July 12, 2019

 I caught some bugs last week (7/5) and tried to pin them today. It was UNSUCCESSFUL! My grasshopper was too stiff and the leg broke off. My garden spider was too squishy and its abdomen just fell off. I am still sad. However, the brown widow (Latrodectus geometricus) that was on my porch last night pinned well. I pinned at every joint so that she'll be beautiful. There's an egg sack of hers behind our mailbox. Since brown widows ferociously hunt black widows (their cousins) we have elected to leave those babies alone. From now on I'll pin my bugs within a day or two of capturing them.

My dried bugs are ready to submit for an entry, so without further ado… 

Cicada 

Latitude: 29°31'08.8"N

Longitude: 98°29'46.5"W

Date Caught: 7/5/19

Scientific Name: Tibicen auletes

Details: 7cm long yellowish brown


Great Water Scavenger Beetle

Latitude: 29°31'08.8"N

Longitude: 98°29'46.5"W

Date Caught: 7/5/19

Scientific Name: Hydrophilus triangularis

Details: 2 mm long. Black with fuzzy legs, short antennae


July 5, 2019

I unpinned that spider too early in desperation to find his species. Here's a friendly reminder that you should not unpin your insects too early, lest you get a mangled mess of legs. Sadness.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

October 24th, 2024

Image
  10/24/24 Not a whole lot to update. Just some clips from the past month. Catch and release of a GIANT darning dragonfly using my son's butterfly net. Hopefully it has babies in my pond!  A gigantic orb weaver moved in right next to my office. A sphinx moth flew into my husband’s truck and perished soon thereafter. Pictures to come, I pinned it fresh and failed to take pictures while I was doing the process. And an almost comical mishap with a pinned grasshopper where it just didn’t want to stay in one piece and I had to continually super glue it together. I am a little surprised at how soft-bodied they are. I'll know better for future grasshoppers.
Read more

August 24th, 2024

Image
  08/24/24 Today we do more bug pinning. More label making, and more updating.  The walking stick died, unfortunately. This was kind of a crazy scenario because I had finally found the oak that she would eat and she died anyway after only a couple of weeks. Sometimes they die once they’ve laid eggs but I didn’t see any eggs. I do some youtube research to determine how to best preserve her (should I put her in the freezer so that I can get to pinning her over the weekend?) Turns out that if it’s a female then the eggs in her abdomen are viable. Mind you, this is Tuesday of a very busy rotation and I’m basically just home for hygiene and sleep so I don’t have any time to pin this bug.  Cut to me doing an emergency c-section on this bug once I get home on Wednesday. Got about 30 eggs out of her abdominal cavity and put them onto a moist paper towel, hoping for the best. I’m writing this entry about a month later and there’s no signs of hatching so I think it’s safe to say we...
Read more

June 10th - Specimens, Plants, Pond

Image
  I finished up my pinned bug display! This project was started in 2019 and I finally have the whole thing filled with appropriate labels. Note: She was, in fact, not done with rearranging the case. This male ox beetle was hatched in my terrarium, and I’m hoping that he completed his duties with the two females in the enclosure before moving onto the afterlife. I couldn’t get his wings open, James had to help me! I’m working on a riparium to propagate some of the tomato stalks that I’m cutting up for the hornworms, since they only eat the leaves and the nodes can root. Also this carrot decided that it wanted to live so I stuck it in the tank too. My son and I have started working on plant identification and he’s keeping a journal of grasses, flowers, trees, etc. Found this giant elephant ear tuber drowning and rescued it. <Photo lost to blogspot hosting failure. It was pretty pitiful, no leaves, just a tuber.> It is very happy in the pond Brazilian Jasmine planted near ...
Read more