This is a fact more people should know. I had no idea this was a thing. As I myself am mortally terrified of house cockroaches, I sorta understand why people kill them. But as you said, these r just lil guys tryna live their lives. ;-;
Yes. Well, her parents were born there. ‘Roach’ (Dad’s side) are actually of Irish descent.
Cool! My dad is Ukrainian!
When you not only id the bird, but also the insect in its beak.
When you sprain your ankle on the new year the day before you have to travel, just to photograph a tiny planthopper (worth it)
I was repairing the timber (again) on a badly chewed multi paned window frame(Sulfur Crested Cockatoos). I was repairing much of it with Builders Bog 
using an old plastic handled spatula with a broken end when a wasp(Genus Pison) decided it was a perfect nest site. Over the next two days I had to try and remember to use it quickly and put it back in roughly the same spot each time slowly moving it from one side of the window frame to the other as I worked. I witnessed seven white spiders? being entombed plus a territorial dispute as a smaller species of Genus Pison tried to deposit a small green spider in the second chamber of the handle (Genus Acroaspis). After a loud buzzing argument the larger wasp triumphant added the mismatched green spider to its nest and sealed it all up. My spatular is permanently jammed into a crack in the wall until the babies hatch.
I admire your commitment to disturbing the wasps as little as possible, but I would probably have blocked the holes in the spatula and encouraged them to nest somewhere else (e.g., by providing nesting tubes or similar). Not because of the annoyance of having the tool be repurposed, but because plastic tends to trap moisture and the survival rate of the brood is likely to be lower than if the nest had been in a more appropriate material. Fingers crossed that you get to see the next generation emerge!
When you are about to throw into recycling one of those (damn) clear plastic packages that virtually all small hardware (in this case, small screws) now come, and you notice that printed on the box’s interior cardboard back is something you immediately think of as, ‘Aha!’ – potentially very useful for bug hunting.
3 seconds of scissorwork later, and I have THIS to stick into my wallet.
You have a massive callus over the joint of one big toe, where decades of dropping to one knee to examine insects has dug a crease in your leather boots into your toe in the same spot.
manual focus lens on drone flies
and eat it came to mind
Im an insect tragic I guess some might say, I had provided nesting tubes only 1.5 meters away from the spatular but I guess this one found the plastic irresistable.
- when you’re debating whether you could convince your teacher to let you use a phone at lunchtime for bug pictures even though there’s a strict “no phones during school hours” policy
- when you stop in the middle of a gate to get a picture of a cool woodlouse, while people are going through said gate
- when your strive for better equipment and more biodiverse localities all because you’ve not seen a singular kind of animal yet (poduromorphs in my case)
- when your neighbours ask if you’re lost when you’re just looking for bugs around the neighbourhood (my mum told me off for doing that, but at least I got my first thrips observation!)
- when your favourite insect is a group that barely anyone’s heard of (Notoptera)
- when you’re the only person who has any (recent) iNat observations at your school
- when you’re first for observations of a springtail species (Entomobrya petri)
You spend a beautiful day outside under your crape myrtle tree, sifting leaf litter with your hands for springtails. At first you crouch, then you sit, then you curl up in the grass and twigs and dirt and get comfortable and as near to the ground as possible as you watch for springtails. There are so many!! The ground is crawling with tons of different species! You stay out until your camera dies, and end up with nearly a hundred observations to add! Then you spread their leaf litter out nicely once more for them, and lie down on the grass to enjoy the afternoon sun. And even though you are over a month behind on uploading photos, you go ahead and post every single springtail from today, and watch like a hawk for IDs because you are so excited!
All of my obs from today:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?on=2026-03-04&user_id=mkanimallover&verifiable=any
Actually, I have multiple puncture wounds in my shin from dropping quickly to one knee and disregarding sticks, stumps of small woody plants, rocks, lawn ornaments…
You are concidering having a metric ruler tattooed to one of your fingers 
Now that is a good idea…
i dont feel bad for squashing some invasive cockroaches. same for argentine ants.
Wait - is there something wrong with licking bugs?? 
Ummm…I don’t think they like it.
When you randomly sit down in the middle of the road while talking, just to take a picture of a pair of funny looking Kapok Bugs.
This kind of stuff happens too often and the people I usually talk to while walking have gotten use to such interruptions during conversations !