is like a noctrural bug
How you want your letter signed:  Oliver lee

Blue Eyes Lacewing

Dear Oliver,
This elegant looking, but feeble flying predator is a Blue Eyes Lacewing which you can verify on the Insects of Brisbane site where it states:  “They have a pair of transparent wings of about equal size. When fly, they may be mistaken as dragonflies. But their wings are fold in tent shape whish dragonflies do not do. They can also distinguished by their long antenna. Adult body is orange-brown in colour, with iridescent grey eyes. The moniliform antennae are black with pale apex. Legs are pale yellow. Their transparence wings are narrow with a white marking on the wing tips.”

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False Tarantula

On · Category: Tarantulas and Trapdoor Spiders · Add Comment

Subject:  Found near our garage
Geographic location of the bug:  Fremont, San Francisco East Bay Area
Date: 11/23/2017
Time: 03:13 AM EDT
Hi Bugman,
Ok, came home after Thanksgiving dinner with the family to find this large spider/tarantula on the wall next to our garage door. It was around 2″ long, healthy, and didn’t seem to be aggressive at all. Temp was in the 50’s, warmer than normally this time of year. We do have some Tarantulas nearby, but this one seemed a bit different.
I can’t easily ID it but after some online searches have narrowed it down to these candidates:
Wolf Spider (Schizocosa mccooki or Pardosa ramulosa)
False Tarantula (Calisoga longitarsis)
California Tarantula (g. Aphonopelma)
Any ideas?
How you want your letter signed:  Cool but creepy

False Tarantula

We are going to go with False Tarantula in the genus Calisoga which is pictured on BugGuide.  According to BugGuide, there are:  “5 species, all essentially California endemics” and their range is “Kern County north to Shasta County, Coast Ranges + Sierra Nevada. Some isolated populations in western NV.”  Now we wonder if any of the spiders from California we have identified in the past as Tarantulas might actually be False Tarantulas.

Thank you Daniel! Was leaning towards this. We have found this spider a few times, but the first was on a box we had in our garage… that was coming from China. My first concern was, of course, an invasive species. We do have Zoropsis spinimana, an invasive Mediterranean Spider (http://ipm.ucanr.edu/PMG/PESTNOTES/pn74143.html) that is being watched, but is apparently not a danger to the local indigenous species. This was a strong contender when I looked up some images, but think it may be too small for my visitor.
Stay Well,
Gregory

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Stinging Nettles, not insect

On · Category: Plants · Add Comment

Subject:  Please identify this bug
Geographic location of the bug:  London UK
Date: 11/24/2017
Time: 06:51 AM EDT
Hi there
Please could you help me identify this bug.  It bit/stung me.
How you want your letter signed:  Shivi

Stinging Nettles

Dear Shivi,
Where is the bug?  All we see are leaves, and they appear to be Stinging Nettles which are pictured on The Tortoise Table.  According to the Royal Horticultural Society:  “stinging nettles (Urtica) have stinging hairs that make them quickly apparent to the gardener when weeding.”  According to The Poison Garden:  “Brushing the plant produces a stinging on the skin of varying intensity.”

Stinging Nettles

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