Friday, August 08: Bugs in the park

[mistressofmuses]

We stopped by a neighborhood park after work one day to let Bella take a short walk.

There were bugs!


Ambush bugs!


A lovely little green praying mantis.

This one was fairly small. Very cute!


And another mantis!

I don't recall ever seeing one quite this color before. I've seen brown ones, and years ago I remember seeing little greyish mantis nymphs down in New Mexico. The ones I've seen in the park here have all been the bright green.

Just three more pictures of the same insects:

More ambush bugs, camping out on a daisy. (And a couple more making more.)


Another picture of the green mantis. I like how you can see how sharp the claws are!


And one more of the neat grey mantis (which my camera did not like focusing on.)

I am always happy to see a fun variety of insects in the neighborhood. :)

Comments

[olivermoss]

Critters! The ambush bug looks cool on the purple flowers

[mistressofmuses]

I love all the park critters!

The ambush bug looked very striking there. (No pun intended, ha.) They seem to change colors between shades of orange-yellow-white if they're on flowers within that range, but they don't ever take on the purple shades, so they stand out a lot more.

[scarlipswolfwife]

I love the mantises! They're adorable!

[mistressofmuses]

I am always delighted by mantises! :D They still feel like a "special" bug to see, because I went a very long time without seeing them at all, or maybe only one a year or so.

[spikedluv]

Yay for insects (for you)!

What is that purple flower in the first pic?

[mistressofmuses]

I love my variety of park bugs, haha.

The purple flower is Russian sage. :) They smell lovely!

[spikedluv]

I've never heard of Russian sage, but it is very pretty!

[mistressofmuses]

I think it must be a relatively low-water-needs plant, because it's used in a lot of landscaping here, and I saw a bunch down in Santa Fe, too. It smells like sage, though I've been told it can't really be used in cooking.

[boujee_redneck]

That's fantastic there's so many bugs in your neighborhood park!

Though WHOA that's a freaking cool praying mantis!!! O_O I've never seen one that color or with that sort of patterning before either, wow that's neat!

[mistressofmuses]

I love how many different bugs we see there! (I'm glad they don't spray pesticides, and I hope they never decide to.) There are always loads of bees of various kinds, tons of grasshoppers, sometimes some other ones, like fun beetles, sometimes fancy orb-weaver spiders...

Isn't the praying mantis cool? I've never seen one that looks quite like that!

[boujee_redneck]

That is genuinely awesome to hear!!! =D And ooo - neat! I love intricate, ginormous orb-weaver webs and spiders, they're so cool!

I wonder if that's a rare/depigmented variation of the usual green/yellow-green/brown shades we normally get?

[mistressofmuses]

I love orb weaver webs! They're so fancy! As are the spiders themselves. I haven't seen any big ones yet this year, but hoping they start turning up soon. Seen a couple abandoned webs, and a couple little ones.

I'm not sure! I know a fair number of insects do have some different color variations, and I'd guess it's probably something like that. I know that there are brown ones which are I think the same species as the bright green ones (though I could be mistaken), so I wonder if that dark grey is some sort of genetic variation as well.

[boujee_redneck]

I hope on your next nature outings you find a few!

...One possibility we hadn't considered is maybe this bug's printer just ran out of color ink? Shit's expensive anyhow. xD

[mistressofmuses]

Ah, that could be! Color ink is damn expensive. Especially with the printer senors trying to insist the cartridge is empty as soon as it hits the halfway point... Sometimes greyscale just has to do!