Creepy crawly picspam!

[stunt_muppet]

So to change my topic from all the complaining from the past few entries, I have a picspam!

So after my Entomology class last year, I became a bit less afraid of bugs and started to find them really fascinating. And fortunately, all the plants in my backyard, there are rather a lot of them around, including a praying mantis who appears to have been living here for several weeks! And so I decide to post pictured of him. Or her. I can't tell.

I ought to warn you up ahead, though: Contains close-up pictures of bugs, including bugs eating other bugs, and a few pictures of parasitoid wasp larvae emerging. I'll give you a head's up when they're coming.






This was the first we saw of the mantis, around a month ago. For comparison, that flower has a less than 1-inch radius. This was a wee babby mantis, naaaw.

We saw him a couple more times the next few days, mostly sitting around on our tables and looking suspiciously at inchworms but not eating them (maybe they were too big?), but after that we didn't see it and we figured it had gotten eaten or moved on.

But then, a few days ago (around four or five days, exactly) I found this little guy:



I don't know if he's the same mantis, but he's staked out our firewood pile as his hunting grounds and has been there for the past few days. And he seems to be pretty successful, because he's molted again and grown to almost an inch and a half.



The funny thing about this guy is, if you get the camera in his face and get too close to him, he'll look at you. And his little eyes will follow you. And he'll put up his forelegs in a predatory stance to fight you off, despite the fact that he's maybe one hundredth my size.



*pose*









He's also able to camouflage himself amongst the wood pile:



And it seems to be serving him well, because he recently grew to this:





I am getting so weirdly attached to this mantis. I have decided I'm going to name him Fred.

Here he is catching dinner, in the form of a small shovel bug:




A few more bugs:



This big guy was in the driveway, and I suspect he was dead, but he was also in pristine condition and I'd never seen a black-shelled cicada before. Fun fact: the three little spots in a triangle in between its eyes are actually secondary eyespots.

Now, a bit of introduction for the next one: Something had been taking bites out of our tomatoes, and we suspected it was a chipmunk or something. So we started taking our tomatoes off the vine a few days early and letting them ripen inside.

A few days ago, Mom called me and told me that there was a huge caterpillar on the tomato plants. And indeed...


...there was! I had no idea what it was, but we both thought it was very pretty, and so I took a bunch more pictures.





IT'S WEE FAAAAAACE. Lookit it's so cute!

Unfortunately...well, there are two "unfortunately"s. The first is that I looked up this little critter, and it turns out that it's a tobacco hornworm, which means it's what was eating our tomatoes and so I kind of had to goosh it and I really didn't want to because it was really cute. The second "unfortunately" is that I didn't get the chance to squish it because, well...this happened.

(SQUICKY PHOTO - SCROLL DOWN TO SEE IT)

























Turns out that a species of parasitic wasps lays its eggs - up to eighty at a time - in tobacco hornworms, and after two larval instars the larvae eat their way out of the worm's skin and form pupae on the surface. And that's what happened to this guy. :(

It was actually kind of fascinating, in an intensely gruesome way, because in the space of minutes all these white larvae wormed their way out and spun into pupae and you could see them do it, but. Yeah. I took pictures, but I'm not going to post them here because they're gross. And sad.


(And now, a page break to separate the grossness from the non-grossness.)















To make up for that image, here's a picture of a cute dog:








So. That and writing job applications have kind of been my day, as I have been inexplicably exhausted. And now this entry has been under construction for ages, and I really must finish. Good night, good night.

Comments

[hatone.livejournal.com]

I actually saw a mantis today. I always like seeing them, even if their behavior is quite creepy. (Then again, the same can be said for many other species.)

And I actually looked at the picture of the larvae for some reason. Ewwwwwwwwwwwwww...

[stunt-muppet.livejournal.com]

I find mantises are one of the less creepy bugs out there, actually, because at least they eat their food instead of laying eggs in it and condemning it to get eaten alive from the inside out later? But I just love how precise and delicate they look, while still being efficient predators.

I KEPT TAKING PICTURES OF IT AND I DON'T KNOW WHY. It grosses me out so much but I just can't help but be fascinated.

