Jumping Spider

Don’t be alarmed. Although there isn’t anything to give you a sense of scale, I assure you that this is a tiny little spider, less than one centimeter in length. It’s pretty ferocious looking but it’s not going to attack you. There are a lot of spiders and even among the jumping spiders (Family Salticidae) there are a lot this could be. My suspicion is Platycryptus undatus but I’m no expert. I’ll report back here if someone from BugGuide.net can nail it down. As you might have guessed, the red background is the fender of our car. This was taken with the 100mm macro and 25mm extension tube, focused nearly all the way in.

Field Cricket

Cathy and I were out in the back yard after work this evening. She noticed a dead cabbage white on the patio and I took a few pictures of that. They are hard to get close enough to when they are alive but they aren’t as interesting when dead, of course. Then I was lying in the grass and we were chatting as she pulled weeds when I noticed this cricket. I had my 100mm macro lens and a 25mm extension tube, along with a bean bag to set my camera on. I managed to get pretty close. At first I was only able to get the little fellow on the other side of a blade of grass but then he moved around and was looking at me. I’m fairly pleased with the results. I don’t know which of the many species of true crickets (family Gryllidae) this is, but I think it’s most likely a field cricket (subfamily Gryllinae).

Mythimna unipuncta (Armyworm Moth)

As I was about to leave for work this morning I noticed this moth by the front door. I picked up my camera and took a dozen or so pictures before shooing it out the door and then leaving myself. It is an armyworm moth (Mythimna unipuncta) and I suspect I probably should have squashed it instead of letting it loose, but them’s the breaks, as they say. It’s a mid-sized moth, about 2cm long and looking at it up close it seems to be quite hairy. Note that the ‘hair’ on moths is really the same as the tiny scales on butterfly wings, only larger and more hair like. In both cases, the scales are made of chitin, which (to quote from Wikipedia), “is a long-chain polymer of an N-acetylglucosamine, a derivative of glucose, and is found in many places throughout the natural world. It is a characteristic component of the cell walls of fungi, the exoskeletons of arthropods such as crustaceans (e.g., crabs, lobsters and shrimps) and insects, the radulae of molluscs, and the beaks and internal shells of cephalopods, including squid and octopuses and on the scales and other soft tissues of fish and lissamphibians.”

Annual Cicada

Here’s another in my dead insect series, taken on the window sill of my office with the white balance then corrected to offset the blue cast given by the northern exposure of my window. This is an annual cicada, not one of the 13- or 17-year species. The most obvious distinction is that the periodical cicadas have bright red eyes. That eliminated about 5 species and leaves about 165 annual species (some of which actually spend two or three years in the larval stage). Anyway, I don’t know which of those this is and I’m unlikely to find out. I found it in the parking lot of my office when I got to work and I brought it in for a portrait.

Cisseps fulvicollis (Yellow-collared Scape Moth)

After a hot week and an absolutely boiling day yesterday, today was wonderful. It made it up into the low to mid 80s and although my ideal outdoor temperature is more like 68°F, compared to nearly 100°F it felt cool by comparison. Cathy and I went out in the afternoon and had a nice walk in the woods. I found a few interesting things to photograph, including some flowers and a few different insects. This is a yellow-collared scape moth and it quite a pretty little thing, especially when seen against the bright yellow flowers of yellow ironweed (a.k.a. wingstem, Verbesina alternifolia).

Diabrotica undecimpunctata (Spotted Cucumber Beetle)

I was out looking for things to photograph today and happened to see a small, pink moth. It was only about 9mm long and I managed to get some reasonable pictures of it. I believe it’s a Pyrausta inornatalis, although the literature doesn’t mention it being here in Maryland. I’ve posted a picture to BugGuide to check my identification. In the meantime, here’s one I can identify. While I was down on the ground photographing the moth, I noticed this little beetle. it’s about the same length as the moth, under 10mm in length (not counting its antenae) but quite brightly colored. As the title of this post says, this is a spotted cucumber beetle (Diabrotica undecimpunctata). This is a major pest of many field crops including cucumbers and other squashes, corn, and soy.

Tenodera sinensis (Chinese Mantis)

I took a few pictures in the yard this evening and figured one of them would have to suffice for the day’s picture. Then later in the evening, as I was leaving the church office after meeting with the guys I saw this Chinese mantis (Tenodera sinensis) on my car door. So, I grabbed my camera (most people carry their camera with them all the time, right?) and fitted the flash so I could take some mantid portraits. I got some that show the entire insect but I particularly like this one, which clearly shows the three occeli (simple eyes) in the center of the head, along with the two compound eye that we normally associate with insects.

Gea heptagon

This is the same sort of spider I photographed just over two weeks ago (see Saturday, August 20, 2016) and may, for all I know, be the same exact spider. I was out this morning, not having to be at work because it’s Labor Day, and I saw her with the sun shining on her brightly. I got down on the dewy ground and set up my camera on a bean bag, fitted with the 100mm macro and a 25mm extension tube so I could get nice and close. This was taken at f/11.3 for 1/13 second and it isn’t quite as sharp as I’d like, but it’s not bad. This is one of the prettier spiders around and one I haven’t seen before a couple weeks ago.