big bug in rug

Jumping Spider (Cytaea dispalans), male, family Salticidae, Bandung, Indonesia

夜なので？ウナギが起きてた　かわいい

@水環境館

There were cute eels.

"The Beetle's moon", 2025

Dynastes tityus, the Eastern Hercules beetle, is one of the largest beetle species found in North America -- they also happen to be my favorite!

I originally planned to make a purely ecosystem-focused piece for this species (and I may still do a more scientific-illustration-style piece later). But, as I toyed around the the composition, I realized that I really wanted to make the beetle grub feel like the 'moon' and pivoted my focus from there. I still stuck with a more natural tone for the background theming and drew the old tree stump to represent its place as a frequent habitat for this species and several morel mushrooms to bring that forest floor feeling.

A giant ichneumon wasp (Megarhyssa macrurus) uses her extremely long ovipositor to drill into a dead maple tree. Megarhyssa includes species with the longest ovipositors of any insect (up to 11 cm in M. macrurus and up to 14 cm in its cousin M. atrata), which also technically gives them the longest total length of any hymenopteran insect. The ovipositor is used to pierce deep into dead or dying trees to lay eggs on the larvae of a large wood-boring sawfly (Tremex columba).

Her ovipositor acts not only as a drill but as a sensory organ, and is highly sensitive to vibrations in the wood made by the sawfly larvae. Note how the translucent membranes of her abdomen stretch as she applies pressure by curling the base of the ovipositor, then retract when she withdraws to search for a different spot.

Cicada Killer with Cicada

Instagram