Subject: Beautiful unknown bug
Location: Northeast ohio berea
August 25, 2016 1:42 pm
Dear bugman,
Today i found this very beautiful bug but i have no idea what it is. It had a pink head that faded into its body. I had a dark purpleish double diamond on its back. Across its body it had a scale like pattern. The legs were yellow and kind of clear. It had two very long feelers. It had short things the curled inward where the mouth would be. It flew away with two sets of wings that were white and they were the shape of a our fingertips. Lastly o noticed it had a long black stinger like hing on its underside. Anyway i am a very nature loveing person and i have never seen anything quite like this before so if you have any idea of what this is i would truly love to know. Its driving me crazy! Thank you for any and all help mr. Bugman. I really appreciate it.
Signature: Sam ferrell
Dear Sam,
When the word “beautiful” is in the subject line, we can’t help but to open the request long before we open inquiries with subject lines that indicate people want extermination advice. This beauty is a female Two Spotted Tree Cricket, Neoxabea bipunctata. Both the markings and the presence of an ovipositor, which you mistook for a stinger, identify your individual as a female of this sexually dimorphic species. According to BugGuide: “Two-spotted Tree Cricket, can be found on a wide variety of vegetation including (but not restricted to): Grapevine, Sunflower, Maple Tree, White Pine Tree, Apple Tree, Post Oak Tree. They are generally high on tall plants or in trees” and “Males sing mostly at night: a 10-second trill followed by several seconds of silence, then a trill again. After mating, male hangs downward from foliage, allowing female to hang on beneath and dine on secretions from his thorax .”