Oleander Aphids! Or as I like to call them, ‘Minion Bugs’.
Creepy Crawlies like Heteroptera
Cockroaches, spiders. I think they’re cute😍
Invasive bugs. I get that invasive species are often an ecological problem, and I certainly support the removal/destruction of them when necessary to protect an ecosystem, but I don’t share the anger and hatred toward the organisms themselves that some people seem to have. Like here where I live, Spongy Moth can completely defoliate mountainsides, starving out nearly all other moth larvae in the area. So I get why they need to be controlled and killed off. But when I meet one of them on a nature walk, I’m not going to gleefully smash it and dance in its hemolymph. It didn’t ask to be here, and it’s just crawling along being a moth. And frankly whether I squish it or not is entirely irrelevant in the grand scheme of population control. So I just let them be. Spongy Moth, Spotted Lanternfly, Emerald Ash Borer, whatever. They’re just little guys crawling around looking for food. It’s possible to want their populations to decline while not bearing a personal grudge against them.
I respect and understand this opinion. But it’s hard for me not to hate the insects that I can see destroying entire ecosystems before my eyes. Sure, it doesn’t know what it’s doing. But that doesn’t change what it’s doing, you know?
Some otherwise chill people seem very keen to engage in these acts, as though they were just waiting for the licence to do so. Invasive species are surely in the top three causes of biodiversity loss, but the joy people get from individual acts is a bit untasteful.
Even for mammals, a persons individual efforts don’t make much difference, no matter how much joy they seem to get from them.
I do sort of get what you mean - I used to work with horses and donkeys, and I remember seeing a picture of a docile feral burro standing placidly next to the road, and the inat poster captioned the photo, “Invasive destructive feral ass - should be culled.” It just made me sad for the poor donkey, who I would love to take home, give some carrots, and provide with the love and care she deserves. It’s not her fault people abandoned her ancestors after working them half the death! My background is in botany and I do volunteer work documenting rare plant populations, but the absolute bloodthirst plant-loving conservationists have toward animals like a mellow, gentle donkey that was allowing them to walk right up - I just don’t get it. That donkey was being far nicer to that person than he deserved. She could’ve kicked him in the teeth!
While that opinion is also understandable, some people do seem to think that the organisms themselves are culpable, in that they reject the idea of destroying them humanely – some people think that the House Sparrow, for example, should not merely die but suffer while it dies. Or, just look at the inhumane ways people have devised for killing rats.
I have seen some pretty inflammatory things written about outdoor and feral cats, too.
Chacma Baboons in South Africa
Hated by some, loved a bit too much by others, but they are the perfect flagship of innate, detrimental human behaviour turning a really important and iconic species into one mired in controversy and hated by even so called ‘field guides’
I like starlings, which, in the US, is not a popular opinion. I recognize their negative aspects, but I love a starling murmuration (just the word itself as well as the behavior), their song, their snazzy plumage, especially when the sunlight touches their glossy black, the sound of their wings when they land and lift off from trees, and their bold, defiant stare.
As for Starlings…
At my parents house there are many starlings in the warm season and my parents are into birdfeeding (me too),
- My Dad used to chase them away from the food, as they are “too many”…
But through Inat I learned, that they are endangered in lower Saxony!!
As I had a look at observations from last summer on my desktop, I recognized the VU on top of the observation.
I was shocked. - While using the inat app normaly, I don’t see these important messages.
Have a look at this little starling from my parents house last summer. VU. Endangered!!
Star (Sturnus vulgaris) am 23. Juli 2023 um 11:06 AM von seeker1000 · iNaturalist Canada
So my advice for everybody who only uses the inat app…: If you can, check your observations from time to time on a computer… - The app can’t show everything.
So yes, PLEASE support the starlings octobertraveler… People like you are needed!
And so cool, that you notice a certain noise from their wings.
I don’t know that noise, but maybe I will be able to hear it in spring… Will see…
I notice the noise of wings from Dendrocopos major at least in the garden of my parents, I don’t have to see them. I can hear, it is a Dendrocopos major… - I think it is silent enough in that area, to be able to learn such kind of stuff… So maybe I will have the chance to learn the noise of the wings of starlings, too, which you do love so much!
I realy apreciate that you told us, that there is a special sound to listen to!
Edit: Ah! - I think I know what you mean now, you mean a huge group lifting of a tree? - Yes. I know that noise!! lol
So nothing new to learn, but still…
And I told my dad, that he can’t chase the starlings away, when they are back…
So yes, PLEASE support the starlings octobertraveler… People like you are needed!
Therein lies the problem – octobertraveler feels bad supporting starlings because they’re invasive in North America, bullying martins and woodpeckers out of their nests. Of course they should be conserved in their native range, but it’s not without reason that they are unpopular in the USA.
Ah, I see, they are invasive… yes, that of course is a problem…
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I am very glad that the first Coccinella I saw this year have been Coccinella septempunctata…
-
There a lot’s of the asiatic once in summer, and they are dangerous for septempunctata, even if I like them and they are good against Aphids…
(They also eat the larva of septempunctata…) -
But they had been introduced by humans…
When animals change their habitat without influence of humans, like flying further north… that it is something different, I feel.
There had always been changes like that, and we will get more changes through climate change (ok, that’s human-made)… but I think we will have to accept that things are changing.,at least in a way…
Mongooses. They’re such neat creatures and they’re the biggest wild mammal in my country (bonus points if you can guess the country).
Oh, that’s interesting! - Sounds you are on an island, where it is cold(er)…
- Is it Iceland?
And they are hated animals?
I am not sure, we got “Marten” here (had to look up their english name), they are hated… sure… - But I don’t think they belong to mongoose? - Or maybe they do…
There’s no mongooses in Iceland.
Okay, thank you.
We are all here to learn.,…
Deerflies. While I don’t like getting bit by them, they are beautiful to photograph. I was impressed by a Pitcher Plant Mosquito. Sure its a mosquito but its so dainty, delicate and moves oddly plus this species doesn’t bite humans.
it depends on what kind of mongoose but since India and most African countries have bigger mammals I will guess that you are somewhere in southern Europe, but there are some in other areas sooo… I don’t know. Italy?
Edit: wait, do they live in Italy?
Maybe Lebanon?
Mongooses have also been introduced in various Caribbean islands.