Insects

[nurunuru]

This firefly larva caught my eye the other day.

[motojobobo]

@SFMCfranky very cool pic!

[Oaktavia]

@nurunuru woah that is wild, I haven't seen one of those before. Do you recall how long that one was? It looks pretty long compared to a firefly (at least the ones around here), but it is hard to tell the scale of it.

[Oaktavia]

@SFMCfranky that photo is so rad! Worth putting into a frame.

[nurunuru]

@Oaktavia I'd say it was maybe around an inch long. I'm big into bugs, but had no idea what the heck it was! Pretty confident it's a firefly larva after a bit of online sleuthing, though.

[Oaktavia]

@nurunuru oh yeah for sure, it looks like one. It's just interesting to me how big it is. So cool, so primal looking, and beautiful in its own right.

[SFMCfranky]

Found on my screen door this morning:

[ARNC]

Unexpected visitor (no longer) on my bedroom carpet.

[twin]

Butterfly weed & butterfly.

[Oaktavia]

My wife and I purchased several milkweed plants last year locally. They established themselves last year with some tiger swallowtail and various other small moths and insects, but I didn't see any monarchs. I went down to that part of the property yesterday to check on them and immediately saw a monarch on it this year! Woohoo! The milkweed are thriving as well really big and popping now. Hopefully we get some baby caterpillars sometime soonish.

Edit: strange, not sure what is going on on the third photo. I can assure you the monarch was intact.

[GoodtimeJohnny]

@Oaktavia casualty of the background blur, nonetheless beautiful!

[Oaktavia]

@GoodtimeJohnny ah yes the "portrait mode" flubbed it up.

[twin]

@Oaktavia Doing the right thing for nature.

[Oaktavia]

@twin I do what I can

[SFMCfranky]

Putting on a show this morning.

[Oaktavia]

@SFMCfranky beeautiful

[nurunuru]

Eastern Tiger Swallowtail. I'm usually way more Team Moth than Team Butterfly, but this one was massive and just generally very impressive.

[SKT]

I think black swallowtail

[ARNC]

I spotted this guy through my bathroom window. Unfortunately he was a bit camera shy and flew away when I tried to get a shot from the other side. Possibly a Jersey Tiger.

[SKT]

My pocket computer says this is a steel blue cricket hunter. Who am I to argue