local insects roundup sept - oct
Shoutout to meadowhawks, sympetrum species. Although you see them around a lot, they are especially precious to me, because most dragonflies around here aren't flying this late in the year. Sure, the literature will tell you that most of them are around until October, but it's just not true for the ponds/rivers I like to frequent. By September most of the dragonflies are gone... but here's s. striolatum (left), peaking in September, like the beautiful friend they are ^_^ Look at their bicoloured eyes! This is an adult female, you can tell because although she's brown, she's got some blue under her abdomen. Some females even have red parts of their abdomen - there's a lot of fun colour variation in this species. The one on the right is probably s. sanguineum, the ruddy darter, with a Latin name recalling blood. They won't suck your blood, but this guy is like a charismatic anime vampire to me.
This is the sun fly (Helophilus pendulus). It's a hoverfly that likes to hang out near water, which is relatable (that's where you get amphibians, this guy knows what's up). Between its cool common name and bright colouration, I think it would be great to draw with a sun motif. Its aposematic colouration is definitely trying to trick you into thinking it's a wasp, but this guy is chill and harmless. What a charismatic bug!
The Eurasian hummingbird hawk moth (Macroglossum stellatarum) is a busy moth who loves to zip around and hover, usually appearing as a blur. But at this time of year, they're getting pretty old, so you can find these elderly folk on the floor and gently let them crawl on you. I love these lil geriatric moths. They are so fuzzy and soft!
This is the hornet robber fly (asilus crabroniformis), pictured eating a tasty grasshopper (probably an oedipoda species). Although they're predatory and having fun menacing people by pretending to be hornets (like the sun hover fly), they are harmless to humans. These guys are declining rapidly and considered endangered, which is so sad because look how majestic and badass they are, asilidae species are sooo shaped. Anyway, the main reason that they're declining is that they need cattle or rabbit dung to reproduce. I live in the (small) native range of the European rabbit (oryctolagus cuniculus)... and while those bunnies are prevalent everywhere they're invasive (which is a LOT of places), they are endangered here, so that's not helping. This one was in some pine forest near the sea, and local cattle were providing a nesting ground (thank you cattle for shitting on the floor, this is vital to the local ecosystem).
You just don't expect a giant locust and then the Egyptian bird grasshopper (Anacridium aegyptium, pictured top) shows up. Whoa! To me, they are called bird grasshoppers because they are the size of a bird (this is not true, they're 6.5cm at most, but that's big for us impoverished non-rainforest folk). These guys are great and I wish they would biblically plague my town so I could hold a bunch of them. Underneath we have some other cool orthopterans, a blue-winged grasshopper (probably an oedipoda species) and a red-legged grasshopper (Chorthippus binotatus), who has such a fun palette of bright green and red. What friends!
This is the hyaline grass bug (Liorhyssus hyalinus). It's beautiful, which is normal for a true bug. What a delicate little pattern with red spots and delicate iridescent wings on a cream background! This one is female. I couldn't find any cool facts about this species, so I'm officially declaring it criminally underrated. Hipsters should flock to this bug and put decals of it all over the cool places in town.
Bonus: the local calotriton asper colony are getting it onnnnn in their typical twisty way (I wanna see their larvae soon!!!) and the stunning limax maximus, or leopard slug who is like a beautiful cow:
