What are your favorite insects?

Dragonflies and Damselflies are my favorites also! Besides all the wonderful qualities and colors you mentioned of Odonata, their wings work independently of each other! I found that fascinating! I was watching something on tv (which I rarely do) and saw a robotic dragonfly! I forgot who constructed it, yet it was really cool! In fact, I wanted one! There are many videos of different robotic dragonflies and the video I first saw and liked is called “Incredible Robot Dragonfly - Earth Unplugged.” (I wasn’t pleased that in one video they used a real dragonfly for some control purpose. That’s so cruel and unnecessary!) I do like watching them fly over water because then I know the water is good! If they aren’t present, then I consider the water too polluted to sustain life, and I call that ‘dead water.’

I know I mentioned this in another forum, yet we had a slow stream installed in our backyard with an 18” waterfall at the end. Our installer said all his other clients have their water features power washed yearly or more often. We have never had ours cleansed because we had it constructed for dragonflies! It’s so natural with the bits of algae, underwater and exposed plants and ferns. The stones he chose are wonderful! We have 4 underwater lights and 3 up lights shining in the trees behind it! Our grandchildren even wade in it. Wading in creeks was a childhood favorite pastime of mine! Raise your hand if you’re a Pisces too! :notes: I still love bugs…:notes:

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Dang! I forgot I already mentioned this earlier in the forum! Sorry folks! I’m 62 yrs young, that’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it! :smiling_imp:

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If you allow spiders, then Cosmophasis lami, but insects only, then it’s a tie between Purple Crow, Atlas Moth, and the Lime Swallowtail

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Butterflies–all of them always. I’ve actually grown fond of bumble bees too.

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My favorite would have to be Buprestis aurulenta, the Golden Buprestid Beetle. I don’t actually have an observation of one, but they were everywhere where I grew up, and I always collected dead ones I found and pretended they were jewels.

Someday I’ll see one again and actually get an observation.

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Katydids of all kinds are my all-time favorite, but especially Scudderia septentrionalis. I grew up hearing their songs in summer, and I have raised several. They’re so charismatic :) Curculio acorn weevils, Cucujus clavipes the red flat bark beetle (so red! so flat!), Ceratina small carpenter bees, Pollenia cluster flies, Cuterebra bot flies, acrocerid small-headed flies, all wasps… how could I choose, really? I love all insects!!

What are your favorite insects?

Cicadas are definitely my favourite insects. I especially like species that are found in an area according to the distribution maps but have actually never been found in that region before.
The best example is Cicadatra hyalina, a 2 cm small Cicada species, which occurs according to the distribution map, from Greece over Crimea until the Caucasus region. There are lots of observations from Crimea. But there was not a single one from Greece.

The funny thing is, I never searched for this species in my region, I discovered it coincidentally…
On May 2021, I was walking next to a field and heard some buzzing and rumbling noises, like a fallen cicada on the ground trying to fly away. I saw a male and a female cicada on a spiny Eryngium campestre bush, they were (for me) crazy yellow-greenish colored (I only new Cicadatra atra, an almost black cicada, from Greece). So I catched both and brought them home, to make some photos of them. I went every single day to this field, in order to make as many observations as possible. I also found a blue form, even though all cicadas were yellow-greenish.

After some reseach I found out that the species is endangered by intensification of agriculture because it is highly dependent on dry and hot open grasslands, which become rare in Sterea Ellas, GR (conservation status vulnerable (VU) in Attica).

The sad thing is, I found this species in only one field. I hope the populations will recover and get bigger…

Here’s a collection of all Attican Cicadatra hyalina observations

That’s a fun one.
It’s pretty hard to think of just one, but I’ve grown very attached to the moths of the Orgyiini tribe as I’ve been studying them over the past year. The caterpillars have these unique four tufts on their backs, and several adult females of the group lack the ability to fly.
Their evolutionary history intrigues me a ton. What are those tufts for and how?

Generally I love all insects though, between the dramatic Lepidoptera to the cute bee flies and fantastical looking wasps and gem like beetles I find, it is technically impossible for me to pick one out, haha.

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300px-You_Better_Watch_Your_Mouth
GUYS

We need to all just take a minute to talk about a handful of species in Disphragis. Look at these little guys! Such pretty colors! They look like they’re covered in moss, at least to me anyway. As if moths and moss weren’t both delightful on their own, nature combined them into these absolute little treasures. Unfortunately they seem pretty uncommon up here in North America where I live but maybe one day I’ll get lucky.

