#leptocorisa

The reason I'm saying this is to point out how important is iNaturalist to me. In the past, I use Google lens, which is pretty much hit and miss, and anyway, most results come from North America. That makes identification very very difficult, when a few species look so similar.

For example, Zelus renardii (left) and Leptocorisa sp. (right)

[ID: left, a bug resting on a leaf, and right, a bug resting on a white wall. Detailed descriptions below]

Both have long, slender abdomens; long antenna: tiny head; somewhat long stick legs; brownish wings on the back that looks like they are stuck to the body.

But there is a slight difference around the head area, where it seems the head of a Leptocorisa (also called rice bugs) is more fixed in place compared to a Zelus.

A couple of years ago, when I used Google lens on my then unknown bug, Google ID'ed it as a Zelus. A Zelus is smaller than Leptocorisa, unless what I have on hand was a particularly large female Zelus. But I didn't know how to search it with Google lens so that the results are limited to my country, and even then, our insect database isn't as extensive as North American ones.

When I used iNaturalist, I found Leptocorisa almost immediately. Of course it's a rice bug. There are paddy fields nearby.

(Now I checked Google, it seems Leptocorisa results are out)

The same goes to ladybugs. See below, on the left, an Asian lady beetle (Harmonia axyridis) vs Micraspis discolor, on the right.

Both are plain red in colour, although perhaps M. discolor is darker in colour, with black line between two flaps of its wing covers. The head markings are also different. Left one is white with black spots, right one is brownish with black spots.

Google lens won't stop giving me completely unrelated ladybugs. Especially Asian ladybugs, because they are notorious for being invasive in the USA.

It always vexed me that I don't know the ladybug that flies into my house once in a while. Or that Zelus lookalike.

Now I'm going around taking pictures of roadside weeds, because I've always wondered what they are, and it turns out some of them are actually herbs. Those that people used for traditional medicine! And I learnt that some weeds probably came from people throwing cuttings to the floor. Some decorative trees that shed fruits like we humans shed hair and skin, those fruits are actually edible. (But I wouldn't eat them, in case they used pesticide.)

Of course iNaturalist is not perfect and it's laggy, and for some organisms, identification could only go as far as genus, but hey, that's something.

Attributions:

Leptocorisa and Micraspis discolor are mine (although there remains a chance that they are misidentified)

Zelus renardii: https://www.pensoft.net/journals/zookeys/article/4342/abstract/