[hatone.livejournal.com]

You have a good point there. Even if they do have a habit of cannibalizing each other, that's still not as gross as them laying their eggs inside another organism. Ew ew ew.

I'll attribute you taking pictures of the larvae to Train Wreck Syndrome. It's not that unusual to be fascinated and repulsed by somthing at the same time, I think. (In my case, it's usually teratomas and other medical oddities.)

[stunt-muppet.livejournal.com]

Actually, there's research that indicates that mantises don't actually bite off each others' heads during mating in the wild. It might happen, but probably not every time. It's probably an artificially inflated statistic from the lab conditions the mantises in question were kept in. So, yeah, a little less grossness in the world.

And now the little wasps have started to hatch, so I've been taking even more pictures of it, and it's just...it's so gross and yet so interesting, the whole system they have.

[gorengal.livejournal.com]

Poor worm. :( Last year I posted a picture of the mud wasp nest by my front door. What I didn't post was pictures of the inside of the nest...it was packed with spiders, all paralyzed by the wasp venom. According to what I read, the spiders were alive, with an egg laid inside them...and when the egg hatched they would be its food. :(

I sure don't understand why we need wasps.

[stunt-muppet.livejournal.com]

That's so sad. Poor spiders. I mean, I know it's part of nature and that's the way the wasps ensure their next generation survives, but even so, it's just so gruesome. Getting eaten alive from the inside, poor things. :(

I...think they pollinate some things? And since tobacco hornworms are actually huge agricultural pests, they actually get used as organic, chemical-free pest control for tomato farms, so they do have a purpose. So it's just that nature is yucky, really.

[gorengal.livejournal.com]

Wasps are very ineffective as pollinators other than the fig wasp and some orchid wasp in Australia. But they are effective predators and do control the spider population, which I appreciate...but I could do without their aggression.

Nature is yucky...I agree. :D

[rainbowstevie.livejournal.com]

Bugs are so much cooler in photos than in person. *is fascinated by all pictures, including/especially the squicky*

[stunt-muppet.livejournal.com]

The thing is, I find the parasites in the worm oddly fascinating even in person. Disgusting and horrifying, but fascinating, because there are over 80 eggs in just that one (relatively) little worm. Which would be why I kept taking pictures of it.

Oddly enough I am not freaked out at all by mantises, but I hate having even harmless ants touch me. Mantises are large! I can see them and keep track of them! They don't travel in swarms. *shudders*

[eyesmadeofjade.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that is sad about the worm :[. When I was helping my parents prune our trees, I came across a praying mantis. I found in our trash can, on top of one of the spruce branches. I ended up putting it on the base of our spruce tree.

[stunt-muppet.livejournal.com]

I know it's nature's way and that's the only way that wasp can reproduce, but still, it's just such a gruesome thought. Nature can be nasty. :(

Aww, they turn up in the most unexpected places, don't they? That's so cute. :D

[happydalek.livejournal.com]

That larvae picture is AMAZING. Nature in action!

[stunt-muppet.livejournal.com]

Isn't it, in a gross kind of way? I mean, I felt so sorry for the caterpillar, but at the same time it was fascinating just how many of those larvae they were and how fast they emerged - they were all out in a few minutes, and you could see the bits of cottony fluff as they spun their cocoons. Nature is gross but also kind of fascinating. :D

[laurus-nobilis.livejournal.com]

That mantis is gorgeous!

And I'm torn between "poor worm" and "ooooh fascinating". >.>

[stunt-muppet.livejournal.com]

Isn't he? He wasn't here today, so he either moved on or got eaten, but I was growing rather fond of photographing him. He was such a good model. XD

I know, me too! It was fascinating watching them emerge and spin their cocoons - there were so many of them and they moved so fast - but at the same time, the worm was still alive while they were emerging. Poor thing!

[stellastars]

I love mantises! I think they are just one of the coolest insects ever and I'm always ridiculously excited when I find one by my house. Those are wonderful photos you captured of him!

Thanks for sharing the cool picspam!