The Day of Insects, or How I Leared to Love the Bugs

It's days like today that make me wish I had a 105mm macro lens. Sigh... one day...

I was outside a lot today, mostly because of the recent rain. I discovered that the drain spout in the front of my house was clogged, and the rain water just poured off the edge of the roof onto the porch below, no doubt damaging the wood. And my back yard flooded yesterday, which I discovered was due to the fact that the drain in my yard was clogged with all sorts of nasty gunk.

So I went out on the roof this afternoon and cleared out the spout. As I climbed back in the window, I decided to put the screens down instead of the storm windows, and let some air into the house. Well, as I lowered the screen, a whole bunch of small green spiders fell down too, maybe 10-20 of them. They were all dead. I've never seen them before, and I don't know what kind of spider they are. Here's a photo of them (click to enlarge):


I wiped them all up with some Windex and a paper towel, in case they planned on coming back to life later on and infesting my living room.

Then I went to the back yard. I never have a need to go into the back yard, especially all winter long, so it's always a mess out there, covered with leaves twigs and over grown ivy and stuff like that. And that's what usually clogs up the drain. While I was out there, I found all these red bugs on the lid to the garbage can that's been sitting out there since last July. Here are a couple photos:



Yes, they really are that red. And they were all huddled together one that one spot, leaving the rest of the lid bare. I suppose they were probably doing it for warmth. (today was the coolest it's been in a couple weeks) I don't know for sure what they are, but a few minutes on google trying variations of "red bugs" eventually brought me to Oncopeltus fasciatus, or the Large Milkweed Bug, which, if not identical, still looks remarkably similar.

While I was out in the back yard, I saw a very interesting mosquito. It had stripes. I didn't think too much of it except to note that I'd never seen a striped mosquito before. I usually think of mosquitos generically. That is to say, I don't think about there being different KINDS of mosquitos. A mosquito is a mosquito is a mosquito, right? Wrong. I googled "striped mosquito" which brought me to Aedes albopictus, aka the Asian Tiger Mosquito. Apparently it can transmit both Dengue Fever AND some forms of encephalitis. Oooh. fun. So I'm off now to catch an example of this striped mosquito. I didn't think much of it before, but now that I've read about the ATM, I'm a little concerned, so I think I should verify what kind of mosquito it is that I just saw biting me.

I'm back! (that was fast) I put on some jeans and a long-sleeve tee and I took a tupperware container outside to start looking for mosquitos. It's amazing how there's never a mosquito around when you need one. I was out there 15 or 20 minutes and still couldn't find a thing. And then I was like, "if you let me catch you and take your photo, I promise I'll let you go when I'm done." And I swear, not 5 seconds later I caught a mosquito. But I wasn't sure it was the right kind. I took it inside and looked at it in the light through the tupperware and decided that it didn't look very striped after all. But all of a sudden, there in my kitchen, was ANOTHER mosquito! I quickly got another container and a couple minutes later I had 2 mosquitos in my posession. And the second one was striped!

How ironic is that? You know that song, "Ring Them Bells," where the woman "travels 'round the world to meet the guy next door"? Well I had to wander through my back yard to catch the striped mosquito in my kitchen. But I digress...

Here are the photos of the striped mosquito, and there's not a doubt in my mind that it's the Asian Tiger Mosquito:




It's really quite beautiful. The photos don't do it justice. I really wish I'd had a good macro lens to take better photos of it.

Just so you know, I kept my end of the bargain and let both mosquitos go outside, and then I ran back in before they could swoop around and attack me.