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Labium Ichneumonid wasps:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?taxon_id=626295

They’re unique to mostly Southeast Australia, they parasitise bees (i.e. solitary) and feed on flowers. And only ~8-10mm long

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I really like weevils! I think they’re unique and funny-looking beetles, here’s a photo I like and here’s another one! I made an observation of a weevil in the genus Lixus myself too. Apparently, their entire life is connected with Artemisia plants, which they feed on as both larvae and adults, so find the plant and maybe you’ll find the beetles on it too! In fact, in the photo I took the beetle is sitting on an Artemisia vulgaris plant. In Russian we call weevils “долгоносики” or “слоники” meaning “long-nosed ones” or “little elephants”.
I also love bumblebees, no particular species but just the entire genus Bombus. They’re very fluffy and have a pretty docile personality, they never sting unless you threaten and annoy them, and are important pollinators. I love carpenter bees (and all bees honestly) too, not as fuzzy but they’re bigger than bumblebees and I loved seeing them fly around and pollinate Catalpa trees when I saw them in a park several years ago.
I think wasps & hornets are neat too, they often get this reputation of mindless and constantly angry stinging insects and some people kill them on sight which is really sad. But if you don’t make sudden moves around them they’re actually pretty calm, and have an important role in the ecosystem too. I saw a red wasp, Vespula rufa once and attempted to take a photo, but it flew away and all I got was a really blurry picture of nothing, haha. I think it’s an interesting fact that bees and wasps have 5 eyes: two compoud eyes and three little simple eyes on top of their head.
Wasp/bee-mimicking flies look cute as well, for example Helophilus pendulus - I think I got a nice shot! Apparently, this species is called sun fly in english, but it’s mistranslation of the scientific name (helo-sounds similar to helio- but actually means “marsh”, not “sun”).
This is getting way too long so I’m going to post some of my favorite lepidopterans as well: Thymelicus lineola, Sesia apiformis, Arctiinae (called “bear moths” in Russian because their caterpillars are so fuzzy), Polyommatinae (fun fact, one of the moths from this sub-family has the largest amount of chromosomes out of all animals, weird and interesting since they themselves are so small…), and Aglais io!
Anyways, I really like a lot of insects/arthropods so I can’t post them all, but I hope you enjoyed reading this! Hopefully the formatting is okay, it’s a little hard on mobile.

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Ichneumonid Wasps are super cool, definitely a good choice! Honestly I didn’t know they existed until fairly recently. I spotted one for the first time a few months ago and got super close to it so I could take a good iNat photo. You can imagine my surprise when I found out later it was a wasp!

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That’s kind of why I’m fascinated by them, they’re so misunderstood and relatively less studied, yet actually incredibly common and diverse (in look, habitat and ecological function). Chalcid wasps are also fascinating in their morphological variety and hyper-parasitism, probably second favourite for me behind Ichneumonids.

Does make it hard to get ID’s though :p

Most of my observations are just from my garden, and I’ve probably seen 50-100+ different species in the year and a half I’ve lived here (I’ve missed many photos because they never stay still)!

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It is impossible to pick a single favorite, but at least close to the top are genera of Geotrupidae such as Enoplotrupes, Lethrus, Blackburnium, and Bolborhachium. None of the craziest Blackburnium or Bolborhachium have been observed yet. I like just about all insects though. Outside of beetles (which are my definite favorite order), I would say mantises, walking sticks, Megaloptera, Scorpionflies, Snakeflies, and Neuroptera. I also like non-insects like Collembola, scorpions, and Jumping spiders. (sorry to be quoting my response on this forum post almost exactly, but it applies here too.)

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I love the luna moth and millipedes, Ive also started taking a liking to bees. To be honest I dont know if I actually have a fav I love insects so much

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Definitely good choices, luna moths are amazing! I’ve unfortunately never seen one myself but hopefully someday!

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Though others have mentioned flies, nobody has posted an image of one.
So here is one of my favourite UK flies : Liancalus virens

True flies = (arguably) the most under-rated order of insects.

I’ve also fallen in love with micro-wasps over the last few years.
My favourite from 2021 : Metaphycus punctipes

I love how even in a country with as limited biodiversity as the UK, we still have such hidden wonders all around us. Endless glories to behold…

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There are so many choices! I like moths from the superfamily Bombycoidea, but if I had to choose now I would choose eupithecia monticolens. Eupithecia monticolens is a type of pug moth native to hawaii. The larvae are semi-carnivorous. They feed on leaf galls so they get the protein from the plant matter and the larvae of the insect that made the gall.

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I’m a great fan of ladybirds but I also really like bees and shield bugs.

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