Saw there was no bug related thread going on. Post and discuss al thins crawly. Other tiny critters welcome as well.
These guys are already back in my backyard, during summer it's usually full of them.
And I've also seen several queen bumblebees buzzing around on the lookout for a nesting spot, great to see them again. I hope a fit of late winter frost doesn't get them later this month.
Also discuss mothing or other insect related hobbies.I've just bult myself a skinner trap (pic not related), but I was wondering if anyone else has experience with them and what the 'ideal' opening in the middle is, can't seem to find this anywhere. Also what kind of setups do you use, looking especially for ideas for a mobile/battery powered setup.
I once found a moth on my boxers in the morning, he/she was inactive. I gently placed him in a lunch box with lint and some water in a bottle cap and let them sleep throughout the day. (The cap slit was wide enough for fresh air, but not wide enough to allow spiders to get in). At night they woke up, I carried them to a window. They gave me a little dance that I edited and then they flew away.
Went on the first hike of the year, and even though almost nothing was blooming yet I saw lots of yellow band underwings.>>5106267Neat, what kind of hawk moth is that?
>>5106267Nice pic!
>>5106270white brow, I think
>>5106301ty bro
Still waiting on my stag beetles to have larvae
can anyone ID this fat fucklocation is the outskirts of orlando
>>5109130
>>5109130>>5109131xylocopaI'm trying to rear Greta oto butterflies.
>>5106243I don't really have much to contribute, but do you have any experience lightsheeting? I'm trying to figure out what bulb type to use and a good power source solution. I'm not as interested in collecting I just wanna do some macro photography.
>>5109744Yes I do! I used to do that last year. Currently I'm using a Sylvana UV BL368 20 watt Blacklight, which are cheap and can be put in a regular socket. Last summer, for sheeting, I disassembled one of those insect traps they use in warehouses and stores and took one of those LED bars out. It attracted tons of moths, however, even when I put my converter at the correct current and voltage indicated on the lights they overheated very quickly and several of the LEDs on the bar burnt up. I've used the Sylvana once to sheet but that was early last month so didn't really have good conditions to moth in. Still got about 5 species.
Look who I met!
Also this fella. Red beetle.
>>5106241Boxelder?
Hymenopterans are aesthetically perfect
>>5110158Thank you, that's really helpful. I was looking at mercury vapor bulbs and full spectrum (heat) lamps for reptiles.>>5110312They really are, but some are too hot to handle. I used tweezers for this dasymutillidae (ursus?).
If I make a discord group for invertebrates will anyone join?
bugs are gross
(true) bugs are cool! I can't wait for macro season to come back around.
>>5110183No, these are firebugs. Its the european version of the boxelder.
>>5110605
>>5110606
>>5110607
>>5110608
>>5110398No problem, and from all I've read and heard from other mothing enthousiasts mercury vapor bulbs also work very well. The main differences are that the UV light doesn't need a converter, is a little bit cheaper (and adding the cost of the converter makes the UV light quite a bit cheaper), however mercury light bulbs are a lot stronger and are able to attract more moths from further away. The main reasons I went with the UV light are that I live in Europe and mercury light bulbs are a bit harder to come by, and because I live in a suburban area, so I wanted to minimize the light emitted to not annoy my neighbors.
Bugs scare me, when I was a kid a bee hid inside my coke can in a park then she stung me as if she owned the fucking can motherfucker my dad bought it for me why the fuck are you acting territorial the fucking can was mine.From that day on I decided to always murder insects when given the chance, other than spiders because I liked spider man as a kid and hoped to get bitten by one someday so I could stop wearing glasses and date Mary Jane.
>>5110921Boohoo faggot, you got a widdle sting. Grow a pair
>>5110921Coward.
>>5110921faggot oversensitive loser
I'm wanting to set up a small terrarium on my computer desk, maybe something no bigger than a 3 gallon aquarium. I've made a few terrariums before but much larger and with frogs and lizards. This one I want to have some kind of bug in it.Anyone have any cool ideas? Hoping for something unique and fun to watch while I play vidya.My top contender right now is some species of millipedes. Something like pic related or those feather millipedes look really cool too. It seems like they're pretty easy to care for and they're pretty active so i can watch them. -Velvet Worms seemed really cool, though they're nocturnal and a bit harder to care for from what i've read.-I've kept mantids before and thought they were really neat, so they're an option. -Stick insects and leaf insects are REALLY cool but all the coolest ones are banned from the USA and those that are available here seem really expensive.-Slugs and snails seem cool but i don't know much about them-isopods are really cute and extremely low maintenance, but they're kinda small. maybe that would be alright though.anything else i havent thought of yet? no arachnids or roaches.
>>5111379a group of blue death feigning beetles. very easy care and long-lived unlike other beetles
>>5111379Mantids and stick insects don't live very long unfortunately. Other anon is right on death feigning beetles, iirc they can also cohabilitate with velvet ants though all velvet ants in the pet trade right now are wild caught.
>>5110587>invertebratessnails allowed?
>>5111379>Slugs and snails seem cool but i don't know much about themyes & then its time to change that
This spider was CHILLING. Hanging off the towel bar on silk, front 2 legs completely put, other ones tucked in, spinning back and forth. Thought it was dead. Poked it, it climbed back on the towel bar, fist bump, collected in cup, let it outside.
Also got this spider tying up a fly. The fly was buzzing a lot, them the spider dropped it once it was fully encased. I put the fly back in the web, but the spider dropped it again. Not hungry? Just bored?
Spider on the towel bar. Proof of life. Hanging out like a bungee jumper.
>>5111379>My top contender right now is some species of millipedes. Something like pic related or those feather millipedes look really cool tooYour pic is an African giant millipede, they’re not hard to keep but need a way larger enclosure than 3 gallons and are often pretty expensive despite mostly being imports. Feather millipedes or anything else that size would work fine>It seems like they're pretty easy to care for and they're pretty active so i can watch themThey’re easy to care for, it’s just that sifting through the bullshit around their care is more complicated. Substrates marketed for exotics including millipedes like eco earth, repti soil or anything else with coco fibre/coco peat will kill them. They need a substrate of rotting wood/leaves and different millipedes have different preferences
How do I stop being millipedephobic? I get a gigantic cortisol spike and get nauseous every time I even see an image of a millipede. But they seem so friendly and objectively cute. What do I do?
>>5112020Exposure therapy for sure. They're harmless and move slowly, nothing to be afraid of.
>>5112038oops
>>5112040I used to rent a place in a very tropical part of my country and there was a single fuckhuge millipede that lived in the yard. At least the size of a hotdog, probably bigger. Every time I saw it on my way home from work I would yell obscenities at it. Telling it "I'll fucking kill you, faggot ass motherfucker!" while it stared ahead with its retarded little face would make me kek so much that over time I almost stopped being scared of it. But now that I don't see it anymore I've regressed a lot. It's been 2 years and I still weirdly miss that particular millipede.
>>5112262You’re a pussy faggot
