AstroGypsies

Right? If that isn’t dinosaur/alien material then what is? A man posted from Southern Ontario in our Facebook bug group that he had one on one of these on his False Sunflowers so I went out for a look! The first flower I looked at, there he/she/it was, the only one as I looked at all the other flower bushes! I was very excited to find one of these amazing insects crawling around in front of me. As their common name suggests, Jagged Ambush bugs are sit-and-wait ambush predators, resting on flower heads where they grab visiting insects with large raptorial foreleg weapons. They feed on a wide variety of prey, most often including small bees, moths, and flies.

They even change colour, but can’t change back! My mobilty has been a bit slow so I’ve been sticking around the house and exploring under every leaf and stem to see just what amazing creatures we share this spot with! OK, what about bugs that decorate themselves with flower bits for camouflage? Oh yeah! I think it’s a  Wavy-lined Emerald Synchlora aerata caterpillar (?)

The amount of life just on these yellow False Sunflowers in astounding! That is a lot of yellow! Ha!

My favourite spider is still sitting and waiting for her next meal to arrive:) Did you know they are called crab spiders because of their unusual ability to walk sideways as well as forwards and backwards?

I found several Monarch caterpillars and we have had a few hatches of Hickory Tussock Moth and Milkweed Tussock Moths as well! I love to watch them hanging from their threads, moving up or down, wherever they want to be!

Then there are the short-leggged walking sheep bugs…my name for them anyway! Sometimes you rub your eyes and go WTF?! Ha! Lacewing larva aka junk bug camouflaged with the carcasses of the wooly aphids it has eaten or a small bug mimicking a desperately needing to be shorn Merino sheep;)

Hey, we still decorate ourselves with what we’ve killed, it’s called woolen coats and leather shoes;)

Then there are the weird little purple bugs with yellow eyes and other fuzzy nymphs as well! When you are ethereal and pretty and what do they call you: a Stink Lacewings? I didn’t stop to sniff it!

Have I bugged you enough? Ha! Geez can’t wait until she’s off walking the road again! The variety of dragonflies has dropped off in the last week. Mostly Meadowhawks but I did stumble across a few new ones! I nearly stepped on this shiny, just out of the carwash look, Green Darner! It flew off to a branch. The green darner or common green darner (Anax junius), after its resemblance to a darning needle, is a species of dragonfly in the family Aeshnidae.

In front, closer to the water the Widow Skimmer and Halloween Pennants have settled in.

How can you resist when they pose like this? The supermodels pose on the flowers and architectural structures;)

The Meadowhawks are turning a bright red, they are the females mostly but there are some yellow legged female Autumn Maeadowhawks as well! Hard to tell them apart-I’m always learning!

I love to see them with a nice deer fly in their grips…mwahahahahahaha!

OK, enough bugs for today:) I still have butterflies and frogs and snakes and mushrooms and well, lot’s more;)

I’m going to leave you with a beautiful poem that a Facebook friend sent me years ago, she was old and wise and sadly no longer with us, but she made an impression on me with her love for nature…Dust If You Must, by Rose Milligan