i got terminated ):

Thorny click beetle, Pachyderes apicalis, Elateridae

Found in Malaysia and Indonesia

The latest “bug hysteria” gripping the U.S. is a sudden surge in awareness and fear of the “kissing bugs” so let me set some things straight about them:

The first image here shows a variety of assassin bugs. These can hurt if they bite you, but aren’t interested in biting you. They’re beneficial predators of other insects.

The second image shows the different species of actual kissing bugs, an unusual small group of assassin bugs that switched over in their evolution from preying on other insects to sucking mammalian blood.

No other assassin bugs can drink blood or spread disease.

Around 50% of kissing bugs in the U.S. do carry the dangerous protozoan that causes Chagas disease.

They do not infest homes the way bedbugs do, and are not difficult to get rid of.

They are spreading due to climate change.

They WERE NOT fucking “brought here by immigrants,” a xenophobic lie I’ve now heard hundreds of times. THEY HAVE ALWAYS BEEN NATIVE TO BOTH NORTH AND SOUTH AMERICA.

Also, this cutie with the “saw” on its back is one of the largest and most common North American assassin bugs, commonly called a wheel bug. I keep seeing people who panicked and smashed one of these poor things immediately thinking it must be one of these terrifying immigrant kissing bugs of death.

Millipede under UV light. Many species of arthropods fluoresce, or glow, under ultraviolet light due to due to fluorescent compounds in their exoskeletons. At least one millipede genus, motyxia, is actually bioluminescent, meaning it can produce light on its own.

Pink Ladybeetle Spider (Paraplectana thorntoni), family Aranaeidae, South Africa