National BugAss Repository

hi this is Tetra. they are a Japanese camel cricket (Diestrammena japanica) I’ve been raising over the winter after I found them as a baby.

I believe Tetra may be intersex since they have a much shorter ovipositor than a typical female, and I’d originally thought they were male as a younger nymph.

their hobbies include dwelling in crevices, eating dead roaches and cardboard, and spitting brown goop when picked up

Moss-mimic Bugs from Ecuador

All photos by Andreas Kay

Dewdrop spiders (Argyrodes) are small silvery spiders that live in the webs of larger spiders, like this golden silk spider (Nephila clavipes) whose massive web hosts several of them.

Argyrodes feed kleptoparasitically on insects trapped by the larger spider. In this case a dewdrop spider is sharing a dead honeybee with several jackal flies (Milichiidae), which are also specialized kleptoparasites of spiders and other predators.

spiderweb preservation DIY

While searching for the creator of this image (above), I learned the artist was someone named Mandy Howe.

As an artist, it's important for me to provide credit where it's due and link directly to other artists whenever possible. The link provided on the website seemed to be only to her old Facebook page- I wanted to see if she had an updated art or bug Instagram, Facebook, Tumblr, whatever. I was excited - A fellow artist! A fellow enthusiast! Here's what I learned on my search.

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Mandy Howe was a self taught arachnologist, like so many people on here. She went by Lady Arachnophile online. She found spiders to be beautiful, misunderstood creatures and loved them her whole life, and that enthusiasm helped a lot of people get over their personal fear of spiders. She took up a more serious interest in araneology (the study of spiders) starting around 2004. Her dedication led to her being employed as an independent research scientist providing web-based scientific support in araneology. She was a contributing editor for BugGuide.net, spiders.us (now spiderid.com), among other places. Personally, as someone who is also "self taught", I love stories of other people following their passions, especially without formal degrees.

Then, the sad news. Mandy died in 2016. It seems like the news hit everyone she knew - and didn't know - hard. She was such a beloved member of the North American arachnology community. Her work and photographs have been included in several scientific papers and books. In 2019, a spider was named after her. Epiceraticelus is a genus of North American dwarf spiders containing two species: Epiceraticelus fluvialis and Epiceraticelus mandyae. Pic below is from BugGuide.net.

I wrote this post because I'm in awe of what she accomplished and I don't want her to be forgotten.

Thank you, Mandy Howe.

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day 7 of @saturniidays insectober = social! let me walk you through the thought process on this one...😅

first, googling "social insects" (here's a good article on degrees of sociality in insects) ➡️ ended up on the ants wikipedia page ➡️ found the wikipedia page for honeypot ants ➡️ started ideation on what a good drawing of ants would look like ➡️ learned that some cultures eat honeypot ants ➡️ thought "wouldn't honeypot ant boba be a cool and funky future beverage??" ➡️ social insects as a drink you have when being social ➡️ here we are 😅

Giant wood moth, Endoxyla cinereus, Cossidae. Found in Australia.

Giant wood moths can have a wingspan of around 23 centimeters. Larvae are wood borers, and along with other similar species, are commonly referred to as witchetty grubs. An interesting twitter thread here explaining how the term witchetty grub was derived from an indigenous term