This Valid Bark Beetle, captured at the perfect moment as it took off. It is just the fourth Ohio record, though I suspect that is because of how tiny they are!
I am sharing one from just a few weeks back because I was reminded of it this week. (We are in the middle of an extended heatwave that is quite brutal, yesterday’s thermal sensation was 50 Celsius, so I am minimizing outdoor time.)
My first croton and I found both the male…
and a meter or so away the female!
These are both Croton cortesianus, native to here, and lovely, Seussical looking things.
Two lifers on my moth walk of last night and I can’t choose a favourite:
a BIG moth
and a rather small mantis
Parameles acuta - it was only described in 2020 and there are only 8 observations in iNat. I think I had seen one last year as well, but nobody could/ wanted to confirm it.
I went to a local bird sanctuary on Tuesday, where I observed…wildflowers and insects. 
Two of the latter were lifers; of those, I’ll choose this one as my favorite, based on relative rarity (only the second observation in my county).
Short-haired Leafwalker (Chalcosyrphus piger)
(I took photos from different angles, but the one most in focus was this posterior one. That abdomen does look distinctive, though.)
This week, I finally got to check something off my life list that I had been looking for for a while. White trilliums!
Checking our compost bins really pays off most of the time. These tiny beetles I found look a lot like Megasternum posticatum which only has 6 observations right now. I’m still uncertain about my ID, but these look really similar to the other observations of this species. Hope someone can verify eventually.
The one on the right has a mite hitchhiker. And the springtail to the right of center was also a new one for my lifelist.
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/359379521
Pseudoscorpions! And three different ones at that!
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/360201824
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/360243930
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/360223171
Sadly, I have no idea how to identify them, so I don’t yet know which species they are, but I think it is pretty clear that they are all different ones! :D
37th observation of this species – the checkered water beetle (https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/360178729)
fantastic pics! were these in a leaf litter sample or what?
Thank you! Two of them were from leaf litter, one (the Chthoniid) from decaying wood
A moth I observed at church in March has been identified as Phigalia.
This plant I observed while surveying is tentatively identified as Youngia, a genus I didn’t know about.
I heard a vireo during CNC; it was identified last week. I didn’t get video of the vireo.
This unseasonably early javelin wasp is probably a good contender, and indeed it’s the first evanioid I’ve ever seen! (no Evania yet, since I don’t live in a cockroach-heavy area)
I also managed to get my first non-isopod-or-landhopper crustaceans: this barnacle and this crab.
The next one’s not quite a lifer, but I finally found another of the species in my first ever observation (unfortunately, after my first observation I forgot iNat existed for like two years afterwards…)
…unrelatedly there was also the plague of Calliphora vicina pretending to be C. loewi which I found today, but that’s neither here nor there.
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/361516489
Onosma arenaria (Golden Drop). I went to the very northeastern corner of Austria yesterday, and just snapped lots of random plant pictures, all of plants I assumed I had seen before - I thought this plant is Symphytum tuberosum in the field. To my big surprise both inat and the first identifier identified it as the rather rare Golden Drop. So, ended up with a completely unexpected plant lifer!
I’m not a bird person, but at the same location, saw the most colorful birds I have ever seen, and had no idea exist in Austria. No bird picture equipment, but can kinda see the colors in my cheap cellphone picture!
I know this is a very, very late reply, but that sounds oddly like a chaetognath, except for the bit about it being brown.
An example of one: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/49095271
I believe those are European Bee-eaters!
Sometimes a lifer can be common. Finding one should be so easy and yet they elude you. And then one day you’re in the right place at the right time. I found this Chequered Swallowtail less than 5 minutes after parking my car to go for a walk. Walked for three hours and never saw another. Haven’t seen any since, yet I walk where they are found. Go figure.
These were my first northern shoveler ducks. They were super cool to watch feeding in the mud and silt.
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/361267792