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Saturday, November 16, 2013

Insects and Spiders visiting my backyard in North Texas 2013

Insects and Spiders are the most diverse and important group of animals on land. There are more species of these creatures than all other land animals put together.

I have been noticing the diversity of insects visiting my North Texas backyard.  I realize that some of these insects, such as caterpillars, are in their larval form and ultimately change to other insects (butterflies) but the caterpillar form is interesting to me also.

Below are pictures of insects that I have found this past year.  Some of these pictures are seen in my other blog posts (bees for example).  However, because of the subject (insects), I am posting them here also.

Beetles

Texas Bumelia Borer Plinthocoelium suaveolens




Blister Beetle - loves Swiss Chard, which I have growing in my garden.


Spiders




These are Daddy Longlegs.  Although these pics were not snapped in my yard, they were found in the Dallas metroplex.


Garden spider




Small spider with eggsack.  I can't identify - can anyone help?
 


Jumping insects

Grasshopper


Small jumping hopper or a rosebush - I can't identify.  Can anyone help?






Cricket


Flying insects

Cicada

Cicada in the evening - see his beautiful translucent wings in the evening.

Dragonfly



Green housefly





Crawling Insects

Luna Moth caterpillar





Blackswallowtail on dill






Millipede




Bees

Solitary bee on prickly pear cactus flower



Bumblebees



Honeybees on Silverado Sage

Honeybee on aster




4 comments:

  1. In your pictures 14 and 15, the "little green hopper" is a Katydid nymph. They are adorable aren't they?!

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  2. The spider in photos 4 and 5 is a crab spider.

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  3. Further known as a Scudderia Bush Katydid nymph. I wish I'd seen Brenda's post before I went on my own search additionally fueled by your want of knowing. Eventually, I searched North American Katydids and found out there are more than 6400 Katydids, of which we only have 255. This lead me to pbase.com . Anything that hops or jumps he shoots and classifies, really cool imagery. Anyway... Now we all know more than before.
    Happy Shooting
    - Forrest

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