I cannot be the only one who has ever been completely confused by what I see before me.
For example, it took me a long time to stop photographing the wrong ends of these, because I kept thinking they were fireflies.
This took me a long time to settle on likely fly but even so I still hesitated so set it at Winged Insects. (I should have gone with my gut!)
I truly thought this was a very nervous bee with just really long arms who had learned to snatch pollen. It was one of the coolest things I have ever witnessed.
Kindly note that these are years ago. I have improved in my general knowledge skillset; just now I plonked something at Fly rather than Winged Insects. Whee!
(Also I have a better cameraphone.)
Has anyone else ever completely mistaken one thing for another then later felt a bit daft?
The short answer is YES!!I can understand your confusion, those are tough! It will take a bit before I can look for an example…
I cannot tell the bumbles apart and so they are all bombus. I love that some really are called perplexing bumblebee!
I do refrain from IDing them that way.
I definitely thought this Wasp Mantidfly was some sort of wasp-mimicking mantis. Then after seeing the name, I assumed it was a fly mimicking as a wasp-mimicking mantis. But it isn’t a wasp, a mantis, or a fly.
The first thing that comes to mind for me is this observation which I think might be Hyleoglomeris koreana, a type of millipede in Superorder Oniscomorpha that mimics Oniscideans (aka pill bugs, woodlice, roly-polies, armadillo bugs, butcher bugs, etc. in English).
While taking that photo I thought it was a pill bug so got quite a surprise when I later learned about pill millipedes.
taxon picture makes it look as if built of Lego blocks!!
At first glance I thought this spider was some kind of obscure jumping spider. So I chased it through long grass for five minutes this evening, trying to get a clear shot of it, the poor thing. It’s a lynx spider.
Still very cool and mildly rare, mind you. But not exactly the first known photograph of a living specimen I was hoping for.
I had the same experience when I found my first Danaus plexippus larva 
in my yard! I knew what it was, but was focused on the wrong end, and was further embarrassed to discover that the thing it had seemed “interested in”, was actually its poop!
It’s true I have too many photos of larva butts by mistake.
These are confusing to me, it seems I have to relearn them every year.
