P. diabolicus is a favorite of mine too actually, their toughness is truly remarkable! c:
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It’s hard to narrow it down, but there are a few broad categories: metallic insects (locally we’ve got cobalt milkweed beetles, chrysolina, golden buprestids, and a myriad of metallic sweat bees and flies.), cute and fuzzy insects (mostly bumblebees and velvet ants), and butterflies (the blues around fit here and the cute and fuzzy category, and I’ve seen many impressive swallowtails. I saw a live mourning cloak for the first time a few months back, too. They’re pretty, but it didn’t let me get close enough for a photo.) Mantids are also a favorite too for their bizzare look and feistiness. And then the giant armored beetles like the staghorns, goliaths, titans, atlas
and rhinoceros beetles.
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I don’t think I can answer that question… hmmm… there is always one, you don’t know about and you get over the moon, while seen it and got a “never seen before feeling” and get excited.
Sometimes of course, there is a time, where one kind of insect just “got you” and you have more interest in a certain Species.
I think, still the most observations of a certain Species from me are “green stinkbugs” laugh
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The wheel bug is one of the coolest insects out there in my opinion (though they’re not in my local area and I’ve never seen a live one). Big spiky black bug with a dagger for a mouth. Wouldn’t want to get bitten, but would still love to see one.
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Hard to say which is favorite among the bees and wasps and pollinating flies and butterflies. Instead I want to call out my favorite praying mantis. The second time I photographed it, it looked sideways at me, and then straight at me - deciding if I am a threat? Now it just ignores me and hunts. Yesterday I saw it with prey - a bumble bee. Hard to imagine it could take the head off…
Good news, right after posting about the praying mantis, I found them mating in the spot where I have been seeing one each day
http://www.inaturalist.org/observations/94823946
Impossible task, there are so many, but one that comes to mind is this cool Moss Mantis:
Calofulcinia australis.
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/49575255
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Tiger beetles would be my favorite. Colleague introduced me to them and the adventures of trying to photograph them. It’s been fun chasing these little predators all these years.
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Oh I read about them recently! They are soooooo fast! Unbelievable!
I have never seen one. I also am not sure, if there is a Species of them in my area. .
You managed to photograph them?
Sure, you can find them: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?nelat=53.149029582264205&nelng=12.345059641505353&place_id=any&subview=map&swlat=52.233471113006&swlng=8.705588669384591&taxon_id=119895&verifiable=any
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\○/ Awesome!!! Thank you!!
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I thought about including Bembix in my list – green-eyed wasps that live on the beach, in burrows in the sand. I think this genus must live in the Dominican Republic, too, because I have seen whole colonies of beach wasps there. They and the tourists seem to ignore each other. Wasn’t this the taxon that Niko Tinbergen experimented with on the Dutch coast, to determine how they find their way back to their burrows?
Well, it sure is NOT big spiders with hairy legs that go in unpredictable directions!
It is this insect: the hummingbird hawk moth. I saw one only once. Just once. Sigh.
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You will see it again.
I am sure.
I love them and couldn’t believe what I saw, many years ago…
It took a while…
A long while…
And I was sighing and hoping like you, and still get over the moon, when there is one.
I took some nice pictures this summer at my parents home. :)
So, I am sure, this moth will come back to you, too…
Somewhen…
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I once had one in my yard that became almost pet-like. For most of one summer, Gilda and I met every day or so. She would crawl onto my hand and walk around the patio with me. She always wanted to climb higher up my arm, so to keep her barbed feet from getting stuck in my clothing I would raise her aloft so she was at the highest point on my arm “branch”.
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I once had a Chinese preying mantid in my yard that became almost pet-like. For most of one summer, Gilda and I met every day or so. She would crawl onto my hand and walk around with me. She always wanted to climb higher up my arm, so to keep her barbed feet from getting stuck in my clothing I would raise her aloft so she was at the highest point on my arm “branch”.
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Odonata definitely! So much so that we had a low flowing stream installed in our backyard specifically to attract dragonflies, etc. The installer knew I was wanting it to remain ‘natural’ and I wasn’t going to have it power-washed every year as all his other clients do. As a child I was always in the creek and hiking the trails nearby. So I wanted our grandchildren to be able to experience wading in a creek also. Eleanor said it was too cold to walk in, yet she sat on a large rock at the edge and stuck her feet in!
Jumping spiders are so cute, they’ve become my favorite spiders! I especially love the colorful close-up photos others take of their faces! One of my daughters is terrified of spiders, especially jumping spiders, so I told her to watch “Lucas, the jumping spider!” short videos on YouTube. She came back with, “I don’t care how cute Lucas is, I still don’t like spiders!” I plan to make a puppet Lucas, for her kids to scare her with. (I make puppets similar to the muppets that resemble the grandchildren.)
Click beetles! I’ve wanted to see and hear them for the longest time. Finally this year I was able to find several. I had to “baggie” one so I could bring it in the house to show my husband. He wasn’t as appreciative as I.
I even got my therapist to look more around her cuz I “bug talk.” She told me about an unusual “butterfly” she saw on the landing, and she thought it could still get out so she left it there for 3 days. The landing on the second floor has a big glass window and bugs think they can get out, yet they can’t and they die. That’s how I collect a lot of insects for my collection! I explained to her that to get out, the moth would have to fly down the stairs and turn a corner.
No chance of that happening! He thinks he can fly outside, not knowing what a window was.
She said the wings were different than a regular butterfly yet they were just as colorful. I said it was probably a hawk or sphinx moth. Then with my fingers I drew the shape of the-of the wings and she confirmed it.
We were doing a virtual session and I asked if she could take a picture, so she did! It was a Pandorus spinx moth. I told her I don’t have that in my collection and if she could put it in a baggie in the freezer until I get in?
“I’m not going to touch it!” 🙄 (It’s dead and doesn’t have a stinger, so I was surprised she was not going to touch it!)
“Well, use a pen and flip or scoot it on a piece of paper.” She did that and folded the paper over the moth and left it on the shelf in her office. I finally was able to go to her office, retrieve it, pinned it and I’ll bring it in tomorrow. She probably won’t like the way it looks spread out, yet I’ll have to tell her that it’s spread like that so all colors of all wings can be seen for identification. I wonder if she even knows leps have 4 wings!🤣 Tomorrow will be an interesting day for sure!
Oh, anything colorful, cool as in “that’s different” and interesting, which pretty much covers a lot!
And the mimics! Especially the bee mimics!
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male is dead!!
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There’s so many really pretty and cool insects out there! Some of my favorite orders include Lepidoptera (my #1 insect order), Coleoptera, Orthoptera, Mantodea, Odonata, and Phasmida, but of course they’re all lovely in their own ways.
I think it would be harder for me to specify favorites to more specific categories though. But those are at least my favorite orders!
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Hard to say but I’ll go with woolly aphids. First time I saw them it was a cool October late afternoon, just before dusk. At first I thought they were snowflakes,
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