Aaahhhhhhh Belostomatidae!!! Also known as a Giant Water Bug, this is a family of very large (in size) aquatic hemipterans (true bugs). They are also predatory and are sometimes called “toe-biters.” They eat other aquatic insects, but also amphibians, fish, and some birds. And, yes, that’s right, they fly.
I have not been so blessed to meet a living one, but I did encounter them in a somewhat unexpected place:
They are good eatings, if you’re into that sort of thing! And look at how EXPENSIVE!
November 20, 2018
These guys aren’t technically dangerous, but have (supposedly, I have not personally tested this) the most painful bite of any North American insect, thanks to the digestive acid they can inject. It won’t cause you any harm, but it’s gonna hurt like heck if one gets you. They usually live in slow-moving, murky water with a lot of plants, which isn’t great to wade in anyway because there’s leeches, and they aren’t aggressive. They’ll just bite you if you step on one or put your toe right in front of a big one. Hence the name!
Also, they fly, and they’re attracted to lights. They can wind up pretty far away from water as adults.
If you have a very tight-fitting lid and the patience to wiggle their food in front of them on tweezers every couple of days, they make good pets! Just… in their own tanks. I had some for a little while, and can confirm that not even heavily-armored diving beetles are safe. And I just had a couple of babies!
Also, they are guaranteed to impress just about anyone you show them to. Who doesn’t run away first.
The butterflies love this Siam Weed bush.
The biggest ones are the migrating monarchs. The slightly smaller ones are queens who mimic the monarchs. The little brown and orange ones are snouts, who are roaming through the area because somewhere got too crowded and they’re looking for new spaces. There’s also a painted lady and a red admiral in there somewhere.
[description: a video moving back and forth over a large patch of a bush with small, blue, pom-pom like bunches of flowers, occasionally zooming in. At least 20 butterflies of varying types are fluttering about and landing on the flowers. Someone in the background is sarcastically pointing out that the butterflies might like this bush.]
ahh i actually havent ! at first i thought you were actually talking about a CATERPILLAR that looks like a snake, and said cocoon on accident (specifically the caterpillar of the hemeroplanes triptolemus, or snake-mimic hawk moth)
but it TURNS OUT theres a species of butterfly that takes it way further, to the point where all the other caterpillars are like “is this really fuckin necessary”
its the chrysalis of the daring-owl butterfly ! a species thats found in trinidad and spends a good portion of its young adult life trying to convince other things that its not actually completely helpless
LOOK at the detail thats gone into this though- i cant even imagine the journey this look mustve taken, with lightly less-snakelike chrysalises being eaten over time again and again until youve got something with definable eyes and scales
apparently if disturbed theyll also rock violently back and forth, furthering the idea that this is a very dangerous pitviper with the tiniest body imaginable
the adult butterflies are much less exciting but honestly they dont need to be with a history like that a+ bug
Male eastern amberwing (Perithemistenera). 6/22/17
This is the smallest dragonfly in the US, and one of my favorite species. Their size makes them vulnerable to predation by other dragonflies, which they partially combat by sitting on flowers and mimicking the movements of a wasp.
Thank you for this! I’ve been seeing these guys, but haven’t been able to get a good enough photo of one to get it identified. It’s gotta be these guys, though, they’re so tiny!
@zooophagous this is “Marshmallow.” At first I thought she was freshly molted but it’s been several weeks and she’s still white with dark brown markings (they’ve gotten darker but her white is still bold). Can dubia roaches be leucistic?
Any given animal can be leucistic, and she absolutely looks like she is. I can see some transparent areas of exoskeleton.
VERY cool! I’d say set her aside in another container with a male and plenty of food, see if any babies have the same pattern. That’s a very pretty roach.
with some bugs it really does feel less like the larval stage is the ‘baby’ stage and more like its the ‘normal’ stage and the bug’s final form is just their extra special final form they use to fuck
I was actually distraught as a child when I found out that an antlion was “just” a “larva” to something else but later I learned that they spend two to three entire years that way and the adult only lives for a couple of months.
Butterflies are also shorter lived than caterpillars; we can think of them more as the caterpillar dispersal system.
We also always hear about how “mayflies only live a few days” but that ignores the fact that they, too, spend years as aquatic nymphs.
same for dobsonflies, which live for maybe a week as adults, but for years as enormous highly predatory aquatic larvae called hellgrammites.
except with dobsonflies, all forms feel a bit extra. If they were pokemon they would be some late generation multi-form legendary
Pretty, graceful adult dragonflies live only for like seven months, but beforehand they spend five years as this
aquatic predatory incarnation of bullshit, which hunts other aquatic insects and even small fish with its big fucking xenomorph mouthparts.
not to make a long thread longer but i think the ultimate manifestation of powered up final fuck form is 17 year periodical cicadas
like they arent just hibernating or something, they spend the length of a human adolescence as these nymphs living underground and feeding on fluids from roots. and after 17 years their population group emerges in eerie synchronization and they all molt into their adult stage, which only survives for a few weeks . like 99.5% of their life is spent in their “baby” stage and the final .05% of it is a powered up flight capable adult form that exists solely to scream and fuck
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